eG Foodblog: Domestic Goddess - Adobo & Fried Chicken in Korea

[Kouign Aman]

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. You get to see my versatile and trusty turbo oven in this pic.

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Hello! We have one of those. It came as part of the Tenor's dowry. I'd never seen another. Very cool.

I am thoroughly enjoying your blog. Thanks for all the great details. We used to make "smiling" hot dogs, but I never thought of octopi. That is on the Must Do list.

Edited March 7, 2007 by Kouign Aman (log)

[Domestic Goddess]

Kouign Aman - the turbo oven is great for roasting chicken (all the fat comes out and drains on the bottom). You get chicken with a nice crispy skin and tender, juicy meat. That's on our dinner menu tonight. I'm glad I gave you a new idea in cutting/decorating your um, hot dogs.

Edited March 7, 2007 by Domestic Goddess (log)

[Kouign Aman]

We use it mostly for reheating pizza and fried food (same goal - drain the grease and get the crisp going). But since I roasted my first ever chicken just this weekend (and stole all the skin), I'm glad to hear your recommendation. This summer, that sucker's gonna get a workout!

[CharlotteM]

The empanadas look great. I can't wait to try your recipe...the dough seems very versatile.

Thanks for the explanation about the crab texture, SheenaGreena.

[Domestic Goddess]

Charlotte - it's the same recipe that I use for my chicken pot pie with a slight tweaking (I add more butter).

This morning's breakfast was fixed by DDH (Darling Domestic Hubby). He fixed hash browns, hotel scrambled eggs (I know, I'll fix a pictorial tutorial later) and bacon. His splendid platter.

[SheenaGreena]

I love that jai is giving the peace sign in the photo...very asian! Thanks for showing us another pic of him, very cute

<3 I love when egulleters show us cute pics of their kids

[Domestic Goddess]

Sorry for not posting anything yet... I have been wielding my magic mop, broom and vac to battle with legions of dust bunnies that have invaded my home. Now I am set to don my magic gauntlet gloves and tackle the overflowing sink of dirty dishes and pot. Ahh, the work of a domestic goddess is never done.

[Domestic Goddess]

Before we go to lunch today, let's see the other sights in my town.

A samgyeopsal and galbi restaurant in Gamgok. The dolsot bibimbap is really good here.

One of numerous korean fried chicken delivery places here - Nene Fried Chicken.

In Janghowon, this is the only inexpensive Japanese sushi restaurant. The owner is a friend of ours who love it when we visit with the kids. Billy gets to see the huge fishes get carved behind the counter.

A koreanized-chinese restaurant that specializes in Jajang myeon noodles. I took this in the middle of the street while crossing the light (aah the things you do for eGullet).

This is one of our favorite korean restaurants - Bawoo Galbi Restaurant. Hubby teaches the owner's kids in his institute/hagwon. The restaurant's Kalbi Tang soup and samgyeopsal are really tasty.

Remember when I told you that ordering food here in Korea comes complete with actual plates, utensils, trays, etc.? Well, here's an example. What's great is that there are no dishes to wash or disposables to dispose of after.

Finally, a picture of one of the many peach statues all over Janghowon. This statue stands on the intersection of Highway 45.

[insomniac]

loving the blog Doddie, a few questions, as my experience of Korea is only Seoul 15 years ago (to buy skiing stuff hehe), do you get out of the city at all, are there beauty spots or national parks to go to? and what sort of sports do the kids do at school?

aaah those 'bunny ears' signs made by just about everyone being photographed in your part of the world, I often wonder how it all started....our kids became quite stoic about being cheek grabbed/ photgraphed...on one memorable occasion a tour bus full of Japanese formed a queue on Repulse Bay beach to be in a photo with them, cute.

[Domestic Goddess]

Insomniac - stoic, yes, that's the word I was looking for. That's what my kids have become, too. They would tolerate the cheek pinching and the numerous questions (how old are you? what is your name? where are you from? etc.)

With regards to the sights and tourists attractions, there is actually one quite near me - the Burial Grounds and Monument to King Sejong (Korea's greatest monarch).

We usually gor for a 2-3 night vacation in Ilsan city (a satellite city of Seoul 2 hours away from us) during the holidays. Here are my men zipping around in bumper cars in Lake Park (named so because it has one of the largest manmade lakes in Asia).

Another favorite for my family to visit is the COEX mall aquarium (listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest aquarium with the most number of species).

[Domestic Goddess]

Let's go back to food shall we? Today's lunch was at the Kong-Guel Restaurant. "Kong-guel" means bean village in korean, meaning that a lot of beans and legumes are grown here. Kong-Guel restaurant's specialty is tofu and almost all of the listed dishes in the menu are tofu-based or is made with some kind of tofu.

Here is the street sign saying Kong-Guel.

