shutitdown: taking one for the anecdote

Results tagged “recipes”

Korean tacos: my one hope for true love

So the other day my mother sent me this article about Korean tacos. Not just a Korean taco, but a Korean taco truck. I love Korean food, I love tacos, and I love street food. This could possibly be my most favoritest thing in the entire world. Mainly because I hate everything else.

Unfortunately, I don't live in Los Angeles (thank you, christ), so I had to make them myself. I've been penpalling with Jennifer of the EatDrinkTalk cooking school (read: I've been harassing her via email) and with her enthusiastic encouragement, decided to give it a go. Results below:

The picture doesn't do it justice because I still haven't read my effing camera book. This was one of my favorite meals ever. I made it with spicy pork, seasoned cucumbers, kimchi, seasoned green onions and seasoned soybean sprouts. However, I think almost any combo of Korean BBQ meat and banchan would be delicious. Beef bulgogi with kimchi and radish? Savage. Galbi with spinach and kimchi? Deadly. I think you'll have to include kimchi in everything if you want to be safe.

Recipes:

Spicy Sliced Pork aka Daeji Bulgogi

  • 1 pound sliced pork sirloin
  • 1.5 tablespoons chili paste
  • 1.5 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 (1/2 inch) piece of ginger, minced
  • 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
  • black pepper
  • 1 green onion, chopped (optional)
  • 1/2 white onion, chopped (optional)
  • Korean pear (optional)

    1. Combine the sliced pork with the chili paste, sugar, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil and onion, if using. Let marinate for appoximately 30 min. (You can also throw in some mashed Korean pear to help tenderize the meat, if you're feeling up to it.)

    2. Stir-fry the meat until thoroughly, usually around 5 to 7 minutes. Add black pepper if needed. add green onion, if using.

    Banchan: Seasoned cucumbers, kimchi, seasoned green onions and seasoned soybean sprouts. Most Korean side dishes are seasoned with garlic, salt, sesame oil, red pepper and rice vinegar. I'm not going to put recipes here because they are super easy and all over the internet and none of you are going to make this anyway. If you do want to make anything, check out my favorite Korean cooking site: Maangchi

    • By Lina on March 3, 2009 6:44 PM

    Vietnamese sandwiches don't let you down

    Sometimes I think that I'd probably be a lot better off if instead of people in my life, I only had Vietnamese sandwiches. This one is a ham and headcheese with pork pate from Banh Mi Ba Le Vietnamese Sandwiches in El Cerrito, California.

    Vietnamese sandwich recipe:

  • baguette/French bread
  • Vietnamese ham, sliced
  • pork ham, sliced
  • Vietnamese pate (note: you can get Vietnamese ham, pate and other unidentifiable meats in tubes at many Asian markets)
  • daikon radish, julienned
  • carrots, julienned
  • green onion, thinly sliced
  • cucumber, julienned
  • red onion, thinly sliced
  • cilantro/coriander
  • jalepeno or other chili, thinly sliced
  • mayonnaise
  • Vietnamese soy sauce
  • salt and pepper
  • Sriracha (optional)

    1. Cut the baguette to a proper sandwich size, and cut a deep slit in it (but don't fully separate it)
    2. Sprinkle the carrots and cucumbers with salt and pepper, let stand five minutes until supple. Toss with soy sauce and squeeze out extra moisture.
    3. Open the bread, add mayo and layer all ingredients in sandwich
    Note: This recipe is incredibly versatile, add or substitute ingredients as you like and it will still probably be pretty damn good.
    4. Add some sriracha (hot sauce) if you like a little heat

    • By Lina on February 9, 2009 11:35 PM

    Smugly-made pizza

    When I lived in New York I used to live above a pizza joint called 'Little Frankie's.' Ever the lazy slob, I'd order delivery from upstairs and sit around playing video games while the poor delivery man walked my pizza up four flights of stairs. I ate a lot of Little Frankie's during this period of my life. I think it's likely that I was also clinically depressed, but the pizza certainly did help temper that.

