Finally, the jap chae. This is considered a Chinese food in Korea, but it took on a Korean flavor. The first time I made it is the ONLY time it tasted good, lord knows why. However, due to the number of ingredients that need to be prepared separately, I will probably never make this again.
7.15.2008
7.4.07 Part II
Finally, the jap chae. This is considered a Chinese food in Korea, but it took on a Korean flavor. The first time I made it is the ONLY time it tasted good, lord knows why. However, due to the number of ingredients that need to be prepared separately, I will probably never make this again.
4.28.2008
7.4.07: Cooking Extravaganza
This first picture is of what I call a zucchini scramble. This may have been prior to any grocery purchasing expedition. I like zucchini, I like eggs, and I like cheese. Oh, I was also in a basil phase in which every egg-related food automatically required a healthy dose of the herb. Not quite knowing what I was doing or where I was going with the dish, I sauteed the zuchs first, then poured in the scrambled egg. Honestly, I can't really say what I was thinking at the time. Then again, since I made this shortly after waking up, it's hard to say that I was thinking much at all. Taste-wise it was digestible but it probably would've been better off as an omelette with the zuchis quartered. Halved was a bit on the large side for me.
This is another fried rice. My original intention was to do a poor man's bibimbap but there are simply far too many ingredients involved. So what's in the fridge? More zucchini. Oh, and broccoli, match stick carrots, and our good friend the egg. Not too much to say about this except that the fried egg doesn't really look like a heart, does it? Oh well.
During my exchange student days at Yonsei University, a fellow student introduced me to the brand new world of "toast," a whole new way of looking at a crusty piece of bread. "Toast" (or toastu, as it will be referred to as such henceforth) is actually not toasted. The bread is warmed over a buttered skillet. Meanwhile, vegetables are loaded into scrambled egg and flattened out into a patty. Corn is usually involved. Cabbage, carrots, and other unidentifiable veggies may also appear on the scene depending on who's making it. Slightly fancier toastu establishments offer different toppings such as processed cheese, bulgogi, ham, and other things.
Well, I wasn't personally keen on making a big deal out of this so I went with the basic corn/cheese/ham combo. Aside from (again) overloading the egg with corn, it tasted pretty darn good. This is one food that could definitely be exported to the US with great success.
This is supposed to be bibim nangmyun, or mixed cold noodles. In mool nangmyun (cold water noodles) the noodles are bathed in a shallow beef broth in addition to a spicy sauce. Vinegar and mustard (or something mustard-esque I think) are served on the side as condiments. Well, I didn't have time or the forethought to get a hold of beef broth so... this one is sans the mool.
Let's go clockwise, starting with the carrots. Carrots. Cucumber. Half a boiled egg. Ultra spicy red pepper sauce. Now... I didn't intend for the sauce to be that spicy but like I've told you before, I'm bad with proportions. It's a mixture of red pepper paste (gochujang), sugar, chopped garlic, red pepper powder, and probably some other things I'm forgetting. Anyway, if you're dealing with a red pepper paste, it's probably not necessary to put in that much powder. More does NOT equal tastier.
4.26.2008
April 2007: Breakfast Taco of Sorts
I had an unusual craving for something tortilla related. Unfortunately, Ann Arbor doesn't seem to have a Taco Bell. It does have Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurants, but most of them are overpriced. The most popular one that delivers (until 4 AM!) is Tios, and wow... those can make a drunk evening much worse. At any rate, I'm not good at dealing with meat. I think at that point in time I had tried to cube chicken breast once. The sensation of finger-on-uncooked meat is not spectacular. "Soz whut shood I putz in it??" I thought. Then it came to me. The one thing that I could put into a pan and make it taste good... scrambled eggs. That was the grand conception of my "breakfast taco."
Well, what else goes in breakfast tacos besides scrambled egg? Sausage? Oh wait, I can't deal with meat. OK. Potatoes, meat's best friend. Well, scrambled eggs and potatoes don't really work by themselves. OK. Onion. And thus there was onion. Wait. This breakfast taco will have no flavor. I have no salsa or sour cream. What to do, what to do. Well, there's some dried basil... and ketchup that's been in the fridge ever since I bought hot dogs two months ago... OK. Basil and ketchup it is.
And that's how my breakfast taco was born. It probably doesn't sound that great, but to a starving college student who didn't want to shop on a Sunday morning, it was the perfect change of pace (from eating nothing).
4.22.2008
December 2006: Is it food?
I really like cream and oil-based pastas, the fattier the better. So I decided to try my hand at an olive oil sauce. It seemed fairly simple-just add olive oil and some herbs to cooked pasta and toss to coat. And that's exactly what I did the first time I made it. Wow, was that a disaster of unknown proportions, not to mention a waste of resources. It was basically like dunking a piece of rotini in olive oil and sprinkling salt on it. Not so good.
I tried to improve it by adding vegetables like zucchini, carrots, and roma tomatoes. Oh, and our good friend garlic. That didn't help. The above picture is somewhere in between nasty and edible... if enough parmesan cheese was on top. Then, I discovered what was wrong.
This is common knowledge to most people, but I stupidly didn't realize that one should slightly sautee the garlic in the olive oil, then add veggies, then add the cooked pasta. Wow, what a difference that makes. Along with some Italian seasoning or a combo of basil, parsley, and thyme, it tastes just fine.
These days, instead of rotini, I use either spaghetti or linguine, but subtract the vegetables. Because zucchini is fairly expensive in Korea and the pasta finally tastes fine on its own, I don't bother with sprucing it up much. It basically takes only 11 minutes too, depending on the cooking time of the pasta!
P.S. I also add butter to the olive oil. Why? Cuz I love me some fat.