닭 죽, Dak Juk
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 15, 2009
Porridge (죽) is a common dish for patients, babies, or just normal people in Korea. When somebody feels sick or gets an operation, they eat porridge since it is easier to digest. Porridge can bring back your taste when you do not feel like eating anything. There are so many different kinds of porridge using nuts, grains, seafood, vegetables, beef, or chicken. Some porridge will be sweet like hobak juk (pumpkin porridge) or pat juk (red bean porridge) and some will be very healthy like GgaeJuk (black sesame seed porridge) or JatJuk (pine nut porridge). There are some restaurants that specialize in porridge. Today, I will show you how to make one of my favorite porridges, DakJuk (chicken porridge). You might be familiar with SamGaeTang (Korean chicken rice soup) if you know about Korean food. This chicken porridge tastes similar to SamGaeTang, but it skips some of ingredients that could be difficult to find, such as ginseng, dried dates, etc. This has very simple ingredients, but it still has great flavor. The secret for the great taste is good broth, so I highly recommend that you to boil chicken with the skin and bones to get the broth, and not use broth from a can or chicken stock. 
Yield: 2 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- Dak (닭) = Chicken
- Juk (죽) = Porridge
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배추 김치, BaeChu GimChi
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 10, 2009
There are many different kinds of kimchi, and Koreans eat kimchi everyday. There are even songs about kimchi such as “I Can’t Live Without Kimchi.” Moms love to have a good kimchi refrigerator. Today I will post the most common kimchi, “napa cabbage kimchi.” Kimchi is a dish of fermented vegetables with various seasonings. It is a traditional dish in Korea.
Yield: 1 Gallon
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- SutGaRak (숟가락) = Spoon
- JeotGaRak (젓가락) = Chopsticks
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배추, BaeChu
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 10, 2009
In Korea, napa cabbage (BaeChu) is used in making the most common type of kimchi. It is the main ingredient of baechu kimchi, but is also eaten raw as a wrap for pork or oysters, dipped in gochujang. The outer, tougher leaves are called ugeoji, and used in soups.
Read more from Wikipedia…
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수제비, SuJaeBi
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 7, 2009
SuJaeBi is a traditional Korean soup made with flour dough and vegetables. Since I posted many~~ spicy foods so far, I’ll show a non-spicy Korean dish. This dish shows that not all Korean foods are spicy. hehe… Today I will use kelp and anchovies for the broth, but you also use clams or kimchi (or other spicy seasonings.) I like SuJaeBi with clam the most, but I didn’t get the chance to make it this time. Maybe next time… 
On a rainy day, cook SuJaeBi and eat it while watching the rain, it tastes better that way. (Sometimes Korean people want to eat certain Korean dishes on rainy days such as SuJaeBi or Jeon or BuChimGae.)
Yield: 3 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- GamJa (감자) = Potato
- YangPa (양파) = Onion
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육개장, YukGaeJang
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 4, 2009
If you go to a Korean restaurant, you might have tried this spicy Korean soup or at least saw it on the menu. It is a popular Korean soup for people who like spicy food. Cooking different kinds of vegetables in homemade beef broth, along with a spicy sauce, will give you great soup flavor. In Korea, if somebody dies, we visit the funeral house to morn the dead person and comfort the family. They usually start getting visitors for 2 or 3 days before the funeral and they serve food to the guests. Nowadays, this is one of Korea’s funeral foods. I don’t know why, but it is… Of course, we enjoy eating this soup other times as well, especially in cold weather.
Yield: 6 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- GukMul (국물) = Broth
- YaChae (야채) = Vegetable
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