When I went to Frankfurt last weekend, I had the chance to visit an Asian grocery store which is one of the biggest I know around the Hessen area. I was so happy when I saw fresh Korean rice cakes available in the store, I directly grabbed two packets and put them in my shopping basket.

A few months ago I made Rabokki, Korean rice cakes with ramen noodles, seasoned with Korean hot pepper paste. Unfortunately I had to use dried sliced Chinese rice cakes for the Rabokki, instead of the usual Korean cylinder-shaped rice cakes. It was good, but I knew that fresh rice cakes would make the dish taste even better!

This time I wanted to make the more popular Ddubokkie - simply rice cakes without the ramen noodles. Personally I find most Ddubokkie recipes too sweet and too bland, so this time I simply cooked the Ddubokkie to my liking - hot and savoury, instead of hot and sweet.

Seafood Ddubokkie

• 500 gram fresh (cylinder-shaped) Korean rice cakes, cooked in boiling water for 2 minutes
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 200 grams seafood (prawns, clams, squid, etc)
• 100 grams chicken fillet, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 100 grams fish cakes, sliced
  
• 3 bird's eye chillies, seeded and sliced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
  
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons Gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
• 50 ml water
  
• 1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes (or to your taste)
• Sugar to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped green onions

Instructions

• Heat oil in a skillet. Add garlic and fish cakes and stir fry for one minute.
• Add chicken, seafood, bird's eye chilli slices and fish sauce. Mix well and cook over medium heat until the chicken pieces are slightly brown.
  
• Toss in all the other ingredients (except green onions) and cook for around 3 minutes. Coat the rice cakes well with the sauce.
  
• Lastly, add green onions, mix well and turn off the stove.
  

Two days ago I received the Korean cookbook which I ordered from Amazon.de. It's in German and written by three Korean women who have settled in Germany for a few decades. The book is beautifully illustrated by Tina Kraus and I was very thrilled by the cookbook since I am a real sucker for good, colourful illustrations - if you are more into photos, then this book is not really for you, but if you love something delicious and artistic at the same time, I highly recommend this cookbook :).

The cover says what the cookbook is about:
The Korea-Cookbook - Pictures, Stories, Recipes

The cookbook costs €19,95 which I think is quite decent for 160 pages of delicious recipes and heartwarming illustrations.

A sample of two pages from the cookbook.

Usually I love to look at Maangchi's site, Aeri's Kitchen or Beyond Kimchee when I want to cook something Korean, but I still love 'old-fashioned' (cook)books which I can hold in my hands - in fact I do have a collection of them...:)!

Originally the recipe in the book is called Dwaejigogitwigim - Fried sweet and sour pork, but after doing some research, I couldn't find any recipes with the Korean name Dwaejigogitwigim, instead most (Korean/ and non Korean) people refer to Korean-style sweet and sour pork as Tangsuyuk - that's why I decided to stay with this name, or are there any Koreans out there who would like to enlighten me with the difference between Dwaejigogitwigim and Tangsuyuk? I'd be very grateful :)!

Korean-Style Sweet and Sour Pork - serves 4

Adapted from Das Korea-Kochbuch

• 600 grams pork, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 cups tapioca starch
• Oil to deep fry the pork

Marinade sauce

• 3 cm ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoon sesame oil
• Black pepper to taste

Sweet and Sour Sauce

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• 3 slices of canned pineapple, cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 carrot, sliced thinly
• 1 sweet pepper, cut into cubes
• 1 spring onion, sliced
  
• 1 tablespoon tapioca starch, mixed with 3 tablespoons water
• 400 ml water
• 3 tablespoons vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

• Marinade the pork pieces with the marinade-sauce for 2 hours (I only waited for 20 minutes).
• Cover each pork piece with tapioca starch before deep frying.
• Sweet and Sour sauce: Heat oil in wok and stir fry the onion and carrot until slightly brown.
• Add water and the rest of the sauce ingredients (except the sweet pepper and spring onion). Cook for 1 minute.
  
• Add the sweet pepper cubes and spring onion slices just before you turn off the heat. Mix well.
• Serve the sauce on top of the deep-fried pork pieces.

This recipe is very delicious, the only thing that could have been better is the pork bites, they could have been crispier. I think the batter from the Korean Fried Chicken would be perfect for the pork.

