Korean Food Week

Note: For all those who wonder why I keep posting recipes and menu plans, I know it's probably pretty dry reading... but I'm kind of scatterbrained and I need my menu and recipes someplace where I can't lose them! ^_^

As the controller of all things food-related, I have decreed that this week is Korean Food Week. This will mean a trip to the Asian Market on my parents' end of town on Monday to acquire the missing food items that cannot be bought in a regular grocery store, but that is fine. Here is a run-down of the planned menu:

Monday - 떡만두국, or rice cake and dumpling soup. Rice cake soup is a traditional food to be served on New Years', but JM said that 떡국 ("ddeok gook", rice cake soup) was too boring by itself. So I'm adding dumplings to it, which he says will do the trick. 만두국 ("man-doo gook", dumpling soup) is one of my favorite dishes to order at Korean restaurants. I hope mine will live up! The recipe I will be using can be found here. Mmm...

Tuesday - 마파두부, Ma-Po Tofu. The recipe was posted before here, but I think it still needed some tweaking. Hopefully this will last us into Wednesday, but if it doesn't we will adjust as needed.

Wednesday supplement- 장조림 "jang-jo-reem". Yahoo's Korean-English dictionary defines this as "beef boiled down in soy," but JM calls it "stringy beef". It's kind of hard to describe, but it's very very good. It's beef brisket poached, I guess you could say, in soy sauce, garlic and sugar. The taste is wonderful and it's the kind of food I wish I could eat more often. It's also the bane of my culinary existence. Everytime I try to make it, it turns out very wrong. :P So this time I have a foolproof method! I'm going to defrost the batch that JM's mother made for us and serve that! And then *next* time I'll humiliate myself again as I try to make it. lol

Thursday - 닭도리탕, "dak do-ree tang". This has no real translation. 탕 means stew and 닭 means chicken, so I guess it's some kind of chicken stew, but I am completely unaware of a meaning for "do-ree". The recipe I use was given to me by a friend of mine from Korea who was in my department at college. Unfortunately, that recipe has been lost somewhere at my parents house and must be found! All of the other recipes I have tried have not quite been right in comparison. But in the sad event that I will have to base my food on another recipe, it will be one of these.

Friday - leftovers OR 제육구이 "jeh-yook goo-ee," grilled/roasted pork. This is a recipe from a Korean cookbook I was given entitled "Korean Home Cooking." I have found that the recipes are not exactly what I'd term 'home cooking' because they're way too involved and fancy (for example, the author always says to separate an egg, fry the white and yolk separately and then slice thin and serve as garnish over the meal), but the basic recipes are pretty good I suppose. I've never tried this particular recipe before, but I'm *hoping* that it will taste somewhat similar to the 매운 닭구이 ("mae-oon dak goo-ee", spicy grilled chicken) I had at a Korean restaurant once which JM said tasted like how his mom make pork. So that's what I'm aiming for. I will post the recipe later on.

Saturday - leftovers OR 비빔밥 "bee-beem-bap," which is basically Korean salad served over hot rice with spicy red pepper dressing. Very, very versatile.

This is already too long.... so my notes on side dishes will have to be put in another post so as not to COMPLETELY bore all our readers. ;)

To be continued.....