What to feed the kids or what to cook tonight is always in the back of mom's minds throughout the day. So far, two moms asked me to share my recipes after watching what I made for dinner on my Instastories.
I do not consider myself a great cook and certainly not an expert on Korean food. But after having kids, I started cooking more Korean food at home for a few reasons. In general, ingredients are cheaper, fresher, easy to get, and my kids love Korean food. I used to shop all over the place for groceries...Costco, E-mart, other foreign markets, local markets, and even order stuff online like i-Herb. But now, I cut down to E-mart once a month and shop at my local market about 2-3 times a week and try to work around the ingredients that I can get. And we eat out on weekends to satisfy my non-Korean food cravings.
Koreans are really big on eating local and seasonal food. So I would like to share a few items that are in season right now and easy recipes that kids love eating too!
I am going to start with banchans you can make year-round.
This is the easiest banchan to make and a sure hit with the kids. All you do is drain out the eggs, put them in a pot, pour water just enough the cover the eggs, add 1/4 soy sauce to 3/4 water and boil for 5-10 minutes until the eggs turn brown. If you don't like quail eggs, you can make it with regular boiled eggs too.
You need to cut onions (I only had purple onions and I wanted to use them up, but I usually use regular white onions), and carrots for the next two dishes.
Seaweed stems usually comes in a package covered in salt. First, you have to wash out the salt and dunk the seaweed stems in water for at least for 20-30 minutes to take out the saltiness. Then, you drain and squeeze out the water as much as possible and cut them into shorter lengths.
Heat up the pan with a generous amount of grape seed oil and minced garlic, and stir fry seaweed stems with prepared onions and carrots for about 5 minutes. Add one big spoon of sesame oil and stir well right before turning off the heat. Yep, you only need grape seed oil, garlic, and sesame oil.
Cut the fishcake into little pieces. Heat up the pan with grape seed oil and minced garlic. Stir fry fishcake with onions and carrots that you prepped until onions get golden. Then add one spoonful of soy sauce for every 200g of fishcake and stir well before turning off the heat. Once again, grape seed oil, garlic, and one spoonful of soy sauce at the end.
Heat up the pan with grape seed oil and garlic. Stir fry a handful of small anchovies with any nuts you might have. Here I used pecans, but I also use almonds and walnuts. You want to fry them in low-medium heat for about 5 minutes. Right after turning off the heat, add one spoonful of honey and mix well.
What I like about banchans is that they last two-three days and you can build up on it with fish or meat dish.
There's an abundance of seafood in fall through the winter months in Korea. Crabs along with other seafood like shrimp, mussels, oysters, and mackerels are just a few of Koreans' favorites. Among them crab season is the shortest from September to October for male crabs and March to April for females, so eat as much as you can while they are in season if you love them as much as us! Since my husband and I are both from Virginia and grew up eating Maryland blue crabs every summer, we like to steam our crabs in Old Bay Seasoning. We wouldn't eat it any other way.
Pour one can of beer and half cup of vinegar into the pot or steamer. Place a strainer on the bottom of the pot so that crabs don't touch the liquids. Fill the crabs to the top, sprinkle in the old bay seasoning and steam for 25 minutes. If you don't have old bay, you can steam without it too.
French fries and corns go well together with crabs. Prepare little dish of vinegar and old bay seasoning to dip!
If you haven't noticed, we love crabs!
Some of the fall seasonal fruits are apples, persimmons, tomato, tangerines and pears. They are all delicious by themselves, but I love making sauce out them to marinate meat, especially pear. Here is one easy recipe with chicken. I used chicken wings here, but you can use one whole chicken as well.
I used two packs of chicken wings, 4-5 medium size potatoes (also in season), one small carrot, one medium size pear, and some rice cakes.
First, cut the potatoes and carrot into good size chunks and set them aside.
Sauce: Mix the pear, 1/4 cup of soy sauce, and one spoon minced garlic in a mixer. I love this recipe because it's so easy to make. You can also use the sauce to marinate thin slices of beef or pork for bulgogi.
Heat the pot with a little bit of grape seed oil, put in the chicken wings, cut potatoes, and carrots and sprinkle one spoonful of vinegar, close the lid and let it cook. Once the chicken turns golden, add the rice cake and the sauce. Stir well and let it cook until potatoes are soft. That's it, simple and delicious!
There are many fruits and nuts available to use for cooking or to enjoy them as themselves as snacks such as chestnuts and ginkgo. But I love having sweet potatoes and figs around the house during fall. They are healthy, easy, delicious and are good for breakfast and as snacks.
I bought this whole box of figs for only 4,800 won! They are so fresh and cheap right now.
I usually cook sweet potatoes in this 5,000 won fire pot (I bought mine from E-mart, but you can also order it from Coupang by searching 직화 냄비). It basically grills them just like goguma ahjuhsshies (street grilled sweet potato vendors during cold winter months) faster than ovens. You just wash them and fit them in the pot and start cooking. You do need to turn them over a few times to cook evenly. You can also roast chestnuts the same way.
I hope this post was helpful to some of you. Let me know if you like to see more posts like this!