How do you like my new tiffin bento box which I bought from Amazon.de? I am in love with this box because it looks very simple yet sophisticated and elegant :).

I made this bento meal for my husband yesterday. If you have seen my Marie Antoinette bento post, you'd notice that all the main and side dishes in this bento are exactly the same as the ones in my Marie Antoinette bento. This is because I made both bento boxes on the same day.

This time I used Maangchi's Beef Bulgogi recipe, but we wanted it spicy, so I added a few tablespoons of gochujang and chili pepper flakes to the bulgogi marinade. I also added minced pear for natural sweetness.

Spicy Beef Bulgogi with Shimeji Mushrooms
Adapted from Maangchi

• 500 grams thinly sliced beef
• 200 grams shimeji mushrooms
  
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 pear, minced
• 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
  
• 1 tablespoons chili pepper flakes
  
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, sliced

Instructions

• Mix all ingredients together (except the shimeji mushrooms) and marinade for 2 hours (I did mine in 30 minutes and it was fine too...!!)
• Grill or stir fry the beef bulgogi for a few minutes.
  
• Add the shimeji mushrooms and cook together with the beef for another 2 minutes.
• Serve with rice and toasted sesame seeds.

REMINDER



My Bento Contest will end tomorrow, 20th December 2011, at midnight GMT+1. You still have one day to go if you want to participate in the contest.

You may send me an older bento photo as well, as long as you have never submitted this photo to another contest.

If you haven't got a confirmation e-mail from me within 24 hours after submitting your bento photo, you should let me know by sending an e-mail to cookinggallery@yahoo.de - in case that your submission goes to my spam filter...

So far here are the bento photos from all the contestants. I think they're all really creative, I am sure we'd have a hard time choosing the winners...! Enjoy looking at the lovely bentos :D)!



You can also go to my Flickr Page to read more about the contestants' bentos :).

Korean Spicy Stir-Fried Pork or Doejibulgogi or Jeyuk bokkeum is my husband's absolute favourite Korean food. When I was still studying in Sydney, my husband (then boyfriend) visited me quite regularly and when he was there, we would go to the various food courts in China Town and tried different kinds of delicious Asian foods. We got to know Doejibulgogi in one of those food courts. We loved it that we always got kimchi and cabbage salad as side dishes for free everytime we bought something Korean - we were just poor students back then ;).

Since finding Korean restaurants in Germany is like looking for a needle in a haystack, I've converted to watching cooking videos from YouTube instead ;) and tried to make
Korean dishes myself at home. My references usually come from one these talented ladies: the cool Maangchi, Aeri from Aeri's Kitchen and Anna Kim from Korean Cuisine.

Spicy Stir-Fried Pork
Source: Aeri's Kitchen

• 2½ cups pork (Shoulder or Loin)
• ½ onion
• 2 green Onions
• 1 green hot pepper
• 1 red hot pepper

Pork Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp cooking wine
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp black pepper

Sauce Ingredients

• 5 Tbs gochujang (hot pepper paste)
• 1 Tbsp red pepper powder
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp minced garlic
• ¼ apple, minced
  
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• ½ Tbsp sesame oil

Check out this video from Aeri to see how to make Doejibulgogi.

We also had some shrimp temari sushi, Korean cabbage and carrot salad, cherry tomatoes, cucumber sticks, mini pepper and soy sauce-soaked hard-boiled egg. It was a great lunch...!

I think most people who love Korean food are familiar with Ddeokbokki - cylinder-shaped Korean rice cakes cooked in hot pepper sauce. It's a popular Korean snack food.

Rabokki is another version of Ddeokbokki. Both are basically the same thing, but Rabokki includes ramen noodles. I got the Rabokki recipe from My Korean Kitchen - very unfortunate that the blogger stopped writing because I love her recipes...!

I couldn't find cylinder-shaped rice cakes in my local Asian market, so I had to make do with sliced rice cakes. I also added ramen noodles, store-bought Korean mandu, cabbage, fish cakes, egg, onion and green onions.

