mary eats

Ssam -Korean for “to wrap”, is an ideal summer dinner; light, quick to make, and of course the opportunity to play with your food. The idea is that you wrap something, traditionally rice, garlic, and ssamjang in lettuce, fold the leafy green over into a nice little bundle and eat.

Versions of the dish are endless, you can use just about any small slices of meat, think slab bacon, thinly sliced steak, chicken tenders. Raw fish: salmon, tuna, or lightly sauteed shrimp.  Vegetables: crunchy jicima, roasted sweet potato and parsnips, cucumber or shredded red cabbage. Wrap with green leaf lettuce, butter leaf or sesame leaf. If you don’t dig ssamjang, try ssam with hoisin or harissa, sirracha or mango chutney even.

Ultimately, this could be a brilliant use of leftovers and condiments housing just a couple tablespoons of product. Pull it all out of the fridge, make some rice, wash lettuce, and viola, dinner.

After last night’s dinner of construct your own spring rolls (there is a theme here), I had a craving for more hoisin sauce. In an effort to tone down ssamjang’s punchy pungency, I decided to combine hoisin and ssamjang. The result? Delicious.  All the flavor notes were hit, sweet from the hoisin, the spicy, salty, and sour from the ssamjang.

Flat Iron Ssam

1 cup short grain sticky rice
1 Flat iron steak, trimmed of silver skin (flank steak works too)
Kosher salt and pepper
1 TBSP canola oil
1 head green leaf lettuce
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup ssamjang
2 TBSP hoisin Sauce
teriyaki or bulgogi or Asian BBQ sauce optional*

1. Cook rice in a rice cooker or on the stove.

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Season steak with salt and pepper on each side and cut in half (I only do this because me frying pan is too small to accomodate the steak whole. If yours is big enough or if you are grilling your steak, then by all means, don’t cut it). Heat a sauté pan with 1 TBSP canola oil until pan until shimmering. Place steak halves in pan and sear until nice and brown on each side (about 2-3 minutes per side). Immediately transfer pan into preheated oven and cook until an internal temperature of 140 degrees is reached. About 10 minutes, sometimes more, sometimes less. Remove steaks from the pan and let sit on the cutting board to rest at least 5 minutes.

3. Separate lettuce, wash leaves, and tear off the bottom crunchy bit. Arrange leaves around a large platter.

4. Peel and slice garlic cloves uber thin. Place in a small serving dish and set on platter.

5. In a small ramekin mix together the ssamjang and the hoisin, adjusting by adding more of either until a desired taste is reached.

6. Transfer cooked rice to a serving vessel and place on platter with a serving spoon.

7. Cut the meat ¼ inch thick on the diagonal for thin slices. Place in a bowl with all the yummy juices that have escaped and place on serving platter.

8. Set table with platter, small individual plates, and chop sticks for everyone

Chef’s Notes.
Other condiments that can work if you don’t have ssamjang, are mixing together gochu jang and doenjang, or using a chunky dark miso, or use hoisin and sriracha, or harissa whatever your tastes are.

If you want to further flavor your meet, before transferring pan to oven, pour enough teriyaki, bulgogi, or Asian BBQ sauce over the meat to cover. Turn once while cooking.

To eat ssam, place one leaf of lettuce on your plate, top with a golf ball size of rice. Flatten it out a bit to make a nice surface for which to place a couple slices of meat. Top with a spoonful of ssamjang or other sauce and one or two slices of garlic. Wrap up into a nice little package, less burrito like and more envelope style. Open up and enjoy!

Comfort food.

Until recently these two very loaded words instantly projected drool worthy images of creamy mac and cheese or whipped mashed potatoes drenched with pepper studded gravy into my mind. But like a little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie, these meals were more instant gratification than nourishment for the soul.

Maybe I was just following along, nodding in a quiet gastronomic coma when others spoke of how a bite of meatloaf made them feel as secure as through embracing in a hug from mom. Though plenty of nostalgia foods sounded like they could do the trick, none of them ever succedded in calming that nervous stir, the feelings of uncertainty rumored to be cured by a steaming bowl of chicken and dumplings.

No doubt comfort foods change as we get older, pass through new phases in life, emotionally trying experiences, each clinging to some food item as a safe house. A bowl of eggs and rice topped with sriracha would have never entered my consciousness had it not been for a frightful hunger driven journey onto the streets of Bangkok at hours of the morning best known to backpackers in a drunken stupor and less savory types praying on said backpackers. Now, it is the first thing I crave on cold and rainy Seattle winter mornings when leaving the house is the last thing I want to do.

