Cooking Korean food with Maangchi

• English name/description: Young summer radish water kimchi
• Korean: 열무 물김치
• Romanized Korean: Yeolmu mulkimchi (or yeolmu mul kimchi, yulmu mulkimchi)
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• Posted in: cold | kimchi | sidedishes | vegetarian

Yeolmu mul kimchi is usually eaten in summer in Korea. Making Bibimbap with barley rice, doenjang jjigae, yeolmu kimchi, hot pepper paste and sesame oil is one of the most popular and delicious dinners in hot summer. My mouth is watering while writing this explanation!

Ingredients:
2 bunches of yeolmu (young summer radish), salt, flour, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, onion, green chili pepper, red chili pepper, and water.

How to handle yeolmu:

1. Buy 2 bunches of yeolmu.
2. Peel the radishes with a knife and remove the dead leaves.
3. Cut it into pieces about 5 cm in length and put them into a big bowl. Add some water.
4. Add some salt (½ cup) and mix it carefully. Let it sit in the salt for 30 minutes.
5. 30 minutes later, turn it over to salt evenly and let it sit another 30 minutes (total salting takes 1 hour).
6. Wash the salted yeolmu 3 times and drain in a colander.

Make paste for yeolmu kimchi:

1. In a small pot, mix 1 tbs flour and 1 cup of water and heat it over medium heat.
2. Keep stirring until the liquid thickens. When you see some bubbles, it means the porridge is cooked well.
3. Add 1 tbs sugar (optional) and ½ cup of fish sauce (you can replace this with salt).
4. Turn off the heat and cool it down.

Make yeolmu kimchi:

1. Get a big stainless steel bowl.
2. Slice half an onion, ginger (½ tbs), 2-3 red chili peppers, and 2-3 green chili peppers , 4 cloves of minced garlic, and put them into the bowl.
3. Add 2 tbs of hot pepper flakes and mix it with a spoon
4. Pour the cool porridge into the bowl and mix it.
5. Add the clean yeolmu into the bowl and mix it .

*Congratulations! You made “yeolmu mul kimchi”! : )

1. Transfer the yeolmu kimchi into a container or glass jar.
2. Pour water into the container until all kimchi is submerged (you can use either purified water or boiled but cooled down water) and cover the lid.
3. Keep it in room temperature for a couple of days.
4. When the kimchi is fermented, keep it in the refrigerator.

*When you serve it, put some kimchi in a glass bowl or ceramic bowl and add some ice cubes

Posted Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Categories: cold | kimchi | sidedishes | vegetarian
13 Comments

• English name/description: Spicy stuffed cucumber kimchi, radish soup with beef, and rice made with barley
• Korean: 오이소박이 김치, 쇠고기 무우국, 보리밥
• Romanized Korean: Oisobagi kimchi, soegogimoowooguk, boribap (or bori bap)
• Music: 'A Message to You, Rudy' by The Specials
• Download podcast | go to iTunes
• Posted in: beef | kimchi | soups

Cucumber kimchi is made by turning a cucumber into a pocket and stuffing it with vegetables and kimchi paste. It’s delicious, and goes well with radish soup. I’ll show you how to make both of them for one perfect, well-balanced, low-calorie meal.

Ingredients:

• 6 cucumbers  (10-12 kirby cucumbers)
  
• carrot (shredded ¼ cup)
• onion (¼ cup), green onions, Asian chives (2 cups)
• garlic, fish sauce
• hot pepper flakes, sugar.

1. Wash cucumbers and cut them in half.  Make pockets out of cross slits. Don’t cut them all the way through. Put them in a big bowl
2. Sprinkle a half cup of salt onto the cucumber pieces, mix them carefully, and wait for 30 minutes
3. In a big bowl, place a quarter cup of fish sauce, a half cup of hot pepper flakes, 2 cloves of minced garlic and 1 tbs of sugar, and mix them with a spoon.
4. Chop Asian chives 1 inch (about 2 cm) in length (2 cups) and cut 3 green onions diagonally as the same size as the chives, shred some carrot (1/4 cup) , slice the onion (1/4 cup) thinly and place all this into the mixture of the seasoning paste. Mix it up with a spoon.
5. Wash the cucumbers and drain them. Stuff the seasoning paste into the slotted cucumber and put each cucumber into an airtight container. You can wear rubber gloves while stuffing, if you want to protect your hands.
6. Right after making it, you can eat it. But keep the leftover kimchii in the refrigerator.