Ingredients - serves 4
Adapted from My Korean Kitchen

• 1 tablespoon oil
  
• 1 pack instant noodles
  
• 300 grams rice cakes
  
• 1 onion, sliced
  
• 4 leaves of cabbage, sliced
  
• 1 stalk of spring onion, sliced
  
• 8 instant dumplings
• 100 gram fish cakes
  
• 1 hard boiled egg
• 1 sachet dashi powder
• 4 tablespoons Gochujang (Hot Pepper Paste)
• Sugar, to taste
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
  
• 1½ cups of water

Instructions

• Heat oil in a skillet. Add garlic, onion and fish cakes and stir fry for one minute.
• Add water, dashi powder and hot pepper paste. Mix well.
• Toss in all other ingredients (except green onions) and cook for around 8 minutes.
• Before you turn off the stove, add green onions and mix well.

 

As promised, here is another Easter-themed bento... Easter chicks in costumes ready to attend an Easter parade :). The chick in the bear costume looks rather unfriendly, he's probably not very happy that he needs to wear a costume and parade it around ;).

The basket is filled with 2 chick-onigiris, my version of quick and super simple Pork Bulgogi, 3 piccolinis, 2 half- hardboiled eggs (meant to look like chicks in a seal costume), a few pieces of strawberries, 2 slices of kiwi, a few pieces of grapes, red currant and lettuce.



Quick Stir-Fried Pork Bulgogi

• 500 grams pork, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 7- 8 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 - 2 tablespoons hot pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons Gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
• Sugar to taste
• Toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

• Heat oil in a wok. Stir fry pork, minced garlic and onion slices.
• When slightly brown, add soy sauce, hot pepper flakes, Gochujang and sugar.
• Continue frying until the pork is cooked.
• Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and serve hot with rice.

If you are a careful observer, you would have noticed that the chick in the bear costume has a much friendlier expression in last two the pictures of this post. I didn't like his grumpy face at all, so I finally changed his eyes and made them smaller and slightly rounder.

He still looks sad, but doesn't he look like a more well-behaved chick ;)?

That's it for now, it's getting quite late again here. I hope I can post my Peter Rabbit cake tomorrow. I have made the figurines but haven't baked the cake yet. Hopefully I can complete the cake tomorrow!

I bought this new slim 'bento box' yesterday. Well, it's actually not a bento box but a container for storing screws, nuts and bolts, etc - I bought it in a building supplies/home improvement store ;). It only costs about €1, so I thought, why not? I have been itching to make bento using a slim bento box and my new slim bento box which I ordered online a few days ago has not arrived yet, so when I saw this container, I didn't give myself a second thought and directly place it in my shopping trolley :D).

I am still very busy since we're going to start renovating our house tomorrow, so if I haven't been visiting your blogs or replying any comments or e-mails, please do understand :).

Fortunately, the weather has been quite nice lately. It's still rather cool but mostly sunny. I see lots of flowers around, including cherry blossoms and plum blossoms (which look very similar to cherry blossoms but the petals are slightly darker). My bento today is spring/hanami inspired, thus the pinkish props :).

By the way, I made kimchi yesterday, so the bento box today is filled with some Korean goodies, such as Kimchijeon (Korean Pancakes with Kimchi) and Onigiri seasoned with Kimchi juice. The two little piggies are made out of quail eggs and coloured with beet juice. I shaped the piggies into round balls by slightly pinching/forming the quail eggs with my fingers when they were still warm. This really works...! I first read about this method in Tata's blog, so thanks, Ta :)!

Kimchijeon with Whole Kimchi Leaves - serves 7
Adapted from Maangchi

• 7 Kimchi leaves
• 150 grams ground pork
• 125 gram minced tofu
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• Flour for coating the kimchi leaves

Please check this link for directions. I made the second type of kimchi pancakes, the one with ground pork, minced tofu and whole kimchi leaves. I find this version tastier than the normal round kimchi pancake with the flour/water batter.

Easy Kimchi Onigiri

• Cooked rice
• Kimchi juice
• Chopped green onions
• Nori (roasted seaweed) to decorate the onigiri

I also had tamagoyaki, 1/2 mini cucumber, 1/2 mini orange sweet pepper, 1 chilli, 1 blanched carrot flower, blanched broccoli, 2 ham flowers, grapes, 1 strawberry, 2 blackberries and red currant in the bento box.

Now I need to get some sleep as it's almost midnight here. So good night, everyone :)!

