How to Cook Like a Korean Undergraduate
On 25th September, EKSS hosted a live session on how to cook Korean traditional dishes. With all ingredients prepared, the online guests were invited into Seoul’s studio where our treasurer Jaehwan Yun and secretary Hayley You shared their experience of cooking “Japchae (잡채)”: a Korean stir-fried glass noodle, and “Kimchi-jeon (김치전)”: a savoury fried Kimchi pancake.
By applying step-by-step explanations and visual close-up during the event, Yun’s kitchen focused on delivering a set of summarised tips when cooking Korean food in home without previous knowledge or understanding on Korean cuisine. Despite technical difficulties in letting all guests into the broadcasted event at the start, the society managed to entertain our guests with visual image of Korean dining. Here are all recipes the society “cited” during the session.
Highlight
...our treasurer Jaehwan Yun and secretary Hayley You shared their experience of cooking “Japchae (잡채)”: a Korean stir-fried glass noodle, and “Kimchi-jeon (김치전)”: a savoury fried Kimchi pancake.
“It did taste alright at the end... I mean it. ” — Sungmin Hong, while refusing to take any more bites of Kimchi-jeon
How to "Japchae"
Ingredients: glass noodles (250g), spinach (150g), ⅔ cup of pork meat (3g), ½ cup of mushroom (3g), two cups of onions (180g), ⅔ cup of spring onions (40g), ⅔ cup of carrots (40g), four tbsp of soy sauce (30g), two tbsp of brown sugar (22g), four tbsp of sesame oil (25g), ½ tbsp of minced garlic (15g), four tbsp of cooking oil (15g), ⅓ tbsp of salt (2g), ½ tbsp of sesame seeds (4g), a small pinch of pepper (1g)
- Pre-soak the glass noodles in water for 30 minutes.
- Remove the spinach roots and separate each leaf.
- Thinly slice the onions vertically.
- Cut the carrot into thin slices and cut the green onions horizontally.
- Pre-soak mushroom for 30 minutes and cut or tear into bite-sized pieces.
- Add 1 tbsp of cooking oil to the frying pan and stir-fry the chop up pork.
- Add 1 tbsp of cooking oil and stir-fry the onions with a pinch of pepper.
- Add ½ tbsp of cooking oil and stir-fry carrots with salt over medium heat.
- Add ½ tbsp of cooking oil and stir-fry mushroom over medium heat.
- Boil some salted water and parboil the spinach for about 12 seconds.
- Cook the pre-soaked glass noodles in boiling water and rinse with cold water.
- Remove the moisture from the glass noodles and cut with scissors.
- Add the stir-fried ingredients, spinach, and minced garlic to glass noodles and mix well.
- Season to taste with sugar, soy sauce, and salt.
- Add some sesame oil and pepper (optional).
- Plate up and sprinkle sesame seeds to finish.
How to "Kimchi-jeon"
Ingredients: two cups of sour Kimchi (260g), ½ spoon of brown sugar (6g), one and ⅔ of water (300g), two cups of Korean pancake mix (220g), two pieces of chilli, ⅖ of Spring Onion, a spoon of fined chilli powder, a bit of cooking oil.
- Chop the sour Kimchi using scissors as small as possible.
- Slice the chilli and spring onions.
- Slice the sausage/bacon as thin as possible.
- Put all the ingredients together in the mixing bowl and mix them altogether.
- Put fined chilli powder, brown sugar, Korean pancake Mix, and water in the bowl and toss well until the batter gets watery without clumps.
- Preheat a frying pan and pour enough oil on the pan.
- Spread out the batter thinly on the pan (Make sure the mix do not stick together - as thin as possible).
- Twirl the pancake to make sure the cooking oil coats/smears at the centre of the pancake.
- When the edges start to cook, flip the pancake over.
- After flipping, continue cooking while twirling the pan.
- Once the pancake is well-cooked, flip it over one more time and finish.
Useful Tips for Kimchi-jeon
- Depending on your preference, you may add some sausage (try to avoid the salty ones though).
- Adding onions may help you to overcome the pungent smell of Kimchi.
- Tastes better when ripe Kimchi is used.
- Thickness of the chili powder does not influence the overall taste!
- Ratio of water and Korean Pancake mix have to be approximately 1:1.
- When you put Kimchi on the cutting board, it might stain your cutting board red! We recommend you to use a pair of scissors to cut Kimchi.
- If you cannot bear spiciness, we recommend you to not put chilli.
- In case your Kimchi does not taste sour, we recommend you to put a bit of vinegar while mixing other ingredients.
- If Kimchi does not taste sour, please refrain from adding any sugar.
- Last but not least (and you may have noticed it already), our recipe for Kimchi-jeon is fully vegan if using sunflower or olive oil for cooking oil. When cooking Kimchi-jeon for vegans, please do check the ingredients of Kimchi since some products may include seafood during the manufacturing process.