the summer (squash) of our discontent

I am nothing if not inefficient when it comes to the kitchen. In this respect, the yellow crookneck squash plant is my polar opposite. My parents, apparently having missed the memo on the more monstrous properties of the courgette, have created a situation in which we will be eating approximately 750 squash before the summer is over.

 

Perhaps this would have been a more accurate depiction.

 

This couscous salad, however, matches me in its willful disregard for culinary efficacy. Its time claims were quite inaccurate - caramelizing squash (a delicious suggestion, btw) takes closer to ten minutes than four. And despite promising to dispose of a pound - a whole pound! - of these yellow lovelies, it utilized exactly one squash, plus maybe a quarter of another that was left in the refrigerator. Those who partook pronounced it “a bit overly squashy.” Which leaves us with fourteen on the counter, plus more on the way.

Its refusal to dispose of our squash harvest aside, it’s not bad, although it could use a bit of further modification. I poached two chicken breasts and added them to the salad to give it extra heft.  Mr. Chiarello’s directions produced squishy couscous, something I must point out that the recipe on the back of the container never does, and I added a bit of lemon and Dijon to punch up a dressing that both I and one of my fellow diners (i.e. my sister) found a bit cloying and heavy. I also substituted apricots for raisins and added carrots - more vegetables (except for the vile cucumber, which never crosses the threshold of this house, and arugula, which we didn’t have) would most certainly have enhanced the salad as well. Those of us who ate it without olives found it tasty but lacking some indefinable element (perhaps heat); those of us who added olives (me) to the original recipe did not have this issue. Perhaps retaining the arugula would have helped, but as of right now, we do not have a bumper crop of arugula.

 

 

Couscous Salad with Honey Dressing

(adapted from Michael Chiarello and the Food Network)

Consider reducing the water and/or following other directions for couscous steaming if you have them. Also, I found that the proportions of the dressing ingredients led to an oily and underflavored dressing. Increase ingredients to taste, but I wouldn’t start with anything less than 1/3 cup cider vinegar. This is also good cold.

4 cups water
Salt
1 1/2 cups couscous
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound summer squash, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

Chopped carrots (however many you want in your salad)
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon or so finely chopped fresh thyme leaves (KFB note: tore them off the branch without chopping, but ours were small)
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Juice from ¼ lemon

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Dried apricots, again - however many you want in your salad, chopped

1 pound English cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (KFB note: omitted due to disgustingness)
1 cup fresh arugula, chiffonade (KFB note: we did not have any in the house but I think it would taste good)
3 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted in 350 degree F oven for 10 minutes (KFB note: or some leftover chopped-up roasted salted almonds from a can, whatever)

Olives (a variety - Kalamata, Nicoise, etc., is nice if you have them), pitted and chopped

Juice from another ¼ lemon

 

Bring 4 cups water and 1 teaspoon salt to a boil. Gradually add the couscous. Return to a boil and let cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, cover, and let stand for 3 minutes.

 

Meanwhile, in a saute pan, heat the olive oil. Add cubed squash and carrots. (Now is the time to add other vegetables if you have them and they would benefit from a sauté.) Season with salt and pepper. Saute, stirring often, until caramelized and crispy (Michael Chiarello says this should take four minutes, but I think you should allow for at least ten). Add the fresh thyme and set aside.

 

For the dressing:

 

In a small saucepan, heat the honey and vinegar until just warm. Whisk in olive oil and season with salt and twist of pepper. Squirt in lemon juice. Taste and add more ingredients according to your preference. Remove from the heat, and add the apricots.

 

Assembly:

Fluff the couscous with a fork.

Place the arugula in a serving bowl. (Or not.) Toss with the warm squash and carrots, couscous, olives, and almonds, and add any raw vegetables you like. Add enough dressing to coat the salad. Taste and add lemon if necessary. Season with salt and pepper.

my first meal: the spaghetti debacle

Two or three weeks into staying with my host family, I decided I wanted to cook them dinner. I hadn’t cooked in a while, and I wanted to show them that I liked them. (Also, I think two months of nothing but Korean food had subconsciously begun to wear on me.) So, without knowing how to convert metric measurements, what ingredients would be available, or how to take the bus to the E-Mart on the other side of the city, I decided to cook the most difficult thing I knew: gnocchi.

yogurt-braised chicken

The constraints of cooking non-Korean food here no longer faze me. Which is to say: when I decided to cook dinner for my host family and base the entire meal around the box of taboule mix I brought from America, I simply substituted. Cinnamon went in for the cardamom. Korean red pepper stood in for cayenne. When a certain person left the cumin (a gift from America) AT THE ARCADE on the way over to my apartment, ginger and more cinnamon served as pinch hitters. When Oma (my Korean host mom) accidentally spilled half the raisin paste that was supposed to add oomph to the sauce, well, let’s just say that the “1/3-1/2 cup lemon juice” turned out to be more like “all the juice in all the lemons we have.”