My time in Korea had a large impact on the person I am now, but honestly I never thought I would seek refuge in the fermentation process of kimchi, a condiment for which I held such a distaste for the majority of my sojourn. And I may never of noticed had it not been for the astute observations of a close friend.

As my final project for culinary school drew near, I was sleeping less, drinking more and popping B-complex vitamins like Frans’ Gray Salt Caramels on Valentines Day. Nervous about my performance as a chef, my skills, my ingredients, and my guests, I looked for distraction in the form of pickling. (My fridge is now full of mason jars teeming with vinegar kissed asparagus spears, brunoised beets, and paper thin shallots- not a bad vice I tell you)

“How you doing, you ok, you nervous” Lily asks, calling to check up on me.
“Yeah, I mean no. No. I’m fine. Really,” I reply, “I’m making Kimchi.”

This conversation occurs at 10:00pm. In my head I am going over the finer points of my chef of the day menu: a 6 course look back at the foods of my youth, Southern inspiration by the way of Northwest ingredients. Every dish, I think out step by step, the flavors, the textures, every ingredient accounted for. The obsession akin to a performer’s; hours just before the curtains rise. Committing movements and words to memory.

Oh Mary,” Lily sighs. “I think kimchi is your comfort food, not succotash.”

Nothing will ever be as reassuring as a hug from my parents or a squeeze of my hand from my husband. Not mac and cheese or kkakduki. But just maybe for chefs, cooks, and kitchen dwellers alike, cooking is our comfort food.

With gochu and garlic stained hands I tightened the last of the mason jar lids on my medium diced kkakduki and place them in a lower cabinet not to be disturbed for three days, turned off the kitchen light, and headed for bed.

Kkakduki
Adapted from Eating Korean by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee
Makes 3 pint jars

1 bulb purple garlic, cloves separated and peeled- you can really use any garlic, I just like the purple variety because it peels easier.
1 2-inch piece of ginger root, peeled
2 TBSP Korean chili powder, gochu garu
2 TBSP kosher salt, if using table salt cut in half
2 large Korean radishes, Mu, peeled, squared off and cut into 1/2 inch dice.
1 bunch of mustard greens, washed, stems left intact (except for grubby end bits you should trim off) chopped into 1-inch pieces
1/2 tsp sugar

Equipment:
3 pint jars
gloves
food processor

1. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the garlic, ginger, chili powder, and salt. Process until finely minced. If you don’t have a food processor this process won’t be easy. I’m not going to lie. Mince the garlic as finely as possible. Grate the ginger with a microplane, then combine it with the garlic, chili powder and salt in a blender. What? No blender? Dang. Then a bowl. You do have one of those, right? Mix it up real nice.

2. For this next step you may want to consider some gloves, especially if you have any cuts on your hand. Rub the radish cubes with the garlic chili mixture until all sides of the radish cubes are well stained red. This is best done in a large bowl.

3. Place 3 pint jars on work surface. I like to use canning jars, but you can use any cleaned out pasta or mayo jars you have lying around the house. I’d caution away from yogurt tubs or tupperwear for fear that the caustic chili garlic mixture would burn right through the plastic. It probably wouldn’t happen, but I’m just sayin. Fill about one jar half full with chilied radishes. Pack a thin layer of mustard greens on top and sprinkle with a pinch of sugar. Add more radishes until the jar is full. Fill the remaining jars as you just did.

4. Find a nice cool place to store the jars while the kimchi ferments. After 3 days you’ll notice the water leaching out of the radishes and greens, that when you know its ready to eat. Be sure to refrigerate after opening.

Taco night was one of my favorites as a child. Not just because we got to eat with our hands or consume copious amounts of shredded cheese and spicy ground beef, I loved taco night because it meant in some small way I was in charge of what I ate. Set in the center of the table, the lazy susan offered up topping choice like green onions, salsa, shredded cheese, black olives, tomatoes, and IMO (we had yet to discover sour cream), once mom would fill our shells with meat, we were given free reign. If I wanted an all cheese taco, then so be it. Green onion and IMO? You bet. If I got to the black olives before Jamie, then tough luck little sis,- it’s survival of the fittest on Taco night.

Not that any of these creations were profound in flavor development, but it was mine, just the way I wanted it. And as an ornery 8 year-old who felt totally oppressed by her parents- No, you can not wear your bathing suit to the dinner table. No, you can not dress up the cat. Yes, you must eat your sautéed mushrooms. This taco handiwork of mine gave me just a kiss of power. Mary-Elizabeth 1, Parents 0.