    Little Frankie's pizzas were amazing. Very thin crusts and simple topping were the key. After I left New York and went to California I found a few places that had good pizzas. Dopo on Piedmont Ave in Oakland was one. But the wait for Dopo was ridiculous, and so were the prices. So I started making my own pizza. Not by my own hand, mind you. I bought fresh pizza dough at Trader Joe's and despite it already being made for me, spent a good long time wrestling it into a circular formation and onto a pizza pan. I also ate a lot of pizza during this period of my life.

    But then when I moved to Dublin, I gave up on pizza. No one would deliver gorgeous thin pizzas, and no one wanted to sell me ready-made dough. I thought my pizza life had ended. But recently, being inspired by the grocery delivery services available around here, I decided to give it a go. Somehow, having yeast delivered just made the whole thing more manageable and I decided to make pizza from scratch. I'd been hearing and resenting Fran's casual "oh, we have homemade pizza twice a week at least" stories for years, so I figured I might as well make her recipe.

    I was remarkably pleased with myself. The crust was thin but not mushy, my guest was delighted and I was full and smug. Pizza? Yeah, I made you.

    Fran and Dan's pizza dough recipe, adapted from the Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe bible: Fastest Pizza Dough

    • 1 1/2 c. warm water (about 105 degrees)
    • 1 envelope (2 1/4 tsp. rapid-rise dry yeast
    • 1 tbs. sugar
    • 2 tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
    • 2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour
    • 2 c. whole wheat pastry flour, plus extra for dusting hands and work surfaces
    • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
    • extra olive oil for oiling bowl

      1. Set oven to 200 degrees for 10 minutes, then turn oven off.
      2. Meanwhile, pour water into a large bowl. Sprinkle yeast and sugar into water and mix. Add oil, flour, and salt and mix until the dough is cohesive. It should be soft and a little sticky. (If it’s too sticky add a tablespoon or so of extra flour at a time.)
      3. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand with a few strokes to form a smooth, round ball.
      4. Place the dough into a deep, lightly oiled bowl and cover with a damp kitchen towel (or plastic wrap). Set the bowl in the oven for 40 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
      5. Remove from oven, punch the dough down, and turn out onto a lightly floured work surface. Use a chef’s knife or dough scaper to halve, quarter, or cut dough into eighths. Form each piece into a ball and cover with a damp cloth. Let rest for 5 -30 minutes.
      6. Set one dough ball aside and wrap the rest tightly in plastic wrap. Store them in the freezer.
      7. Place a large cookie sheet in the oven and preheat to 450 degrees.
      8. Using your hands, flatten the dough and stretch it outward with your fingertips, rotating the dough to form a circle or oblong rectangle. Use a rolling pin to further flatten it, if you like.
      9. Gently transfer the dough to a pizza peel dusted with flour or cornmeal (we use a flexible cutting board — we don’t have a pizza peel) and top as desired.
      10. Use a quick jerking action to transfer the pizza from the peel (or cutting board) to the hot pan in the oven. Bake for 5 to 12 minutes, depending on the size of the pizza. Serve immediately.
    By Lina on December 5, 2008 3:35 PM

    The family eggnog

    The other night I mysteriously had a craving for the drink of my childhood. Perhaps not so mysteriously, as it's exactly the sort of thing that someone on a weight gain regime--which I clearly am--would long for. The drink is called eggnog, and consists of a glass of milk with a raw egg dumped into it, sugar, and a dash of nutmeg. My mother would put this in the blender and add a liberal dash of food coloring and then pour me a tall, lactic glass of teal or lavender eggnog.

    I wrote to my mother to get confirmation of the recipe and got this in response:

    "Are you accidentally writing to the wrong person?"

    And then when I insisted that I remembered said eggnog very clearly, I got this:

    "Maybe you're remembering your birth mother."

    And finally, the concession:

    "I'm willing to believe I made egg nog, though, because I felt it was my maternal duty to pump you kids full of protein and dairy, and back then raw eggs weren't regarded as a health risk. And I've always loved food coloring."

