Here is a jar of Chef Hyejin's famous Soy Sauce Pickles that she made as prizes for the fermentation celebration party that is happening Saturday. She made these a couple days ago to let them pickle and then sealed them in the jars today. These pickles are a big hit at our school and we often eat them as a snack or with our lunch. We have also been experimenting with Andong Jjimdak. Here is a sample that we made for a student that requested it. We'll be making this next month on Saturday so be sure to sign up.

clockwise from left: egg, kimchi, lotus roots, roasted laver, garlic stems

Piyang Kong Halmoni, on the back street of Seolleung's main drag has North Korean Style Food. Everything is homemade and made in house. When I think of North Korean cuisine is a bit saltier and without the spice you find in typical South Korean cuisine. Piyang Kong Halmoni's food has zip to it. It's got an essence of spring in each side dish (banchan) and in their main dishes. Here is a vegetable banchan. There is a plethora of fresh spring greens here in a spicy, soy, garlic, fish sauce mixture. The vegetables have crunch because the sauce is mixed in with the fresh greens and not fermented. Here is their fried tofu banchan with a sweet chili sauce on top. Notice the golden brown on the tofu. You can tell that this restaurant emphasizes quality because they are using fresh oil to fry the dish. If they didn't, the tofu would have a darker color. The tofu here is firm, let soft. It crumbles, yet stays together. It's a mystery on how they achieve this perfect texture,...

It must be the Korean way of *hinting* the need to marry you off soon. Well regardless of hidden meanings or codes, I'm just happy to be spending an afternoon with my grandmother learning how to make banchan(반찬), side dishes that accompany the main meal. Today she taught me how to make black bean in soy sauce banchan (콩자반) Ingredients (it seems that Koreans cook in ratios, so that's how I'm listing it here) - Dry black beans (the ratio is 2:2 beans to water) - Water - Salt (literally a pinch with your fingers) - Soy sauce (2:2.5 beans to soy sauce) - Dark brown sugar (2:0.75 beans to sugar) - Option: Sprinkle sesame seeds to garnish [1] 2 cups of dried black beans [2] Wash them clean [3] Add 2 cups of water to the beans [4] Add 2-1/2 cups soy sauce to the water + bean mix [5] Shut the pressure cooker and on high heat let it cook for 10 minutes [6] Open the pressure cooker, take it off the heat and add 3/4cup of dark brown sugar to the mix [7] Bring back to a boil with the l...

Baby Squid, Spicy plums, pickled sesame leaves, and fried anchovies with baby shrimp. Of course. I do all the time. They are yummy.

My mother mails me banchan (side-dish) all the time and one of my favorites are fried grasshoppers with a bit of soy sauce. They are crunchy like the little shrimp banchan. I love hummus. When I lived in a America, I would always go to Trader Joes (a gourmet grocery store) and stock up on hummus and sugar snap peas. The sugar snap peas are the perfect way to scoop up the chickpea puree. Salam Bakery in Itaewon 02-749-4323. They speak English, Korean, and Arabic. It's up by the mosque in Itaewon.

One of my favorite Korean foods is Sundubu. It is a soft tofu stew that has chili paste, sesame oil, and vegetables. It comes boiling to the table and it tastes best when you drop a raw egg into the broth as soon as it comes to the table. The heat from the broth will soft boil the egg. The yolk should be a bit runny- like a sunny side up egg. When you mix the creamy yolk with the spicy soup, it tastes amazing. You can get it flavored many different ways such as with pork, beef, or seafood. This one is a seafood stew with shrimp and clams. A close up of the sundubu. This one also has some straw mushrooms in it and they add a springy, noodle like texture to the dish. And you can't forget about all the different banchan. The panchan is to balance the spiciness of the stew and to accompany the rice. This one was a new discovery. It's (soft boiled?) and fried peanuts in a soy and sesame oil. The nuts were crunchy and the savory notes went well with the dish. Another favori...