7.4.07 Part II

The long awaited continuation of my July 3-4th cooking extravaganza... Once again, these are completely out of order, not that you or I care.

First off we have a very simple side dish: pan-fried zucchini slices. I forget what the name for this is in Korea but it's some kind of buchim. All you gotta do is slice the zucchini into 1/5" thick slices, dip them into buchim garoo (flour works), then egg, then fry until golden brown. Serve with a soy-based dipping sauce. How easy is that? This process is also good with tofu... mm mm good. Of course it has to be a rather firm tofu or else you'll end up with tofu ala cottage cheese.

Now these... I was actually kind of proud of myself when I made these. Have you ever wondered... How did the soft stuff get inside the crispy outer shell? No... because you're smart! However, I was always mystified by this simple process. Here we have a very simple potato croquette. Usually it has some kind of meat or other vegetables, but I wasn't feeling overly ambitious so I just put some corn in it. The biggest problem with this was deep-frying it because there wasn't a thermometer to see how hot the oil was. I usually ended up burning them. However, the first few came out pretty hunky-dorily. You can even save the un-deep fried ones in the freezer for later deep-frying! I ended up doing that because I worked at a restaurant with a real deep-fryer... it may have gotten me some brownie points with the boss/co-workers.

My one major regret... no dipping sauce. Man... I would've killed for some tonkatsu sauce.

OK, there's another major regret: deep-frying at home makes the whole house smell like a french fry for a while. Make sure your windows are wide open, or better yet, do it outside and be the deep-fried envy of your neighborhood!!

Moving away from the world of fried and into the world of steamed... steamed egg that is. I don't know why this steamed egg is such a difficult concept to describe to others. Fortunately I have this handy dandy picture to show you.

So you have a few eggs that you crack into a metal bowl (for the love of god put some non-stick spray in there too), whisk whisk whisk, add water and salt, then place into an even larger pot that has water in it. Boil. Place lid on the big pot. Steam the egg for... a long time. Maybe 10-15 minutes? I forget how long it is exactly, but you can't check it too often or else the egg will get weird. When it's done, the egg shouldn't be too watery but not uber hard either. The most difficult part of the steamed egg is putting in the right amount of water and salt. You can also add green onion (as pictured) or some red pepper powder for spice. Oh yeah, you can also add shrimp, but as you may know, I really @%^&*@!* hate seafood.

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.

Wow, what a mess that was...

(tbc)