To be fair, not all the substitutions were completely random; yes, the fact that cinnamon and cardamom both start with C contributed a little bit to my decision, but the original recipe supposedly originated from Morocco, and channeling the flavors of a b’steeya seemed like as logical an option as any other. And the raisin paste was supposed to add tartness and thickness to the sauce, which the lemon juice most certainly did, with the added benefit of not looking like some sort of bodily discharge.

In the end, our recipe bore little resemblance to the one with which we started. But no matter; by some stroke of luck, the dish proved a hit with my host family, my friend Scooter (the loser of the cumin), and myself. The sauce has a tamarind-like tang without an overpowering raisin flavor, the cinnamon (especially in the absence of sugar) balances the tart yogurt nicely, and the whole thing goes excellently over sticky rice, or, if you live in my house, whatever the rice is that’s left in the cooker. (I think this one had red beans.) We paired it with the taboule - I would have liked to have made homemade taboule, of course, but if I lived in a country that gave me easy access to fresh herbs and bulgur, well, let’s just say that my eating habits probably wouldn’t involve as much fried pork as they do - and a carrot salad loosely based off a recipe from Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything, one of my favorite references. We used the delicious fresh tangerines that grow on Jeju, but any oranges will do. Scooter also oversalted the salad before I could stop him, so we added more juice and another carrot, which resulted in a tasty if less than ideal salad. A little Dijon in it is also nice. These dishes don’t really belong to any particular country or culture anymore, but given the expatriate nature of their chefs, such a heritage seems rather fitting.

Recipe notes: 5 tablespoons of butter is a bit excessive, unless you like orange pools of grease on top of your chicken. While the onion wasn’t present in the original recipe, its contribution to ours proved important enough that I would recommend using it unless you don’t have it, in which case: don’t.

yogurt-braised chicken with cashews and raisins

 

(Bon Appetit, October 2007)

Ingredients

1 3-pound best-of-fryer chicken (8 pieces)
1 1/2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
4 teaspoons ground cumin, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom, divided
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 1/2 cups raisins (about 12 ounces), divided
1 1/2 cups hot water

4 cups plain yogurt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

5 tablespoons Clarified Butter
1 cup raw cashews (about 5 ounces)
10 whole cloves

1/3 to 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Preparation

Place chicken, skin side up, on rimmed baking sheet. Mix 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, 3 teaspoons cumin, 1 teaspoon cardamom, and cayenne in small bowl. Sprinkle chicken generously on all sides with spice mix. Let stand 2 hours.

Combine 1 cup raisins and 1 1/2 cups hot water in medium bowl. Cover; soak until raisins are soft, at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Blend raisins and 3 tablespoons reserved soaking liquid in mini processor, adding more soaking liquid, if needed, to make smooth paste.

Place yogurt in medium bowl; whisk 1 minute to lighten. Add black pepper, cinnamon, remaining 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon cumin, and 1/2 teaspoon cardamom and whisk to blend.

Heat butter in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add chicken, skin side down, and sauté until brown, about 6 minutes per side. Add remaining 1 1/2 cups raisins, cashews, and cloves. Slowly stir in yogurt mixture. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 12 minutes.

Transfer chicken to platter. Whisk raisin paste and 1/3 cup lemon juice into sauce. Simmer to blend, whisking constantly, about 4 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired. Spoon over chicken.

My version:

yogurt-braised chicken with cashews and raisins, v.2

• 3 pounds of chicken, any combination of pieces
• 1 1/2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 4 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 cups raisins (about 12 ounces), divided
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 4 cups plain yogurt
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ginger 
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 cup raw cashews (about 5 ounces)

  1/3 to 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Preparation

Place chicken, skin side up, on rimmed baking sheet. Mix 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon ginger in small bowl. Pat chicken generously on all sides with spice mix. Let stand 1-2 hours.

Combine 1/2 cup raisins and 3/4 cup hot water in medium bowl. Cover; soak until raisins are soft, at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour. Drain, reserving soaking liquid. Blend raisins and 1 1/2 tablespoons reserved soaking liquid in mini processor, adding more soaking liquid, if needed, to make smooth paste.

