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Home cooking, Korean-style

Jul 29, 2013

I have just arrived back after a month in my homeland of South Korea, where I went back to my roots and visited the countryside. As it was summer there, I got to experience some amazing produce fresh from the mountains, purchased straight from the little old “mountain women”.

The rice fields were an impressive sight, and the fresh mountain air was quite a change from Seoul.

I took a rest and let my mum (my teacher) cook up some amazing side dishes, including sesame leaves, a personal favourite. In Australia, the leaves can be purchased from Korean grocery shops. Mum cleans the leaves and then mixes them up with her special chilli sauce, keeping them fresh and tasty. I also love eating this leaf with barbecued meats.

Sesame-leaves

My parents have a great little system worked out at home: Dad grows the vegetables on his thriving roof-top garden, where everything is in large pots, and Mum works her magic in the kitchen.

Mum still makes her own gochujang (chilli paste) and kangjang (soy sauce).

The process is relatively easy for the gochujang. They lay the chillies out for a week to dry and then put them in a blender with a bit of soju (Korean rice wine, which I am sure she has a little taste of while preparing). Once it is all blended, you add a little sugar syrup, squid sauce and sea salt, and mix it all up. Traditionally, this was then stored in the large clay pots outside.

Korean chilli paste is always used with bibimbap (a traditional rice dish featuring a mixture of ingredients) and is also a great dipping paste for many vegetables. My dad dips raw onion in the chilli paste as a snack.

Making the soy sauce is a lot more work, and I wished Mum didn’t make it while I was there as the smell is putrid – it actually smells like the toilet is blocked! She boils the soybeans for three hours and then forms the mixture into a brick. I didn’t see the end result, because you need to hang it for three to four months in a warm area to finish the sauce.

beondegi

I also had the chance to eat what the Koreans call “future food” – beondegi, more commonly known to Aussies as silkworm pupae. It is pollution-free (organic), makes a fast and easy snack, and is believed to be good for you. Beondegi is either steamed or boiled, then seasoned, and is packed full of protein and iron.

It’s not for everyone, but I thought it was pretty tasty with a nice cold local beer.

Chung Jae Lee is former head chef and owner of Adelaide’s Mapo Restaurant and is author of the recently released Korean Cookbook: A Twist on the Traditional. His last column in InDaily’s Food & Wine section was about favourite Korean ingredient kimchi.

 

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