Though I don’t have a lazy susan of my own, Kevin and I took pleasure in a build your own Hwae Dap Bop earlier this week. I didn’t intend it, but as I chopped and sliced our veggies, the piles building up on the cutting board looked too lovely to disrupt. I’d like to think I wanted to give Kev the option of building his dinner just the way he liked it, the right combination of creamy avocado and crispy cool cucumber, but really, I just wanted to hoard all the avocado for myself. I didn’t. But I thought about it.

Hwae Dap Bap is raw fish, atop a variety of raw vegetables, on a bed of rice with seasoned chili sauce. In Korea we generally ate this for lunch or a light dinner. While in composition it can appear quite simple- it spans a variety of textures: the crunch of cabbage and carrot, the buttery-ness of raw fish, and the gentle toothsome-ness of short grain rice. The dish also lends itself well to creativity. The variety of vegetables used can play on a theme; spring greens: asparagus, pea vines, radishes, and radish sprouts or Northwest foraged: fiddlehead ferns, sea beans, sauteed nettles and wood sorrel.

In Seoul we noshed on white flat fish or tuna, but back home I’m a sucker for salmon. I like to sear it on either side, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, before cutting into a large dice. Traditionally, Hwae dap bap is served with a spicy chili sauce, a mixture of gochujang, sesame oil, and soy sauce, punctuated with garlic and green onion.

Hwae Dap Bap
Serves 4
This dish is a fantastic vehicle for creativity. We like to throw in a fried egg. Try changing out the rice for a grain: quinoa, bulgur, or brown rice. Use seasonal vegetables picked up at the farmer’s market. Serving the dish in individual portions is more traditional, but if you have a lazy susan, why not enjoy a build your own hwae dap bap night?

1 cup short grain white rice
1/2 lb fillet salmon, skin removed.
1 carrot, julienned
1/4 head red or green cabbage, thinly sliced
1 avocado, cut into medium pieces
1 cup packed sprouts
1/2 cup cucumber, seeds removed, cut into small pieces

Seasoned Chili Sauce
3 TBSP gochujang
2 TBSP water
1 TBSP soy sauce
1 TBSP sesame oil
1 tsp sugar or mool yut (Korean Malt Syrup)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 TBSP toasted sesame seeds (to toast sesame seeds, place seeds in a dry skillet over medium-high heat. Stir, or shake the skillet, continuously until seeds are brown and smell nutty, about 3 minutes)

Equipment
Rice cooker
Mandolin (for the carrots and cabbage)
Medium Sauté Pan

1. If you have a rice cooker, cook rice to your rice cooker’s specifications. If not, consider getting one. They’re great, really. You can even get ones that you can leave the rice in’em for, like, 2-3 days. Imagine, having rice any time you wanted. Amazing. Right. Back to you and your uncooked rice. Place rice in a medium saucepan and add 1 1/4th cup water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Turn off heat and fluff rice with a fork. Cover, and set aside at room temperature until ready to use.

2. After you have the rice started, heat your sauté pan over high heat. While you are waiting for the pan to heat, season both sides of the salmon with kosher salt and pepper. Once the pan is hot, hot, hot, (I’m not joking, you want this thing hot as the famed Texan sidewalk that cooked an egg) add the salmon and sear for 1-2 minutes. We aren’t cooking the fish through, just getting a delicious crusty side. Flip the fish over and repeat. Remove fish from pan and set on the cutting board, and rest for a few minutes for no other reason than trying to cut the fish now will probably burn the tips of your fingers and make you grouchy. Once the fish is cool enough to handle, cut into nice 1/2 inch cubes.

3. In a small bowl, combine the gochujang, water, soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, and sesame seeds. Gochujang is incredibly thick, and even with the addition of soy sauce and sesame oil, the sauce is still too thick. Add enough water (starting with the 2 TBSP), stirring constantly, until you get the thickness you want. I like it akin to Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. You may like it thicker or thinner. It’s your call.

4. To serve, place 1/4 to 1/3 cup rice in the bottom of each bowl (you could use more, but I don’t want you filling up on all that rice). Place a tablespoon or so of each vegetable and fish on top of the rice in a circular pattern (or as much that will fit). Crown it all off with a healthy dose of chili paste.

Voila. Deliciousness.

I finally made bulgogi, and honestly, I don’t know what took so darn long.

Bulgogi isn’t a complicated dish, in fact quite the opposite. A marinade is made; meat is sliced, then soaked, and then cooked.