Place yogurt in medium bowl; whisk 1 minute to lighten. Add black pepper, ginger, and remaining 2 teaspoons salt and whisk to blend.

Heat butter in large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add onions and saute until soft. Add chicken, skin side down, and sauté until brown, about 6 minutes per side. Add remaining 1 1/2 cups raisins, cashews, and cloves. Slowly stir in yogurt mixture. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 12 minutes.

Transfer chicken to platter. Whisk raisin paste and 1/3 cup lemon juice into sauce. Simmer to blend, whisking constantly, about 4 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and more lemon juice, if desired. Spoon over chicken.

  

carrot salad

• 5-6 carrots, peeled and shredded
• 1-2 lemons
• 1-2 oranges
• cumin and ginger to taste
• salt

Add juice of one lemon and one orange to carrots; toss and sample. Add more of each juice to taste. Shake a little cumin and grate a little ginger (or shake some dried if you don’t have any fresh) into the salad and toss again. Add a very little bit of salt, taste, and add more if necessary. Leaving this to sit too long will cause juices, etc. to leach out of the carrots, which has no great effect on the taste but does impact presentation.

burning the midnight pudding

Being part of a real, live, functioning family means that occasionally, against your better judgment and all your inclinations, you find yourself stirring a pot of Jell-o Chocolate at 12:05 in the morning. Even though the sixth-grader who requested it picked a fight with you yesterday that didn’t even make sense, honestly, and even though you’ve been feeling inexplicably, intractably blue all day, because that pudding will catapult you - however briefly - into the ecstatic role of Best Host Sister EVERRRRRR.

I brought boxes of Cook and Serve back to Korea from my trip to America for Christmas feeling a little bit like those people who introduced horses and guns to the Native Americans, albeit on a slightly smaller scale. Pudding has already been introduced to my host family - but, given the absence of such mixes in Jeju City, they learned about it through homemade pudding, dark chocolate and cornstarch and milk cooked together until it became too rich to eat in one sitting OMG. I made it once when it was raining, and then, at my host brother’s request, I made it again for his birthday when it was really raining, aka The Day of Typhoon Nari. My friends Oregon and Hallim and I ventured out into the early stages to pick up the necessary ingredients and a few “Happy Birthday” candles from Paris Baguette, came in wetter than I thought it was ever possible to be, and served it by candlelight in plastic cups to a crowd of eager elementary-schoolers. That, I thought, was the best pudding ever.

Evidently I was wrong, however, because HB insists that this Jell-o stuff - which I like, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the same - is, in fact, the same. (It’s not the same.) And now, I’m afraid, they’ll never make it back to this dense richness that doesn’t have seaweed in it, not that its presence or absence would really make much difference in this country, I suppose.  At least for now he loves me.

TYPHOON PUDDING

Gourmet Magazine (via Food Network)

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Pinch salt
8 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened)
2 2/3 cups whole milk
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In a heavy saucepan whisk together sugar, cornstarch, and a pinch salt. Chop chocolate and add to sugar mixture. In a bowl whisk together milk and egg yolk and gradually whisk into chocolate mixture. Bring mixture just to a boil over moderate heat, whisking constantly, and boil 1 minute, whisking. Remove pan from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla. Divide pudding between 4 (8-ounce) ramekins. Chill puddings in freezer, surfaces covered with plastic wrap, until cooled, about 30 minutes.

JELL-O COOK AND SERVE PUDDING

1 box Jello Cook and Serve Chocolate Pudding
3 cups milk

Pour milk into saucepan. Stir in mix and bring to a boil over medium heat, being sure to scrape the bottom to prevent burning. As soon as pudding comes to a full boil, pour it into bowls. (Pudding will thicken as it cools, so don’t worry if it looks too thin.) Eat while warm or refrigerate. If you don’t like the congealed pudding skin, place plastic wrap on the pudding’s surface.

and I even eat blood sausage

Dear Korea,

If I could just pull my Ugly American/Ethnocentricity card for a second - I promise it will be shelved until further notice:

Corn is not a fruit.

Corn does not belong in:

- ice cream

- ice cream sundaes

- yogurt

- any sort of drink, unless it’s brewed in someone’s old radiator in Bell County, Kentucky

For tomatoes, the same applies. I know that technically they are sweetish, but if God wanted us to eat them with more sugar, He would not have made them so delicious with butter and/or garlic.

Best,

H

the foods of Chuncheon

Let’s talk about dakgalbi.