Radish soup with beef (for 2-3 servings)
Ingredients:

• 150 grams of beef brisket
• 2½ cups of sliced Korean radish
• 3 green onions
• 4 cloves of minced garlic
• ½ cup of fish sauce
• 6 cups of water

1. Prepare a pot and pour 6 cups of water
2. Cut radish into diagonally and thinly (about 2½ cups) and put it into the pot and cook it over medium high heat
3. Chop beef brisket (150 grams) into small chunks and mince 3 or 4 cloves of garlic
4. When the soup starts boiling about 10 minutes after, add the chunks of beef and garlic and boil it about 15 minutes more over medium heat.
5. Skim the bubbles or stuff off the surface and add some fish sauce(depending on your taste) and put chopped green onions and cook 5 or 10minutes more over medium heat

Barley rice
Ingredients:
1 cup of uncooked rice, 1 cup of barley and 2½ cup of water.

1. Rinse the mixture of rice and barley in a pot.
2. Put 2½ cup of water and cover the lid of the pot.
3. Heat it over high heat until it boils, and stir it with a spoon a few times.
4. Simmer about 20 minutes over low heat

Posted Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Categories: beef | kimchi | soups
58 Comments

• English name/description: Spicy fermented cabbage and spicy fermented radish
• Korean: 김치, 깍두기
• Romanized Korean: Kimchi (or gimchi, kimchee), kaktugi (or kkakdooki, kaktoogi, ggakdugi, kkaktugi, kkakdugi)
• Wikipedia entry for this recipe
• Download podcast | go to iTunes
• Posted in: kimchi | sidedishes

Kimchi is a staple of Korean life and many people include it in their meals three times a day. You can eat it by itself, or use it in so many different Korean recipes. When Koreans make Kimchi, they make an effort to make the best Kimchi possible and include many different kinds of ingredients depending on the region where they live.

Today I will show you how to make traditional Kimchi with oysters and also we will make radish Kimchi (“kaktugi”) at the same time, with the same Kimchi paste, which saves time instead of making them separately.

Many people think you have to wait for Kimchi to be fermented before eating, but personally I prefer to eat fresh Kimchi, as soon as I make it. And I like to make stew out of older Kimchi. See my recipe for Kimchi stew (“Kimchi jjigae”).

If you don’t like oysters, you can leave them out. And if you want to make only Kimchi or kaktugi, leave out the other recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium size Napa cabbages and 2 Korean radishes
• salt, sweet rice powder, sugar, water
• 4- 6 cups of hot pepper flakes
• fish sauce, white onion, fresh garlic, ginger
• green onions, Asian chives, fresh oysters (optional)

How to handle cabbages and radish:

1. Cut the cabbages in half, and then slit each half through the core, but not through the rest of the leaves.
2. Soak each piece in cold water and sprinkle with 2½ cups of salt, and then set it aside for 2 hours.
   * tip: the stem should get more salt than leaf part
3. Skin 2 radishes and cut them into 1 inch cube shapes. Do this by cutting them into several disks, and then cutting horizontally, and then cutting vertically. Put them in a big bowl and sprinkle them with  ½ cup of salt. Then set these aside, too.
4. 2 hours later, turn the pieces of cabbage over so they get salted evenly. Turn the radishes as well.
5. Another 2 hours later, you will see the cabbage look softer than before, and it should have shrunk.
   *The total salting process will take 4 hours
6. Rinse the salted cabbage and radish with cold water 3 times.

Making Kimchi paste:

Make porridge

1. Put ½ cup of sweet rice powder (you can replace with plain flour) and 3 cups of water into a skillet and mix them up. Then cook over medium- high heat, stirring constantly.
2. When you see some bubbles, pour 1/4 cup of sugar into the porridge and stir one more minute. Then cool it down.
3. Place the cold porridge into a big bowl. Now you will add all your ingredients one by one.
4. Add 1 cup of fish sauce, 4~6 cups of hot pepper flakes (depending on your taste), 1 cup of crushed garlic, 1 tbs of minced ginger, 1 medium size minced onion
   *tip: much easier to use a food processor.
5. Add 7 diagonally-sliced green onions, 2 cups of Asian chives (cut into 2 inches in length), and 2 cups of shredded Korean radish.
6. Add  2 cups of frozen oysters, but this is optional. (I found out lots of people can’t eat them.)
7. Mix all ingredients well and your Kimchi paste is done.

Are you ready to spread our paste on the leaves and make your kaktugi?
* I recommend you wear rubber gloves so that you won’t irritate your skin.

1. Spread the Kimchi paste onto each leaf of the cabbage, and make a good shape out of the leaves by slightly pressing with both hands.
2. Put it into an air- tight sealed plastic container or glass jar.
3. Mix your leftover paste with your radish cubes (kaktugi).

That’s all!

You can eat it fresh right after making or wait until it’s fermented. Put the Kimchi container at room temperature for 1 or 2 days and keep it in the refrigerator.

How do you know it’s fermented or not?

One or 2 days after, open the lid of the Kimchi container. You may see some bubbles with lots of liquids, or maybe sour smells. That means it’s already being fermented.

Posted Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Categories: kimchi | sidedishes
222 Comments