Dating back to the 13th century, bulgogi does have a long history in Korean cuisine, and having been passed down from mother to daughter over the centuries, there appear to be as many recipes for the sweet soy marinade as there are Korean surnames.

This time I used the requisite soy, ginger, but replaced sugar with apple juice (I couldn’t find pear), though I’ve seen it done with kiwis. I used top serloin, something my husband soundlessy though effectively protested with rib poking when the whole foods butcher weighed out a pound at 15.99. We’ve decided to stop shopping at Whole Foods.

The whole thing was surpisingly simple. I used my mother in laws meat slicer to get the meat relatively thin (the guy at whole foods claimed not to have a slicer, but offered to slice it with a knife, so so so clueless)

I marinated the meat, giving up on microplaning the inch nub of ginger, instead throwing the whole fibrous lump into the pot.

Needing carbs and wanting to soak up the juices I added some ddok to the dish then served it all on a med of micro-greens with a dollop of ssamjang and a shaving of garlic. None of which was needed. I would happily eaten the meat off the plate with my hands.

Here’s my recipe
2 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp Honey
2Tbsp Apple Juice
1 T minced green onion
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp Sesame Seed oil
1/4 tsp black pepper

1 pound beef serloin, thinly sliced

1/2 cupsliced ddok, soaked in water for 15 minutes

Garnish
A handful of washed micro greens
1 Tbsp ssamjang per person
1 clove garlic per person, thinly sliced

1. Combine all the bulgogi marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

2. Slice the meat (or add already sliced mea) to the marinade and stir to coat the meat. Let stand for 30 minutes.

3. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the meat and marinade and cook. Drain the sliced ddok and add to the meat mixture. Cook until ddok is tender and meat has reached desired state of doneness.

On each plate lay down a handful of washed microgreens. Place a healthy dollop of ssamjang on each plate accompanied by sliced garlic. Top off greens with a serving of bulgogi.

I am also shopping around for a takbagi bulgogi (is that right) recipe.

So I’m curious, with all the variations, how do you cook bulgogi? What do you put in your marinade? How do you plate it, and have you ever considered enveloping it in puff pastry?

I know it is a bit off point, but having wrapped up my first quarter of school I can’t help but begin planning my Chef of the Day; a final of sorts for culinary graduates where we plan and execute a 5 course meal. I’m thinking of North Asian ingredients with Western European Techniques. For a main course I’m considering a Korean take on beef Wellington. And ideas?

It is tradition for Koreans, on the Lunar New Year, or Solla, to serve ddok guk at the ancestor memorial in place of rice. Ddok (rice cake) guk (soup) is a humble soup composed of clear beef broth, to symbolize a clear mind for the New Year, round sliced rice cakes, to symbolize the rising sun and strength, a scant helping of minced beef and a garnish of egg slices.

After performing the service, family members eat the soup then perform customary bows (saebae) to parents and grandparents. Ledged has it you become one year older when you eat this soup on New Year’s Day. Hmm. As I near closer to thirty I’d prefer something that could take the years off, or a fountain of life-esque broth, no?

I remember the streets of Seoul shutting down for Solla and Chusok. For once you could go for a stroll and all the shops would be boarded up, dark. No fears of getting mowed down by a chicken/pizza delivery driver on a moped, and gaze at empty shots of the Namdaemoon gate traffic circle on the news. Most foreigners would end up at any of the numerous pubs in Itaewon, if they weren’t skipping town for a jaunt to Japan or Thailand.

Ddok guk was my first Korean recipe given to me by a co-worker. At the time I didn’t eat meat, and replaced the beef with tofu. Thanks to personal preferences and picky eaters ddok guk has many variations (including mandu!), here are my recipes for this hopeful new years soup.

Ddok Guk 1.
This is the recipe for traditional, clear, ddok guk

1/2 lb brisket, soaked in cold water for 1 hour, and drained
1 Quart water
5 garlic cloves
Soy sauce
Salt and pepper
Two eggs, white and yolk separated
1/2 bag sliced rice cakes, soaked in water for 10-30 minutes
Green onion

1. In a large saucepan, bring the brisket and water, along with the garlic cloves to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook brisket until tender, one hour.
2. While brisket is simmering, skim off impurities from the pot.

3. While the brisket is cooking, season whites and yolk (still separated) with a touch of salt. You can also add a bit of water to the yolks. One at a time, add the whites to a nonstick skillet over medium low heat. Spread out as thinly as possible. I find it easiest to use one of the rectangle pans used for cooking Japanese and Korean rolled omelets. Cook over low heat until whites are completely coagulated and cooked through. Remover from the pan and repeat with the yolks.