    By Lina on November 25, 2008 11:02 PM

    I love pancakes

    Today was Pancake Day in Ireland. I'm not sure what exactly it's all about, but apparently it's in some way related to Jesus. A lot of things here are. I didn't see it coming, Pancake Day, but looking back on it, it seems so obvious. The other day I was in a taxi and there was a radio show talking about pancakes. Yeah, that was a little weird, but not extraordinary. Then, in the Spar, (it's like 7-11) they had a whole special shelf of pancake mixes. I remember cackling because they had some labeled "American Style." Spar has an entire line of "American Style" products, like Apple Pie Cookies and American Cola. I heard people exchanging recipes in hushed tones on the bus. Pancakes have been in the air for over a week.

    Then today I get to work, and they have pancakes in the canteen being made fresh right there on the spot for us. And there was fresh fruit. I haven't had decent fruit in nearly a year, but today I had at least a full cup of blueberries. (The other day I almost bought some raspberries, but at $9 for under a cup, I just couldn't do it.) It was amazing. Apparently this is somehow related to Lent and Jesus and suffering, but the only suffering I could see is the result of these crazy people only eating pancakes one day a year.

    Living in a Catholic country is a strange thing. One day I saw a man ride his bike past a the church near my house and do the sign of the cross while still on the bicycle. Look Ma, no hands! He's probably got a stack of pancakes today.

    By Lina on February 6, 2008 1:35 AM

    Making kimchi

    I'm not sure why I've finally decided to make kimchi, because I've found a brand available here in Ireland that's really good, finally. But my dad sent me a recipe that was for a reasonable amount--most recipes are to make about 80 gallons at once, and no matter how much I love fermented cabbage, I'm just not going to go there. So I made this recipe once and it ended up being so salty that I almost tore my face off. So in the face of defeat, I made it again. It was the perfect amount for me, 1 ball jar, a pint, I think? And without the extra two cups of salt, it's pretty good.

    1/2 large Chinese or Napa cabbage
    1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon salt
    1/2 cup Korean chili powder
    2 tablespoons crushed garlic
    1 teaspoon crushed ginger
    2 tablespoons sugar
    1 bunch green onions, sliced thin

    Dissolve the 1/4 cup salt in water (in a bowl). Throw in the cabbage and let sit overnight. The next day, squeeze the cabbage and get the water out. Slice into kimchi sized pieces. In mixing bowl add salt (don't overdo it kids), pepper, pepper powder, garlic and ginger. Stir it around. Add the green onions and pack it all into a jar of some kind. Leave it at room temperature for a day, then refrigerate.

    More about kimchi and pics and stuff here.

    By Lina on January 31, 2008 3:05 PM

    Soybean paste stew, or one of my many attempts to be Korean

    Korean food is one of my favorite things. Strangely enough, there's not a whole lot of it around Ireland. I saw a ton of Korean places in Rotterdam when I was there over New Year's, though. But that's neither here nor there. Tonight I made a soybean paste soup (dubu doenjang jigae) and it was pretty good. What's nice about these sort of soups is that you can basically put anything in, or change the amounts to fit whatever you have, and it generally works out.

    I used:
    1 t sesame oil
    1/2 onion
    2 cloves garlic
    1/2 zuchinni
    1/3 Chinese cabbage
    1/2 cup thinly sliced daikon (radish)
    2 green onions
    1 cup diced tofu
    2-3 T doenjang (fermented soybean paste)
    1 T gochujang (red chili paste)
    1 t red pepper powder
    1 t dashida (Korean beef stock) for that nice msg flav
    1 t soy sauce, because despite said msg, I still wanted more salt

    I cooked the onions and garlic and then threw the rest into the pot with about 4-5 cups of water. Walked away for about 20 minutes and when I came back, dinner was ready. Serve with rice. Because I'm a beast and am constantly concerned that I don't consume enough calories, I like to throw a raw egg into many of my Korean soups and mix it around in the final minute of cooking. Completely unnecessary.

    Here's another recipe from my favorite Korean cooking site for this type of soup: dubu-doenjangjjigae

    By Lina on January 29, 2008 8:49 PM
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