Good condiments are a necessity when eating good food. I think they should be called “happy food”, as that is exactly how they make you feel.
The main condiment I can’t live without is soy sauce. Not only do I use this when making dipping sauces for various dishes, I also add it to a lot of dishes while cooking. I like the Korean soy sauce, as it is a little stronger.
Other exciting ones are wasabi and ginger – great with sushi, of course, but also useful when inventing other dishes – as well like the good old wasabi mayonnaise. Ginger is a quintessential ingredient for flavouring Korean and other Asian cuisines such as seafood or meat and vegetarian cuisine.
In Korea, we always eat gherkins with pizza, so my Aussie mates look at me strangely when the delivery arrives and I pull out the jar of gherkins from the fridge. Eating oily food with acidic foods gives you a more clear feeling, so I believe you can eat more!
Along with the gherkins, pickled Chinese radish also goes well with pizza. When our delivery of pizza arrives in Korea, there will be small takeaway containers of pickled radish, too. Pretty much anything pickled works.
For a great snack, get some toasted seaweed and cut the sheet into quarters, then wrap up small amounts of rice – the saltiness of the seaweed complements the fresh taste of rice, and it’s a great way to get a lot of calcium. You can even add a little sesame oil to the rice if you wish.
Toasted seaweed is different to sushi seaweed, as it is thinner and lighter. Being toasted, it is obviously also crunchier. Coating it in sesame oil and salt gives it a great flavour even on its own, with a nice cold beer to wash it down.
Chilli paste is a must in my eyes, too. This was traditionally made by combining red peppers, glutinous rice and soy sauce in large outdoor pots and then leaving it to ferment in the sun.
Korean meals predominantly consist of a lot of side dishes. In fact, the main dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner is rice, with the various amounts of condiments placed around the table to go with it. Even soup, a meat dish or seafood would not be served individually, but in the centre of the table to be shared with others.
Chung Jae Lee is former head chef and owner of Adelaide’s Mapo Restaurant and is the author of Korean Cookbook: A Twist on the Traditional. His last contribution for Indaily’s Food & Wine offered inspiration for dinner party cooking plus a recipe for Korean seafood pancakes.