Dakgalbi is what Chuncheon is known for. That, and having Kangwon National University, I guess. Above, please observe dakgalbi pre-dakgalbi; i.e., it’s cabbage and chicken and gochujang and yams and rice cakes (ddeok), but it’s not cohesive yet.

A Korean guy stirs the dakgalbi (which is cooked on a communal griddle) as my friend Ray looks on. Notice the rockstar hair.

맛 있 어요! (Delicious!)*

At a lot of dakgalbi restaurants (maybe other ones too? I’m not sure), you’re given free cola and “cider” - Sprite, basically. It’s “service.” I.e., you don’t have to pay. Stacey is either regarding the dakgalbi or contemplating the fact that she’s the only entirely white person at the table.

To be honest, dakgalbi isn’t my favorite - it’s good, but it’s mouth-scorchingly spicy. Maybe I’m just a pansy. I prefer the rice that you can order afterwards.

They stir the rice together with the leftover dakgalbi and some other stuff. Then, if you are nice, the rice is shaped into a heart.

Seaweed (김) is “very delicious,” as my host brother would say…when it’s served with other things. I thought I liked seaweed so much that I could eat it by itself, so I bought a sixteen-pack of portable seaweed, and it turns out that I don’t like it quite that much.

Let’s talk about bar food. While we’re talking.

In Korea, drinking is invariably accompanied by eating, unless you are drinking outside a convenience store. Which is totally acceptable, by the way. People almost always order food, and it’s almost always better than American bar food, except for the copious quantities of mayonnaise. But free food usually comes with, too. The above - mandu and pajeon, or dumplings and fritters - was complimentary with a pitcher of soju cocktail.

That’s my Korean professor, 방성히 (or “Rachel Bang,” to use her “English” name). Accompanied by a pitcher of peach nectar + soju. Soju straight, as previously mentioned, is terrible, but soju with other things (juice, yogurt) is divine.

This is Spam and ketchup. For serious.

This is some sort of mayonnaise-based rice salad? I think. Not all the free food is good.

Anyway. More to come. I have time now that I live in Jeju-si.

*I use the word “delicious” more than any other here, mostly because it’s one of the only words I know how to say.

popsicles > dakgalbi

I lied.

But:  if you have always wondered what would happen if you crossed the frozen qualities of a popsicle with the packaging of a Capri Sun and the cap from a tube of toothpaste, well, then, Korea may be for you. The picture above is actually half full, because it was a hot day and I ate half of it before it occurred to me to take a photograph. The actual kiwi popsicle bag thing is much more plump and luscious.

The above quiescently frozen confection is one of my favorites, although nokcha ice cream (in the traditional popsicle shape) retains the top spot. Note:  nokcha is also delicious on patbingsu AND samgyeopsal. I would probably eat it on batteries. Not all frozen treats come in bag form, of course, but the one above is also available in coffee and vanilla flavors. I don’t recommend them. Stick with the kiwi.

playing catch-up, part one, or: I really want to become a better photographer

The thing about taking pictures of food is that usually, when such an occasion arises, it’s because the photographer is about to eat it. Therefore, I am very disappointed with my own photographic skills in the following images. What I really need to do is practice a little so I can adjust my camera quickly, instead of staving off other people’s chopsticks with my monster lens.

That having been said, I uploaded some pictures, so I can finally begin to discuss - a little - what I’ve been eating. Paintings coming soon. I’m sure you believe me.

밭빙수

(pronounced: patbingsu)

I would just like to state for the record that this is not my favorite papbingsu. This comes from CanMore, an ice cream parlor located outside the back gate of Kangwon National University. The one on the left is 녿차, or green tea, and the one on the right is strawberry.

Patbingsu is in essence an elaborate ice cream sundae.* According to Wikipedia, it started as a red bean/ice shavings concoction, and evolved into the gargantuan dessert you see above. Classic patbingsu has ice cream, red beans, and various kinds of fruit, all of which rest atop a pile of shaved ice. A number of debates seem to exist regarding how to eat patbingsu, with mixers (topping + ice) battling it out with samplers (topping, maybe some ice later) with a furor approaching the cookie-vs.-”cream”-debate among Oreo eaters in the US. Also according to Wikipedia, patbingsu is sometimes served with cherry tomatoes, which according to South Koreans actually count as a fruit. South Koreans are wrong, and I am thankful that I have not encountered any such thing.

