After my Yujacha Butter experiment, I decided to explore the world of compound butters a bit more. This recipe is called Sesame Butter with both sesame seed oil and sesame seeds mixed together with a little salt and sugar. 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds 1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature 2 tbsp dark sesame…
Check out Seoulgrid.com/Macaroni Market
Seoulgrid.com is a website/blog dedicated to “deliver the latest news in nightlife scenes in Seoul. This includes exposing the greatest restaurants, clubs and bars, as well as giving you information on the hottest parties and events.” They just set up their own YouTube channel to pick up where the blog leaves off. Their inaugural post…
Recipe: Lemon Soju with Szechuan Button Garnish
This is a refreshing cocktail built by blending fresh lemonade with soju (a Korean rice liquor). Rimming the glass with petals pinched from Szechuan buttons takes the citrus zing to a new level that’ll not only pucker your lips but make them tingle too! Ingredients: 1 cup organic sugar + 1 cup of water= simple…
Recipe: Yuja Butter
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with compound butters. A compound butter is a butter that has additional flavors, herbs, etc. added to it. The garlic butter you find at a lot of restaurants and steak houses is a classic example of a compound butter. Yujacha Butter (yields approx 1 cup) ½ cup yujacha ½ cup butter…
Fukuoka Soy Sauce Brewing Company develops salt-free soy sauce
Photo by Paul Preacher, courtesy of sxc.hu Scientists at Japan’s Fukuoka Soy Sauce Brewing Company released a report about their efforts to create a salt-free soy sauce and its positive results in reducing high blood pressure in hypertensive rats. The salt-free soy sauce is made by fermenting soybeans with Aspergillus oryzae, which is a fungus…
12 Days of Tteok: Hosting your own Tteokbokki Festival
In preparation for the Korean New Year in 2010, I prepared 12 recipes drawing upon sauce ideas from around the world to pair with Korean cylindrical rice cakes, called garae tteok. It was partly inspired by Seoul’s annual Tteokbokki Festival held on May 7-9, 2010. If you weren’t able to make to Seoul in time…
Korean beef jerky is jjang!
Robert Kim of Artisan Snacks Corp. has created a Korean spin on beef jerky, calling it Go-ggi. That’s an appropriate name, resembling the Korean word for meat. Mr. Kim’s Go-ggi has the right combination of sweet, salty and spicy one would expect from some good kalbi (grilled beef ribs) or bulgogi, (sweet, savory stewed beef)….
Wild Ramps Pesto
Wild Ramp Pesto from Food52 on Vimeo. Ramps are eagerly awaited as an harbinger of spring. Wild Garlic, aka Ramps, are in season in the Northern Hemisphere and food bloggers all over North America are posting recipes showing people how to use them in their own cooking. Part of the appeal is that they are…
Tteokbokki Festival in Seoul
Hyun-Woo Sun of Send Me To Korea grabbed his video camera and visited the Tteokbokki (떡볶이) Festival this past week at the AT Center in Seoul. Vendors from all over Seoul served up over a dozen variations on this classic street vendor food. If you want to check out a version with little narration, check…
Where does your food really come from? Food, Inc. documentary
I sat down and watched the 2010 Oscar®-nominated documentary Food, Inc. via Netflix. This documentary touches on so many issues revolving around the who, what, when, where, why and how of how our food gets from the farm to the market. However, as I was watching the documentary, I found myself thinking over and over…