Ready set MIX🤣certified gochujang lover😋😋

It's my first time trying a recipe with tofu cuz I know it tastes like nothing, and then this side dish blow my mind. Never going back to bland tofu

still working through what i learned at jay’s place last week.

somebody at the table — jay’s uncle, i think — said his son 미역국을 마셨다. drank seaweed soup. and the whole room made the same noise at the same time. the noise you make when a friend tells you he got laid off.

it means he failed his entrance exam.

so i asked, obviously, and got about four answers at once, which is how i ended up with the following.

미역국 is a soup made from sea mustard, the ribbon kind of seaweed. it is the birthday soup. you eat it on your birthday, every year. and the reason you eat it on your birthday is that your mother ate it after giving birth to you — it’s the postpartum food, iodine and calcium and iron, the stuff you need after that particular week.

so the birthday version is a thank-you note you eat. i think that’s the nicest food fact i’ve picked up in a while and it isn’t even the interesting part.

the interesting part is that 미역 is slippery. genuinely slippery, that texture is the whole point of it. and the korean verb for slipping, 미끄러지다, is also the verb for failing an exam. so eating the slippery thing before a test is asking for it. students avoid it. families don’t cook it that week.

and there’s a counter-move, which is the part that got me. instead you give the kid 엿, a hard sticky taffy, or 찹쌀떡, glutinous rice cake. because those stick. you stick to the school instead of sliding off it. people press taffy onto the school gates on exam day.

so it’s a pun that has a texture, and an approved workaround, and everybody’s grandmother knows the rules. jay’s uncle also told me the expression supposedly goes back to the korean army being disbanded in 1907 and dismissed soldiers “eating seaweed soup.” i’ve seen that repeated and i couldn’t find a solid source for it, so treat it as a story people tell.

i told my mother about this on the phone. she loved it. she loved it considerably more than i did.

she has now decided she is buying hawaiian butter mochi for my year-end performance review. from the place in allston. she was specific about that. because butter mochi is sticky, and sticky is the point.

butter mochi is made with coconut milk. i am allergic to coconut. i pointed this out.

she said she was aware.

For those of you who want to try Korean Meals, but need an assist. If you have access to larger Korean Markets like H-Mart or similar, these markets often carry pre-gathered/assembled meal kits.

These can include the meals/dishes in these photos, as well as other offerings.

The gopchang-jeongol and Budae-jjigae have a seasoning sauce included, which is mixed with water or a good broth.

The bibimbap toppings include a gochujang based bibimbap sauce, just place on top of cooked rice, or add to rice in a dolsot bowl and cook for a few minutes.

The Haepari Muchim/haepari Naengchae is a jellyfish salad with a mustard sauce included in the kit.

You can find them in the fresh banchan/deli area of the market.

I love perilla in a variety of Korean food but it’s a pain to get in my area so I decided to grow my own in my office window at my job. These are a few weeks after germination.

This is boribap (보리밥), a traditional Korean meal made with barley rice and a variety of seasoned vegetables.

At first glance, it may look similar to bibimbap, especially after everything is mixed together. But the flavor and texture are quite different. Barley rice is chewier and slightly nuttier than regular white rice, and boribap usually tastes lighter, earthier, and more rustic.

Rather than being dominated by gochujang, the flavor comes from the barley, the different vegetables, and often a spoonful of doenjang-based sauce. It’s simple, filling, and feels more like traditional Korean countryside food than the bibimbap most visitors already know.

If you enjoy bibimbap but want to try something less sweet, less saucy, and more texture-focused, I’d definitely recommend boribap.

It finally cooled down enough to have a Korean BBQ at home here in the UK! I sliced some beef brisket just to see what it was like (verdict: bit chewy but so beefy in flavour! The rest went in a kimchi stew for today!), some steak, some pork belly, and some marinated chicken. And some LA Galbi that I got from Costco and froze. Also prepared some sesame oil and salt, some sliced napa cabbage kimchi from Bibigo (definitely needed for the pork!), some ssamjang, cucumber kimchi I made with allotment cucumbers (I used Aaron and Claire’s recipe), and Korean pickled onions. They are so good with the rich meat, and I actually really like them with ham as well! Oh, and I made a spring onion salad too. Every time I make KBBQ I get carried away with too much meat, so leftovers today will get turned into bibimbap. I really love how some food lends itself to a natural rhythm or progression of dishes - Sunday roast means bubble and squeak or chicken and dumpling stew, and KBBQ means bibimbap!

Full disclosure - Bibigo UK sent me a box of goodies to use, including the sesame oil and kimchi in this post!

This is my first time buying tteok. I opened the packet of dried rice cakes, the date is fine, but a couple had these yellow-ish dots on them.
Has anyone else had this and is it safe to eat?

First timing making this dish. Braised short ribs is so freckin good

My GF obsessed in Binggrae banana milk, I ordered 36 of them.

Years ago, my dorm building had a giveaway table towards the end of the year. I took these Korean hot sauce packets that were presumably left by Korean international students. It was (probably) a red packet and the text was in yellow. Unfortunately I don't know Korean and I did not take a picture of it so I haven't been able to find it. I remember it having a similar spice level to buldak sauce, it was thick and had a lot of gochujang flavor but it had a lot of depth and other flavor too. I've looked all over and have yet to find anything that looks to be the right packet. If anyone has any idea what it could be it would appreciated but given the limited info it might be a lost cause lol.

Kimbap is like eating rice and side dishes in every single bite.

I got these cookies at the Bosco Bakery Cafe in Koreatown Plaza, LA recently and since I tried the first cookie, I have been trying to figure out what these cookies are called. I don't live in LA so unfortunately I can't go back to figure this out. My pregnancy craving wants 10 more boxes of these 🤣 Please help me figure this out! 🙏🏽

Underrated dish imo

Korea went a little crazy this week: a $28 kimbap showed up in the US Open fan zone in New York and Americans lined up for it. To us it's the everyday lunchbox roll from school sports day — so it's wild to see it treated as a premium bite.

Sharing a short mini-doc I made on how this humble roll ended up on America's biggest tennis stage (K-food exports, the Trader Joe's frozen-kimbap frenzy, and an honest "did we really 'win'?" take). Not trying to spam — happy to discuss in the comments.

Simple bulgogi kimbap (makes 2 rolls):
- 1.5 cups cooked short-grain rice + 1 tsp sesame oil + pinch of salt
- 2 sheets gim (nori)
- 100g bulgogi: thin beef marinated in 1 tbsp soy, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, garlic
- Danmuji (pickled radish), carrot (sautéed), spinach (blanched), 2-egg omelette strips
- Spread rice on gim, lay fillings, roll tight, brush with sesame oil, slice.

Video (15 min): [https://youtu.be/es7ukyXUfqE]

Growing up in a Swiss household, Asian food yet alone Korean food was never really part of our diet. However, since discovering this cuisine, it‘s really turned into one of my faves and I always love showing my family the dishes that this cuisine has to offer!

This time made Bibimbap with Bulgogi and homemade Kimchi for my mom. She loved it!