Huge pots of kimchi and fermented seasonings sit outside by the restaurant's entrance.

This huge pot is a traditional steaming pot for tteok (rice cake). The holes are for the steam to rise up and cook the tteok in the bamboo containers.

Antiques decorate the foyer of the restaurant. Billy checks out the rotary dial phone, fascinated that you don't have buttons to push to call a number.

Sorry for the glare. I wanted to show the selection of drinks that can be ordered.

When we sit down (again on the floor), we were offered steaming hot "sung-yung" - boiled rice drink. Cooked rice is boiled with a lot of water to create a soothing, soul-warming drink. Catherine told me, in the olden days, people would drink this as an everyday beverage.

Let's break here and go to Part 2 for the food.

[nakji]

Remember when I told you that ordering food here in Korea comes complete with actual plates, utensils, trays, etc.? Well, here's an example. What's great is that there are no dishes to wash or disposables to dispose of after. laugh.gif

My friend lives in an apartment building called "Bobo County"(no kidding), not far from that photo taken of your hubby and son in Ilsan. The building is full of one room apartments filled by unmarried young professionals. If you get there around eight in the evening, everyone has left their dinner trays in the hall to be picked up. You can walk along and see what each apartment has had for dinner! The downside is that the entire place reeks of doncasse sauce. Nobody bothers to cook anymore, and it was the number one complaint of a lot of my young married students, that their wives didn't know how to cook!

A note for MarketSt - In South Korea, even in small country towns, most development is of the large apartment complex kind. Of course, this makes sense in the city, where there is a lot of pressure on land-use. However, here is very little modern single-family housing in the countryside, where there is a lot of room for it. People say they prefer to live in the apartment complexes because they're more modern and convenient. Most houses in Korea date from the early eighties and haven't aged well. Ilsan, a developer-planned city, pictured above, has some duplexes and single family dwellings, complete with suburban sidewalks. When my friend and I got homesick, we would walk around it and pretend to be back in Canada (New Zealand for her). It was really weird to take a train to a small country town, with acres of mountains, farm fields, and forest around it, and see three or four giant apartment complexes clustered around one small main street. Interestingly, this trend of everyone living in small (by North American standards) apartments has led to the spawning of several kinds of businesses that we don't have in North America, because we have family rooms. For example, instead of having friends over to play internet games together, kids probably go to an internet room, where each of them can have a computer for a dollar an hour. Instead of young couples making out on their parents' house in the basement, they rent a DVD room, which has a big-screen TV, a DVD player, and a sofa. Karaoke? Go to a singing room. Want a hot tub and sauna? Go to the public bath house. I didn't mind living in a small apartment in Korea, because so many services were available to me in the public domain.

Is that really King Sejong's tomb? Wow. He was one cool dude.

[Domestic Goddess]

Part 2 of the Tofu Restaurant Feast

Here is our feast for today. I am glad this blog is only for a week. If I keep eating like this, I would need to run to Seoul and back to lose all the pounds that I have gained.

Now for the close-ups of the different goodies on our table. I remember somebody asking me about black rice, well the rice served in this restaurant is mixed with black rice variety, ending with a purplish rice with black specks on it. The side dish beside is is really spicy leeks.

Blocks of freshly steamed tofu, kimchee and braised toh-dok (wild mountain herb).

Mushroom stir-fry with leeks and carrots.

Bok ssam dish or wrap-up-yer-goodies-and-eat dish. We have again fresh tofu blocks, sliced boiled pork pieces, steamed napa cabbage for wrapping and in the middle, spicy radish salad with oysters.

Condiments for spicing up the bo ssam - salty shrimp sauce and gochujang.

Here we have spinach, soy sauce with chopped leeks and chili peppers and slices of peppers and RAW garlic to add more heat to your bo ssam packages.

In these 3 pots we have, Soon Du Bu (pure tofu soup, made blinding by my camera's flash), Bijit Tang (scrap tofu dish) and Dwenjjang Jjige.

Salty-sweet anchovies on the right and crunchy salty-spicy cuke slices on the left.

In the next part, I'm going to teach you how to wrap ssam.

[Domestic Goddess]

Is that really King Sejong's tomb? Wow. He was one cool dude.

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A bit of a trivia lesson now - King Sejong is known for the invention of the korean alphabet called Hangeul. It is considered one of the most scientific phonetic alphabet in the world. Not only was he a monarch but he was an astronomer, a scientist, mathematician, musician and composer and a writer. He was the Renaissance man of that period.

His tomb and monument park is one of the most beautiful and peaceful that I have ever seen.

Now we go back to our daily program ... EATING!

[Domestic Goddess]

Part 3 of the Tofu Restaurant experience.

HOW TO WRAP SSAM..