No, I didn't fill in the kimbap with hammies...;). They're too cute to eat - I only eat non good-looking animals you see...;b). Well, I had a hard day today and my mood is not the best, that's why my sense of humour is just totally off (even though I know that I am not the most humourous person in the world... ;)!).

I made the kimbap at the weekend. The filling includes rice, crab sticks, avocado, cucumber, mayonnaise, tamagoyaki (Japanese omelette / Korean Gyeranmalyee) and toasted sesame seeds. If you know how to roll sushi maki, making kimbap is extremely easy, because the method is exactly the same.



The hammie in the middle is made out of chicken katsu, decorated with cheese and nori eyes, sausage paws and nose and cheese and ham ears.

Wow, three bentos in a row within three days ;)! I think I have made my husband very happy. The bento today was quite simple to make, except the three little bears, because I had to shape/cut out everything by hand...But I think in the end it's worth it, even though I can't wait for my bento accessories to arrive - imagine how much time I would save slaving away in the kitchen...!

The bears are just normal onigiri (plain white rice) decorated with nori eyes, salami nose and ham cheeks. I also steamed three Prawn and Chives Dumplings and made Korean Hot and Spicy Squid (Ohjinguh bokkeum) for the bento.

I adapted the recipe for the Ohjinguh bokkeum from Maangchi's site. The squid turned out delicious...!

Korean Hot and Spicy Squid - serves 2 - 4 people

• 1 kilogram squid, cut into strips
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 stalks green onions, cut into strips
• 2 medium onions, sliced thinly
• 1 - 2 carrots, sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons hot pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon Korean hot pepper paste
• Toasted sesame seeds

Instructions

• In a wok, or large cooking skillet, heat oil on high.
• Add minced garlic and fry until fragrant, about 20 seconds.
• Toss in carrots and onions. Saute for 2 minutes.
• Add squid, soy sauce, hot pepper flakes, hot pepper paste and sugar. Saute for a few minutes until the squid is cooked.
• Lastly, add green onions. Toss well to combine. Let cook for 1 minute.
• Sprinkles with toasted sesame seeds.

I knew I had to make Yangnyeom Tongdak after I saw the recipe in Maangchi's website. I was a bit skeptical in the beginning when I saw that she used potato flour and sweet glutinous flour to coat the chicken, because I thought it would make the chicken somehow chewy instead of crunchy. But seeing how Maangchi's fried chicken turned out in her video and as so far all the recipes I have tried from her site are never disappointing, I felt very encouraged to try it - And it was absolutely the right decision. The fried chicken together with the red sauce was totally delicious! One of the best fried chickens I know. I was positively surprised by how crunchy the chicken was. I even called my mum and asked her to try it too, and she loves it...!

I didn't use chicken drumsticks nor chicken wings, because my husband doesn't like eating chicken with bones, that's why I used chicken thigh fillet cut into small cubes. I changed the recipe for the sauce quite here and there because I lacked some ingredients, such as tomato ketchup and rice syrup, but the sauce still tasted absolutely delicious...!!

Ingredients

Korean Fried Chicken

• 1 kilogram chicken thigh fillet, cut into small cubes
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup potato starch powder (I used tapioca flour)
  
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup glutinous flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg
• Oil for frying the chicken
• Toasted sesame seeds for garnish
  

The Sauce

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons Korean hot pepper paste
• 1 tablespoon honey (or more if you don't find it sweet enough)
• 1 tablespoon apple vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Tonkatsu sauce
• 50 ml boiling water

Instructions

Fried Chicken

• Season the chicken chunks with salt and pepper. Mix well with your hands.
• Add all dry ingredients: tapioca flour, glutinous flour, all-purpose flour and baking soda, plus the egg.
• Mix everything well. When you notice that it's too dry, add some drops of water, just to make sure that the chicken chunks are well coated.
• Fry the chicken over high heat for 10 minutes.

The Sauce

• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a pan. Add the minced garlic and stir fry for 30 seconds under medium heat.
• Add hot pepper sauce, honey, Tonkatsu sauce, apple vinegar and boiling water. Cook for 1 minute.

How to serve

• Toss in the freshly fried chicken chunks to the sauce. Coat well.
• Sprinkle the chicken with toasted sesame seeds.
• Serve with rice and vegetables.