4. On a cutting board trim cooked eggs into neat rectangles around 2.5 inches in height. Very thinly slice eggs for garnish. Alternatively, slice on the diagonal about 2 centimeters apart, then come back from the other direction for diamonds. Set aside for garnish.

5. Trim the green onion and thinly slice. Set aside for garnish.
6. Once the brisket is tender remove from the broth and slice thinly, shred, or mince.
7. Taste the broth and adjust flavorings with soy sauce, salt and pepper. Return broth to a boil.
8. Drain rice cakes and add to the beef broth, once soaked these only take a minute or two to cook.
9. Turn off the heat and ladle broth and rice cakes into individual serving bowls. Add a tablespoon or two of the meat and carefully place in the center of the bowl. Garnish with egg slices or diamonds, and green onions, and voila. Don’t blame me for any accrued wrinkles or gray hairs.

This soup is very delicate, if you are looking for bigger flavor add some sesame oil, chili flakes, or even minced garlic to the broth before serving.

Option one:
Instead of going through the painstaking task of separating the eggs, and slicing, simply crack two eggs into a bowl and beat to combine. Add the eggs to the soup after the rice cakes and let eggs cook in an egg-drop soup fashion.

My Dubu Ddok Guk

1 Quart of vegetable stock
1 package firm tofu
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 T minced garlic
2 T minced green onion (reserve 1 T for garnish)
1 tsp red chili flakes
1 T sesame oil
1/2 package of sliced ddok, soaked in water for 10-30 minutes.
2 eggs, beaten

1. Bring the vegetable broth to a boil.
2. Add the tofu and boil for 5 minutes. Carefully remove tofu and let stand on the cutting board for a couple of minutes. Cut the tofu into 1/2-inch thick, 1 1/2 x 1 inch planks (basically a little larger than bite size)
3. In a shallow dish, combine the soy sauce, garlic, green onion, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil. Add sliced tofu and coat.

4. Return broth to boiling and add ddok. Cook for just a couple minutes, until ddok is tender.
5. Add the eggs to the broth and stir to cook.
6. Drain off the marinade from the tofu and add to the soup. Ladle the soup into individual serving bowls and lay a few tofu slices over the top. Garnish with green onion.

Even today I still make my tofu version, this time with the beef too. To add tofu to ddok guk, simply follow step 3 of this recipe and add it after the egg in the ddok guk recipe.

Happy Lunar New Year!

“If it not be ripe it will drawe a mans mouth awrie with much torment; but when ripe it is as delicious as an Apricock” - Captain John Smith, 17th century.

Fuyu persimmons

October marks the arrival persimmons to Korea’s markets, tables, and tree branches. Having not tried one until I came to Seoul it was surprising to learn that the persimmon was a popular fruit in the American South in the 17th century, primarily used in baked goods, puddings, and such.

I recall having seen them in Olympia’s Eastside Co-op, sequestered to the far corner of the produce case, contained in a plastic tray, ripened to a barely stable mush, surrounded by a cloud of fruit files. Needless to say, I never purchased one.

Korean persimmon tree

Persimmons are a tricky fruit, the many varieties fall into two categories, astringent and non-astringent. The former, most likely tasted by Captain John Smith, contain high levels of tannins (red wine pucker) and cannot be eaten until it is puddingly soft. Non-astringent varieties, including the popular fuyu, sold in the Korean grocery stores and off the back of trucks, can be eaten hard or soft. However, the indigenous Korean variety, whose shape sags like a teardrop, is tres astringent. Better to look at, than to bite.

dried persimmons, kotkam

For Koreans, persimmons are commonly consumed and used in desserts. Dried persimmons are often stuffed with walnuts and sliced into rounds to be served with tea. They are also mixed with ginger to create a tasty “punch”, Sujonggwa, which is often served at the end of a Hanjeongsik meal. Persimmon vinegar is popular with the health conscious, as it is said to help digestion after heavy meals by dinking a glass of water graced with a teaspoon of vinegar. Bottoms up!
Hanjeongsik meals are multi course meals providing an array of side dishes.

Earlier this month my kitchen (toaster oven) was a flurry with persimmon related activity. Counted among the successes, a persimmon and jujube bar, a persimmon cream cheese tart, and wait for it, a persimmon cheesecake. Not so successful, getting the walnuts into the dried persimmons and slicing them into neat rounds, or the crust for the tart. I blame it on the toaster oven.