1. Take a piece of cabbage.

2. Add a piece of tofu.

3. Top with a piece of pork. PORK.... hmmmm...

3. Add you choice of seasoning (spicy radish, kimchee, salty shrimp sauce, garlic, etc.)

Here's one that has oyster on it.

4. Hold it firmly in your hand.

5. Take everything in one big bite.

It was a splendid meal and Catherine and I had a chance to chat and have some girl time.

Then when we couldn't eat anymore, we got up to pay the bill. While Catherine was busy chatting with the manager I got busy with my camera. The restaurant has a lot of indoor plants lined up against the walls.

These tall jars (almost as tall as Billy) has wild mountain ginseng and deer's antlers with dates in it. Can you see the antler in the jar?

It was another wonderful korean lunch and I am glad to do it for the sake of eGullet and research! LOL

Edited March 8, 2007 by Domestic Goddess (log)

[bavila]

DG,

Thanks so much for all your research. Having all these zillion dishes is totally up my alley. It makes small plates or tapas in the States pale in comparison.

Sheena,

Thanks for the details on the soy crabs. Maybe when you're in the Chesapeake are you can give me a tutorial. Though I must say, I'm a little frightened about the texture.

[Domestic Goddess]

Bavila - I am glad your liking my eherm, extensive research on the vast array of korean delicacies, too!

Tonight's supper:

Turbo-Roasted Spicy Chicken with baked potatoes (topped with sauteed bell peppers and onions)

For the kids and I, Ginisang Giniling (Tagalog word for ground pork saute) with sunny-side up egg.

Dessert was chocolate strawberry shortcake (thanks to Torakris for the inspiration).

[Carrot Top]

Antiques decorate the foyer of the restaurant. Billy checks out the rotary dial phone, fascinated that you don't have buttons to push to call a number.

When we sit down (again on the floor), we were offered steaming hot "sung-yung" - boiled rice drink. Cooked rice is boiled with a lot of water to create a soothing, soul-warming drink. Catherine told me, in the olden days, people would drink this as an everyday beverage.

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When we moved into this house, there was (still is ) an old rotary-dial phone (in an awful yellow color ) attached to the kitchen wall. My son, now barely 13, wanted to know what it was. I had to teach him how to use it, pushing his fingers into the holes of the dial and showing him how to turn it. He was very focused on this ancient arcane task, his eyes intent upon the very wierdness of it all. What a strange way of dialing a number that was! (Though we never thought so while doing it in the past . . . )

And I'm curious whether the rice drink was sweet or not. Did you like the taste?

Then when we couldn't eat anymore, we got up to pay the bill. While Catherine was busy chatting with the manager I got busy with my camera. The restaurant has a lot of indoor plants lined up against the walls.

These tall jars (almost as tall as Billy) has wild mountain ginseng and deer's antlers with dates in it. Can you see the antler in the jar?

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I've heard that when a Chinese restaurant opens, the good-luck gift should be green plants. Is this true also in Korea?

I also wonder what the deer's antlers are supposed to be good for - it is a "health" drink, isn't it?

P.S. I am quite sure there are two of you, twins, that are doing this blog. So much energy displayed here for our eager eyes!

[Domestic Goddess]

Karen - Billy liked hearing the dial clack-clak its way back into place when he dialed a number on the ancient phone.

The sung yung drink was mildly sweet. It has a fresh light taste to it, to my pleasant surprise.

With regards to the green plants as gifts to new restaurants, I actually found out that any new business that is opening up is given green plants for luck. So I guess the answer is yes.

The deer antlers supposedly have curative powers in it. They actually shave thin disks of the antlers and boil them and drink it as a tonic. I must confess it tasted like boiled root and chemicals to me when I tried a sip.

[Milagai]

Remember when I told you that ordering food here in Korea comes complete with actual plates, utensils, trays, etc.? Well, here's an example. What's great is that there are no dishes to wash or disposables to dispose of after. laugh.gif

My friend lives in an apartment building called "Bobo County"(no kidding), not far from that photo taken of your hubby and son in Ilsan. The building is full of one room apartments filled by unmarried young professionals. If you get there around eight in the evening, everyone has left their dinner trays in the hall to be picked up. You can walk along and see what each apartment has had for dinner! The downside is that the entire place reeks of doncasse sauce. Nobody bothers to cook anymore, and it was the number one complaint of a lot of my young married students, that their wives didn't know how to cook!

