Cooking with Maangchi
Category: Patricia Snodgrass
Recently in my quest to make a lifestyle diet change, I have come to embrace my Korean culture that I'd been out of touch with the last few years, by rediscovering Korean food. I was never taught how to properly cook a dish, so any memories I have are visual spurts from watching my mom over the years, or helping out preparing fillings for kimbap or folding and sealing mandu (dumplings). Any recipe that I can recall are always slightly off as like many Koreans, mom never measured (she finally bought a measuring cup while I was in college, to make cakes and cookies for church).
Instead of seeking traditional cookbooks (of which I do own a couple), I searched for recipes online. In doing so, I subscribed to a fantastic weekly video podcast through iTunes, created by an ex-pat who goes by "Maangchi," a handle from a video game of all things. :) Immediately I was intrigued, and finally ended up at her website, www.maangchi.com, a popular blog where she links to her podcast, YouTube videos, displays her recipes, and posts about her daily life. I love that she posts in her Flickr gallery photos from her fans who attempt her recipes. She also explains all her major ingredients for anyone who is intimidated by them, explains how to pronounce them in Korean, and sometimes even provides the Hangul translation (good for me since I'm trying to learn to speak and read Korean again).
Browsing through Maangchi's site brought back many childhood memories. My friends had Spaghetti-Os for comfort food when they were young; I had spicy ddukbokkie, jja jang myun and tofu soup.
Korean cooking is definitely not low maintenance. When starting out, I would highly recommend seeking pre-made ingredients as baby steps to full blown cooking. For example, bulgogi is a very popular dish and dozens of premade marinades are available in asian grocery stores. Also, cut down on the hassle of preparing meat by having it precut for you. Many grocery stores here in Montgomery will cut a nice round roast into thin slices for bulgogi.
And speaking of bulgogi:
Posted By: Susan Cline | Date Published: 6.18.2008 | Comments (1)