My favorite patbingsu comes from Ice Cool, and features soft serve instead of the hard ice cream shown above. I’m usually not a soft-serve fan, but something about its texture works well with the fruit and beans - which are delicious, trust me, and add a slight savory note to what would otherwise be the Lisa Frank of summer desserts. The whole thing is reminiscent of che ba mao, the Vietnamese parfait of coconut milk and sugar syrup and red beans and various other layers. Patbingsu is also cheap (around $3 USD) and, in a stroke of marketing genius on the part of the patbingsu shops, can be delivered, meaning we eat it about once a day. Ice Cool also has in its favor the fact that its green tea patbingsu is actually soft serve dusted with green tea powder, rather than green-tea flavored ice cream. Mysteriously, however, green tea patbingsu doesn’t have any beans in it - I was under the impression that the red bean was the defining characteristic of patbingsu, but apparently I was wrong. What is it? Kiwi? Ice? The presence of rocking porch swings in every store?**

Of course, like many foods, patbingsu is best enjoyed with others:

 

*Interestingly, sundae in Korean means sausage. While there are a wide variety, the only kind I’ve ever seen anyone receive with an order is blood. Just something to think about if you want ice cream in Korea.

**I will say that CanMore has Ice Cool beat in terms of decor - it looks like nothing quite as much as a honeymoon bower. Also, free toast and whipped cream comes with every order. I didn’t realize that I had missed toast at all until I devoured a piece in five seconds or so.

Tomorrow: dakgalbi!

we interrupt this hiatus

I haven’t been writing in here for several reasons: I took food pictures on cameras that are out of batteries, I only have one adapter (which makes it difficult to charge the aforementioned camera batteries), I have failed to make time to draw or paint pictures of the food for which pictures are unavailable. I am sorry. I will try harder.

In the meantime, I ate fried chicken tonight that was so amazing that I had to go back to this blog. There was no other option. I’ve been eating a lot of fried chicken lately; I’ve been eating a lot of other foods that fall under the foods-as-bad-for-you-as-fried-chicken category, most notably samgyeopsal, which is. at its heart, grilled fatty pork belly, aka grilled fatty bacon. I’ve eaten it twice this week. Koreans eat like this all the time and a lot of people seem to drink all the time too - the most popular quaff, a rice spirit called soju, is served in beer bottles, despite the fact that its alcohol content is high enough that most people take it in shots.* How does this work? Will I, too, be possessed with this magical facility when I return?

Returning to fried chicken and its ilk. Korean fried chicken is becoming better known in the US (which is where I first heard of it). Conveniently, Korean fried chicken places are open all night, as far as I can tell, which means that drunk and hungry people often find themselves gravitating there, not that I would know anything about that. Fried (and roasted) chicken places also deliver to our dorms. Really, even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could avoid eating it, but fortunately I have no such qualm. Most of the chicken is good; the bulk of what I’ve had has been the equivalent of really good, not-too-heavily-battered American stuff, sometimes with a chili-garlic sauce (which is basically Sriracha/tuong ot, as far as I can tell) on top.

Tonight, however, I returned to Chicken 7 One, from where I had ingested acceptable chicken before, with four friends. Without the benefit of a Korean speaker, we managed to order 20,000 won worth of chicken without actually knowing what we had bought. Luckily, however, what we got were these plates of incredibly crisp-skinned, honey-dosed wings and legs, most of which were so fresh from the fryer that we couldn’t even pick them up. They reminded me of the Honeywings from Mark’s Feed Store, which Louisvillians should recognize as a serious compliment. Except maybe better. Also, they squirted chicken grease with every bite. I’m sure the experience was enhanced by the company of friends, tables that had surely seen better days, and the ubiquitous pickled radish that comes with every fried food (although maybe not enhanced by the “coleslaw,” which was quite literally a pile of cabbage with some Russian dressing drizzled on top). Still. I will trade the Colonel in any day for this.

*Because soju comes in beer bottles, the first time I tried it I chugged it, which was a bad idea, because it turns out that soju is vile.

OMGZ KIMCHI

Real post coming soon. The problem is that I haven’t been able to take pictures, since I’ve mostly been so overwhelmed that I do exactly what I’m told, no more, no less, and then I fall asleep. So then I decided to paint some pictures instead, and I bought paints at eMart, which is sort of like Target with groceries and women hawking samples of beer and squid and bananas, but THEN I realized that I had no cup with which to rinse the brushes, so. Real descriptions coming soon.

For now, all you need to know is that in the past four meals or so, the cafeteria has offered:

1. kimchi
2. radish kimchi
3. kimchi salad
4. kimchi soup

A lot of times these are at the same meal, if you want a different texture for your kimchi, I guess. Mmmm.