A note for MarketSt - In South Korea, even in small country towns, most development is of the large apartment complex kind. Of course, this makes sense in the city, where there is a lot of pressure on land-use. However, here is very little modern single-family housing in the countryside, where there is a lot of room for it. People say they prefer to live in the apartment complexes because they're more modern and convenient. Most houses in Korea date from the early eighties and haven't aged well. Ilsan, a developer-planned city, pictured above, has some duplexes and single family dwellings, complete with suburban sidewalks. When my friend and I got homesick, we would walk around it and pretend to be back in Canada (New Zealand for her). It was really weird to take a train to a small country town, with acres of mountains, farm fields, and forest around it, and see three or four giant apartment complexes clustered around one small main street. Interestingly, this trend of everyone living in small (by North American standards) apartments has led to the spawning of several kinds of businesses that we don't have in North America, because we have family rooms. For example, instead of having friends over to play internet games together, kids probably go to an internet room, where each of them can have a computer for a dollar an hour. Instead of young couples making out on their parents' house in the basement, they rent a DVD room, which has a big-screen TV, a DVD player, and a sofa. Karaoke? Go to a singing room. Want a hot tub and sauna? Go to the public bath house. I didn't mind living in a small apartment in Korea, because so many services were available to me in the public domain.

Is that really King Sejong's tomb? Wow. He was one cool dude.

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This reply is so interesting in the light of the other thread on women

in the West exiting the kitchen in droves etc etc.

The world around, women seem to be leaving care-work because

it's drudgery, it's taken for granted, and gets no respect.

But it's so interesting to my eyes that your students were

1) male (no women students?) and

2) complaining that their wives didn't know how to cook - hey boys,

why not learn to do it yourselves?

I also love the "urban planning" notion of small clustered dwellings

surrounded by large open spaces, with lots of shared amenities in

the public space; opposed to the sprawl model with huge homes with

everything inside them (and people whine about heating/ aircon bills;

and having to drive everywhere and get stuck in traffic jams....)

(I wonder the score differences between the former and latter

dwellings on www.footprint.org).....

Milagai

[Domestic Goddess]

I decided to give Catherine some artisinal gifts for taking me out for lunch these past few days. I made more strawberry shortcake and a package of shrimp and pork dumplings for her and her family.

Catherine is a poultry vet by profession and is married to a poultry farm scion. Their poulty farm has about 100,00 hens and produces half a million eggs a day. Guess what she gave me today? Two trays of freshly laid eggs from first time hens. Apparently, koreans treasure the eggs that a hen lays for the first time. The difference? The eggshells are harder and thicker and the flavor is a bit more intense, especially the eggyolks.

These eggs are tiny, a little bit bigger than a golf ball.

[Gastro888]

Doddie, what a great blog! Thanks for sharing your week with us.

Maybe you should make a pasta carbonara with those lovely eggs! I made some last night with some eggs I bought at the local greenmarket. The shells were much thicker and tougher than what you find in the conventional markets. But the taste of the egg yolks were fantastic!

[Domestic Goddess]

Gastro888 - thanks for the tip. Now I have to find me a good recipe for pasta carbonara. Care to share your recipe?

[Priscilla]

Gorgeous eggs.

DG I love your foodblog. Cute boys! And a lovely microcasm of the wildly multi-culti eG world. The sheer amount of cooking you do is impressive, but also the high quality.

Have you outlined your garlic fried rice method somewhere I missed?

[Gastro888]

Gastro888 - thanks for the tip. Now I have to find me a good recipe for pasta carbonara. Care to share your recipe?

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Sure. I'm not saying it's authentic but it's my recipe.

While the salted water's boiling for your pasta (of your choice) prepare the following (I used this for a 1/2 box of pasta last nightand I like my stuff rich, so be warned. The ratios may be a bit skewed. I made this for two and had leftovers for breakfast this morning.):

A)

Separate six eggs, 5 yolks plus one whole egg in a very large bowl. Reserve the 5 white for another use.

Grate an obscene amount of percorino cheese into the egg yolks. The more the better! I used 1/2 a wedge (the wedge was 3" long and 1/2" wide) last night. I should've grated the whole thing!

Beat the yolk and cheese together. Crack some black pepper into it and set aside.

B)

Dice 2/3 of a pound of bacon into 1/4" dice. (I ran my knife through them. Nothing fancy)

Fry up bacon in a pan until cooked to your liking. I like my bacon slightly chewy so that's how I cooked it up. (You can mix chew and crispy bacon by cooking in staggered batches. Place 1/2 of it in the pan first and then wait a few minutes and throw the other 1/2 in.)

C)

When the pasta's al dente, drain but *reserve some of the pasta liquid*. This is used to thin out the sauce. Return the pasta to the pot.

Add the bacon to the pasta with about a teaspoon of the grease. Stir and wait about a minute to let the pasta cool down just a touch so that when you add it to the eggs, it won't curdle.

Add the pasta to the egg-cheese mixture. Toss like crazy and don't stop until every bit of pasta is covered. If it's too thick for your liking, thin it out with a bit of the pasta water.

Add more cheese. Enjoy.

And go running the next day!