Korean Cuisine is the Next Culinary Charm

I love to experiment with new foods and apparently Korean cuisine is the next big thing, so I thought I’d give it a go! It seems everyone is jumping on the band wagon with this one including the likes of Nigella, where some ingredients are used in her new cook book and restaurants in London and even Glasgow and Edinburgh!

Korean food is mainly based around meat, rice and vegetables – not just barbecued meat! Royal cuisine used to be the more traditional way to cook, where side 12 dishes were served, and was more well know across Asia after a popular soap called “Jewel in the Palace” was aired in 2003. A true story based on a 15^th century palace cook. Since then the Korean cookery style has been reborn and is becoming more popular at dinner tables world wide. The cuisine is often considered to have a very strong taste and they use a lot of preservation methods. This was started to get them through tough winters, and how they discovered a well loved dish, Kimchi which started off with a base of cabbage or radish and fermented over time. The royal cuisine and cooking for the king lost its appeal after the last monarchy of the Joseng Dynasty. This allowed the culture and cuisine to flourish into what it is today which involves spicier and more arousing flavours than the mild royal foods. The end of the Joseng Dynasty was a crucial period for the Koreans to identify and modernise the cuisine.

Many of the Korean food products are used for their health benefits and medicinal properties and are grown, fermented or all tended to by hand in very traditional methods. For example the popular product ginseng is grown over years and another crucial Korean ingredient for many dishes, soy bean paste, is created using 65 steps, traditionally, by hand and fermented for up to 6 years. I love the way they tend to their food and take the time and care to create something wonderful, especially over such a long period of time! I think that’s something that the British culture could adopt to cook and prepare foods with effort and love. 

Although I’ve spoken about traditional Korean foods such as kimchi, ginseng and soy bean paste I wanted to provide you with a background to the culture and try something different and follow the modern route of Korean cuisine. Like I said, it’s going to be big! This dish has a lot of strong flavours but can be easily adapted to your taste by adding more heat and spice, fruit, or even use a light or reduced salt soy sauce to cut down a bit on the saltiness if you wish. Once the sauce is made it can be kept for several weeks in the fridge, and if you can try and make it in advance as it really does allow the flavours to flourish.

Try it out and we’ll see if it does catch on.

 

Bulgogi

Ingredients

250ml Soy Sauce

40g Sugar

3 tbsp. Sake

3 tbsp. Sesame Oil

8 Cloves Garlic, crushed

2 tbsp. toasted Sesame Seeds

1 Asian Pear (or 2 regular if not available)

1 Apple

350g thick Rump Steak

4 Spring Onions, Chopped finely

1 Carrot, chopped

100g Mushrooms, chopped

1. Mix the soy sauce, sugar, sake, sesame oil, garlic and sesame seeds in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved. Blitz the pear and the apple in the food processor and add to the sauce.
2. Put the steak in the freezer for about 15 minutes and slice thinly lengthways. This makes it easier to get a clean cut.
3. Marinade the sliced steak with the sauce for 24 hours, or if you don’t have time try for at least 2 hours.
4. Once marinated fry the meat in a pan along with the remaining vegetables and a little of the sauce.
5. This dish can be served with rice or in lettuce wraps – very tasty but a little more difficult to eat.