Persimmon and Jujube Bars with Lemon Icing
Adapted from an online recipe from the webstie recipes.epicurean.com
Prep time 45 minutes. Baking time 15 minutes
Makes 16 delicious cookies.

Ingredients for the persimmon bars
Ingredients
16 Korean dates jujubes
4 Soft persimmons
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup soybean or other vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt,
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon,
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

3/4 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
Zest of 1/2 a lemon

1. Place the jujubes in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Cover the bowl with a plate and let soak for 30 minutes. Drain jujubes, remove pit and coarsely chop. Set aside.
2. Take four very ripe persimmons and remove skins, and stem. Using a wooden spoon, or your clean hands, press the soft persimmons through a fine meshed sieve. Discard seeds. Place the pulp in a bowl and add the lemon juice and baking soda. Set aside
3. In a large bowl combine the egg, sugar, and vegetable oil. Mix to combine.
4. In another bowl (yes, this recipe calls for a lot of dishes) mix the dry ingredients: flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, alternating with the persimmon mixture. Stir to combine.
5. Add the chopped nuts and jujubes.
6. Pour dough into a square glass baking dish, smeared with butter.
7. Bake in your toaster oven (or real oven 350 degrees) for 15-20 minutes, depending on the strength of your oven. Use a toothpick to test for doneness

8. Let the cookie cool in pan, atop a wire cooling rack for 10 minutes. Invert baking dish and remove cookie from pan. Let cool completely on rack

9. In a small bowl (the last bowl, I promise), whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Brush the glaze atop the cookie and let harden 15 minutes. Cut the cookie into bars and serve.

Not a baker? From www.sdfarmbureau.org comes other ways to enjoy fall’s bounty.

Slice Fuyu and spread with lime juice, salt, and chili powder. Eat with a slice of cheese or spread with peanut butter.

For an Autumn Salad, mix cubed Fuyu with grapes, pomegrante seeds, cubed apple, and pretty sliced green kiwi.

Top hot or cold cereal with little pieces of bright orange Fuyu.

Salsa is great when chopped Fuyu, onion, tomatillo, cilantro, and chili serrano are mixed together.

Smoothies can be blended using Fuyu, ice, lime juice, and milk. Sweeten if desired.

Syrup for hotcakes is delightful when peeled and chopped or blended Fuyu is cooked with butter and sugar.

Dehydrate thin slices of Fuyu to enjoy as a snack or to add to trail mix.

Eat up before they’re gone.

Some of my most favorite food blogs these days are coming out of Singapore. And why wouldn’t they be? It is a city famous for a smattering of cultures and a kaleidoscope of cuisines, where street food rivals white tablecloths establishments, and chili crab reigns supreme. If you are a foodie, make it a point to get to the city-state at some point. Preferably soon.

A few daily reads include chubby hubby, kuidaore, and kitchen crazy daffy. Recently daffy posted a recipe for braised pork belly, and it spoke to me.

Having recently started eating meat again after a 10-plus year absence, I am still a little skittish on the texture issue. Uniform, people, uniform. No surprises, please. Gnawing away on pork belly sounded as appetizing, as, wall, gnawing away on a giant piece of fat. In our mini fridge (Yes. Our fridge is a mini fridge. Don’t judge) sat a beautifully marbled piece of salmon and soon the brain waves started buzzing. “Pork belly is fat, salmon has fat. It can work!”

After a battery of ingredients began to boil, a beguiling aroma wafted through the apartment. A long absence had transpired since I last combined cloves, star anise, and ginger in a sugar solution.

I quickly seared the salmon, achieving the desired crispy browning, and after having strained the liquid, braised the salmon for a brief time. Braising is traditionally used for tough meats that desire a certain state of tenderness. Fish is not something one would traditionally braise. But poach? Why not.

What resulted was a salty/sweet syrup in which rested a tender buttery piece of fish. Lunchtime was never so divine.

Daffy’s recipe called for a mixture of light and dark soy sauce, and if you cook in Korea, please let me know if we have light soy sauce. Being a resident of a metric speaking country her recipe also featured the dreaded liter and milliliters, causing me to guesstimate. I found the sauce a tad on the salty side. Figuring I used too much soy sauce, I was surprise to find an empty fish sauce bottle in the recycling bin the next morning. Whoops.

Oolong Tea Steeped Salmon
Adapted from Daffy’s posting of
Anderson Ho’s Oolong Tea Steeped Pork Belly from the book Menu DeGustation.

Serves 4. Total time (cook and prep) about 45 minutes.