I just bought a bento box some time ago and I was dying to use it, that's why I arranged the Yangnyeom Tongdak in my new bento box together with some vegetables, orange slices and two onigiri :). My first bento...! I will certainly make more bentos in the future, and probably even some cute ones too. So stay tuned :D.

I participated in a Korean (food) photo contest some time ago. This contest was organised by Maangchi, the online Korean food goddess :). I sent two pictures, one from my Piggy Pork buns post and the other one from my Kimchi mandu post. I was lucky and I got the 4th and 9th place...! Two days ago I received two big boxes from Sempio Foods, a Korean food company which sponsored Maangchi's photo contest. I was so very happy... :D!!! Lookie what I got...!

I got 4 bottles of soy sauce, 8 bottles of drinking black vinegar with 4 different flavours: Quince/Citrus, Red ginseng, Wild Grapes and Pomegranate (need to try them, I have never in life drunk black vinegar...), 4 bottles of seasoning soy sauce (for soups and stir-frying), hot-pepper paste, soy-bean paste, grilled seaweed and 3 sachets of instant seasoning sauce.

I tried one of the instant sachets today. Since my knowledge of Korean is zero, I had to check the Sempio website to find out the names of each instant sauce ;). The one below is Mokpo Nakji-Bokkeum sauce or Spicy Stir-Fried Baby Octopus in English.

The sauce tastes great but extremely hot...!! I drank 2 litres of water while eating the stir-fried squid - this was a mistake I suppose, since I have heard that water would only make it worse and we should drink milk instead to neutralise the biting sensation. I felt bloated afterwards, but it was nevertheless a very nice meal :).

I used 800 g of squid, 2 tbs oil, 1 medium onion and spring onions plus the sauce to make this dish.

I ate the spicy squid with rice together with the grilled seaweed which I also got from Sempio. I absolutely adore the seaweed, it was crispy, crunchy and slightly salty. Just delicious!

Thank you, Maangchi and Sempio!!

The weather has not been very friendly the past few days - it's dark, gloomy, cold and wet. Winter is definitely on its way! But this also means, "soup time" for me :)! I have always enjoyed eating different types of soups and stews, especially when the weather is bitterly cold, there's just something comforting about slurping a bowl of warm noodle or chicken soup...! Well..., I don't actually slurp my soup, but I somehow like the word 'slurping' because it reminds me of Japanese cartoon characters who totally enjoy devouring their ramen ;).

Actually I made this mandu soup a few weeks ago, when the weather was not that chilly yet. But I just didn't feel like posting about this soup until now. I used the same mandu recipe as last year and the stock is extremely easy to make: basically just water with dashi granules and sesame oil.

Ingredients - serves 1

• 5 mandu
• 500 ml water
• 3 tsp dashi granules
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• Chopped green onions
• Seeded red chillies, sliced
• Toasted sesame seeds
  
• Thin omelet (optional)

What to do

• Bring water to a boil. Add the mandu and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add dashi and sesame oil. Stir and let cook for another 50 seconds.
• Transfer the mandu soup to a bowl.
• Garnish with chopped green onions, chili slices, sesame seeds and thin omelet.
  

I made my first Mandu (dumplings in Korean) around a year ago when I just started blogging. Last week I made mandu again, but this time with some chopped kimchi, as I also wanted to consume my homemade kimchi in another way than just as a side dish.

You can make your own dumpling wrappers with just flour and warm water (look at my guo tie recipe), but if you've got no time to spare, ready-made dumpling wrappers can be such a timesaver!

I shaped my dumplings in 3 different ways. Which shape do you like best?

I used Maangchi's recipe this time to make the basic mandu. But I added some chopped kimchi to add some extra kimchi-kick ;).

Ingredients (makes 80)

• 1 cup ground pork
  
• 2 cups ground beef
• 2 cups chopped chives
• 4-5 soaked and chopped Shiitake mushrooms
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1/2 tofu, chopped
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• 1/2 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tbs sesame oil
• 1 egg
• 1 cup chopped green onions
• 2 cups chopped kimchi
• Mandu skins

Pan-fry your kimchi mandu and serve with kimchi and salad.

This is my favourite way of eating kimchi mandu! I let my mandu float and swim on top of kimchi sauce :).