떡국, TteokGuk
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 22, 2009
TteokGuk is a traditional Korean New Year soup. Korean people celebrate the Lunar New Year, and this soup is the main dish for that holiday meal. On New Year’s morning, we wear HanBok (Korean traditional clothes) and greet (bow) our grandparents, parents, or relatives. Older people give a blessing for the New Year to their children along with some money called “SaeBatDon” (새뱃돈). After greeting the older people, family and relatives eat breakfast together. The meal will have New Year’s soup, different kinds of vegetable dishes, fish, jeon, japvchae, galbi jjim, and so on. Since Koreans calculate their age according to New Year, and not according to their actual birthday, eating the bowl of New Year soup on New Year’s Day means becoming one year older. It might sound a little crazy. Sometime we joke, “I don’t want to eat more than one bowl of New Year’s soup, otherwise I would become more than one year older.” hehe
Yield: 2 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- SaeHae Bok MaNi BaDeuSeYo (새해 복 많이 받으세요) = Have a lot of good fortune for the new year. This is the Korean greeting for New Year’s Day.
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소갈비, SoGalBi
Posted by Aeri Lee on January 17, 2009
In Korea, we love to grill marinated meat (beef, pork, or chicken). There are two main flavors for marinated meat. One is spicy, which uses mainly red pepper paste. The other one is sweet & salty which is similar to a BBQ flavor. That type uses mainly soy sauce, pear, honey, sugar, apple, kiwi, and etc. Many restaurants have indoor grills at each table so that customers can grill their own meat themselves and enjoy the fresh cooked flavor. Today, I will show you a very popular marinated meat dish called GalBi. It takes time to marinate the meat, but otherwise, it is very simple and easy to make. You can freeze some of the marinated meat to grill at a later time. Enjoy! 
Yield: 3 Servings
Short Korean Lesson: *^^*
- So (소) = Cow
- Mahl (말) = Horse
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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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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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