*note: You can find spices like cinnamon sticks, cloves, and star anise at the Discount International Food market next to what the book in Itaewon. They also carry fried shallots and fresh cilantro.

A good, fat pinch of Oolong tealeaves
15ml (or 1 Tablespoon) dark soy sauce (this is where I accidentally used fish sauce)
100ml (or 6 and a half Tablespoons) light soy sauce
3 cinnamon sticks
2 cloves
3 star anise
1.5 liters (about 6 cups) chicken stock
1-inch knob of peeled ginger
1/4 cup rice wine (I used mirin, a Japanese rice wine)
1-2 Tablespoons brown sugar to taste
300g Salmon, seasoned with salt and pepper

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
2 Tbsp water

2-3 Tablespoons fried shallots
2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro/coriander chopped

2 cups of short grain sticky rice cooked

1. In a large saucepan combine Oolong tealeaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, chicken stock, soy sauces, ginger and rice wine and simmer for 20 minutes.

2. Sear the salmon on both sides in a medium skillet over high heat. What you want is a crispy brown crust to form on the edges and the middle.

3. Using a fine meshed strainer, strain the poaching liquid into a measuring cup or container. Pout the liquid in the pan with the salmon until the liquid comes a little more than half way up the fish. Simmer in the braising liquid for 5 minutes or until tender. Timing is everything for this recipe. Watch how long you sear the fish for. You may end up cooking it through if you leave it in the pan too long. I like my salmon a little pink in the center, and found around five minutes to be fine.

4. One the fish is ready, remove the salmon and slice into individual servings.

5. Bring braising liquid to a boil and add cornstarch solution. Give it a couple of minutes to thicken. You want the sauce to coat the back of a spoon.

6. Serve salmon over rice with sauce and garnish with crispy shallots and cilantro/coriander.

The subtle crispness in the air, the ability to sleep at night, a jacket for the morning commute, yes, it is fall.

Finally temperatures have cooled in Seoul. This means I am no longer camping out at Starbucks in front of monolithic air conditioners, bowing down to a false idol. My clothing is no longer regulated to a uniform of breathable jersey t-shirts and skirts (thank you American Appeal). No. I am now free to wear my skinny jeans, oxford shirts, and if I dare, boots. Gasp.

In Seattle I eagerly awaited fall like a child waiting for her birthday. A bounty of winter squashes, dark greens and the return of asparagus were my presents. I couldn’t wait to pull out my trusty orange Le Creuset Dutch oven, stained with years of use, and start a stew or polenta.

With the exception of the pine mushroom, a mushroom that grows at the base of pine trees absorbing a unique pine flavor, fall isn’t specially marked by the return of produce or seasonal dishes. Folks go about like they had before with a few less bowls of Naeng Myeong and a couple less patbingsus.

For me, however, fall is still special, because I can finally turn on the freekin’ stove and make coffee without sweating! Kev and I have started buzzing about the kitchen again, discourse has returned to food related themes.

One of our first fall dishes was a vegetable and ddok sauté. Crisp tender veggies, slightly browned, and toothsome ddok (rice cakes), captured the essence of fall noshing. Comfortable and familiar like putting on a favorite oversized wool sweater. Charmingly rustic, the mix warmed the belly and whetted the appetite for a season of hearty eats.

Ddok and Veggie Stir Fry
Serves two.

2 cups ddok (Korean rice cakes, logs cut on the diagonal found in the refrigerated section at the supermarket)
2 potatoes, quartered
1 Melon, sliced
Handful kale, de-stemmed and chopped
1 carrot, cut to bite sized pieces
2 T soy sauce
1 T garlic
2 leeks, finely chopped
2 T sugar
1 T sesame oil
1 tsp gochu flakes

Prepare all veg, steam the potato quarters 7 minutes to soften

In a bowl, mix the soy sauce, garlic, leeks, sugar, sesame oil, and gochu. This is your flavor base. You can always adjust the taste later.

Wait to cook the ddok until you are absolutely ready to use it, or it will turn hard. To cook the ddok, bring about 4 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the ddok and let cook 3 minutes. You want the ddok to start getting soft, but not too soft, much like you would when cooking pasta. Ddok is great for absorbing flavors, and you want it to suck up the sauce, not the water.

Heat a large skillet and add a tbsp of oil. Add the ddok, potatoes, melon, carrots, and kale. Stir occasionally, for 5 minutes. Aim for a small golden crust on the veg and ddok. Add the sauce and simmer for 5 minutes. Here I like to give the mixture one stir at the beginning to coat, but then leave it alone for the next 5. If you can resist the urge to tamper, you will be rewarded with a sauce reduction, stickily adhered to the mixture. Delicious.

Serve over rice, preferably brown, because as you can see there is no protein in this dish.

While 30-minute meals are not my usual night in the kitchen, I can appreciate a quick fix. Not only do I have the factors of stress and time working against me every day, but man, if you could see the size of my kitchen. It’s smaller than any NY studio’s. I’m willing to put money on it.

Here I’ve adjusted a Martha Stewart recipe to reflect the flavors of Korea. The five mainstays of Korean seasoning, garlic, soy sauce, chili flakes, sesame oil, and green onions are the flavor base. Aside from the cilantro, everything needed, can be purchased at your neighborhood shop.

Rice with Tofu, dried Mushrooms, and Swiss Chard Adapted from Martha Stewart, serves 4.

1 1/2 cup short-grain rice (if using brown adjust the water to 3 cups)
1/4 cup dried Shiitake mushrooms, broken into smaller pieces
8 oz extra-firm tofu, cubed
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 tsp dried gochu (crushed red pepper flakes)
1/4 tsp salt
2 good handfuls Swiss chard de-stemmed and chopped (you can use any dark green from spinach to collard greens)
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 t toasted sesame oil.
1 cup mungbean sprouts

1. In the bowl of your rice cooker, add the rice, water, mushrooms, tofu, ginger, garlic, chili and salt. Give it a good stir to combine. Close the rice cooker and cook until machine beeps. About 30 minutes, longer if using brown rice.
2. If your rice cooker is big enough stir in the spinach, if not layering it on top works fine too. Cover and let steam 10-15 minutes, or as long you can wait. Stir in scallions, cilantro, soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil. Dish onto plates and garnish with mungbean sprouts. These beauties offset the rice and tofu with a lively crunch.

For as long as I have been cooking, I have looked forward to the arrival of spring. The Olympia Farmer’s Market would finally reopen, full of calcium rich greens and not much else. Then in a few weeks the first sign of the forthcoming bounty appeared: bright green spears of asparagus, bundled and stacked high like a Campbell’s soup display at Safeway.

Culinary magazines from Bon Appetite to Martha Stewart, along with national and local newspapers continue to set off yearly national frenzies. Recipes and nostalgic essays dominate April issues and weekly food sections. I can’t help but get caught up in the drama. This isn’t only about cooking. The spring crop marks an end to dreary Pacific Northwest winters, and carries an air of hope and change.

My kitchen promptly went from heavy, starchy, one-pot mains, to light soups, frittatas and cold crudites. By the time the Asparagus season had ended, I was well into a spring fever, so to speak.

To the untrained eye, spring in Korea doesn’t bring much besides monstrous genetically engineered strawberries. No one vegetable carries an emotional weight here like Asparagus. Spring vegetables come in the form of mountain weeds, or namul. Memories of asparagus were like a lost dream- hazy.

Over the last three years I’ve done without, but lucky for us, Seoul’s answer to Dean and Delucca, the Galleria, has begun to stock the most delicate spears of asparagus I’ve come across.

Most chefs prefer pencil thin spears, and I’m no exception. Crisp with fresh flavor, they deserve to stand-alone. Naturally, I was skeptical. Kevin, on the other hand was gung-ho. I could tell that they were, obviously, real asparagus (with the amount of fake or copied goods here I wouldn’t be surprised), but the quality, the flavor, would it be there?

Raw, they gave off a crisp snap, a grassy aroma spritz through the air. I wanted a simple treatment, but a little more than the basic blanch with a dousing of olive oil.

Enter prosciutto.

Asparagus spears with prosciutto and onion. Adapted from epicurious.com

24 thin asparagus spears, trimmed
1 Tbsp. Olive oil
2 slices prosciutto diced
1 small yellow onion, sliced thin
Salt and Pepper to taste

Prepare asparagus to your preference. Personally I’m fond of long spears, but if you are all about convince, slice into 1 inch pieces.

Over medium heat in a large frying pan add the olive oil and prosciutto. Unlike bacon, proscuitto does not emit drippings. You can forgo the olive oil, but I found it helped keep things from sticking.

Give the ham a few quick stirs, then add the onion and asparagus. Stir to coat, then leave the pan alone for a minute to braise-so to speak- the mixture. What you’ll end up with-if your heat isn’t turned up too high- is a satisfying golden crust on the ham, onion, and asparagus.

Give a few shakes of the salt and pepper, toss, and plate. You can eat it hot or at room temperature.