Pa Muchim - Korean Green Onion Salad

Korean Green Onion Salad, or Pa Muchim (pronounced “pah moo cheem”) is a staple at Korean BBQ restaurants and homes alike.  It is frequently paired with pork belly or other fatty meats, as a counterbalance to all the rich flavors and textures.  I find it spicy and weirdly refreshing!

Yes, this salad has a lot of green onion in it.  So much so that you should probably share it with whoever you’re going to be hanging out with that day.  I wouldn’t eat a big plate of this and then go out on a first date!  Cutting the green onions into long strips can be a little tricky.  If it’s not working out for you or you get frustrated, you can just turn the onion on a bias and cut long diagonal slices – they don’t have to be strips cut lengthwise.  Red leaf lettuce is most commonly used, but you can try green leaf or romaine too.  As for the dried red pepper, just use one of those little packets of crushed red pepper that always comes with a pizza delivery!

Next time you grill or fry something rich and delicious, pair it with this spicy and cleansing salad.  (And for more motivation, check out how healthy green onions are for you!)

Korean Green Onion Salad (Pa Muchim)

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch green onions (anywhere from 4 to 8 onions)
• 1 head red leaf lettuce
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons rice vinegar (or you can substitute apple cider vinegar)
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional, but try it if you have them!)
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Slice onions lengthwise into thin strips, or you can cut them on a very severe bias into long ovals.  Put the onions into a bowl of ice water and let soak for fifteen minutes.  This crisps them, and also removes some of the sliminess from the insides.
2. While the onions are soaking, wash the lettuce and cut it into bite-sized strips.  If your lettuce is a little limp, soak it in ice water too!
3. Make the dressing:  combine soy sauce, sugar and rice vinegar in a small Tupperware cup with a lid.  Shake well to combine.  Add sesame oil and red pepper flakes and shake again.
4. Drain the lettuce and onions, dry them if you can:  Either roll up in a dish towel, or spin in a salad spinner.  Combine lettuce and onions in a large bowl, toss with dressing, and sprinkle with sesame seeds.  Serve immediately.

Spinach Banchan and Cucumber Salad Banchan -- Korean Basics

Last week I posted my recipe for Dubu Buchim at GCH.  Then I had requests:  "Can we have some recipes for things to eat with it?"  Of course!  Banchans for everyone!

This week's post at GCH is for two of my favorite banchans:  spinach banchan, and a cucumber salad.  The spinach banchan is a recipe you'll want to learn and memorize, since it is a component in many other Korean recipes, like Japchae, Kimbap, and Bibimbap.  The cucumber banchan is spicy-sweet and very refreshing when paired with hot rice and kimchee.  Ready for the link?  Here it is!  Girlfriend's Coffee Hour:  What's on Your Plate?  -- Korean Banchans!

The Korean Pantry

On Monday, my friend asked if she could come with us when I said I was going to the Korean grocery store.  She'd been toying with trying some Korean recipes, but didn't know where to start.  I said, Sure! We went aisle by aisle as I pointed out the staples that she'd need to make most dishes.  We had a great time, and my friend went home and felt ready to try something new!

So after writing a few Korean recipes here at Frugal Girlmet, I decided I'd put the cart before the horse for long enough.  Here is my quick and easy Korean primer (with bonus Indian recipe shopping tips).  If you've ever wanted to dabble in Korean food but were intimidated, please!  Don't be!  It's cheap to get started, the ingredients are pretty easy to find, and they last forever in your pantry and fridge.  Read the full article at Girlfriends Coffee Hour.  Explore, experiment, enjoy!

Korean Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Garlic and sugar crystals, not coffee grounds, just so's you know

Happy Halloween, everyone!  While it's not my favorite holiday, I like watching my 4 year-old get into it.  When we drive down the street, she likes to shout out the neighborhood decorations:  "Mommy, I just saw a skeleton!!!"  "Oh no," I cower, "I'm scaaaaared!"  "Don't worry Mommy, it's just pretend!"  And she really loves seeing jack-o-lanterns.

Sunday we chose our pumpkin, then took it home and carved it up.  Actually it's a "she", since my daughter named her Rose, and enjoys saying hello to her when she gets home from school.  She loves the jack-o-lantern, and I love its guts!  Mwah hah hah!  

Thank you, Rose the Jack-o-Lantern, for your tasty guts!

My Mom always toasted the pumpkin seeds for us when we were kids, and I loved them so much!  I found a recipe at My Retro Kitchen, which I think is the way my Mom made them.  Unfortunately, I was all out of Worcestershire sauce!  Frugal Girlmet to the rescue - I decided to keep the technique and use a different flavor.  Innovate, experiment - voila!  Korean Spiced Pumpkin Seeds!

These have everything you want in a snack - crunchy, salty, spicy (but not TOO spicy - unless that's how you roll, in which case, double the dried chili pepper powder!) and just a bit sweet.  These would be a great bar snack (in the name of science, I had to test my hypothesis, and these are fantastic with a cold beer!)

Korean Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 - 2 cups raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and patted dry
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic (not to be confused with garlic salt!)
• 1/4 teaspoon Korean chili powder (or use Cayenne or sriracha)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.
2. In a large bowl, mix everything but the pumpkin seeds.  Make sure you have no lumps of garlic or sugar.  Stir in the pumpkin seeds, then scrape it all out onto the baking sheet.  Spread the seeds out on the sheet so they can cook evenly.
3. Cook for one hour, stirring every ten minutes.  They get a little sticky, so use a silicon spatula.  After an hour, remove from the oven and let cool for about an hour.  Don't worry, they're not sticky anymore.  Remove to a bowl and get snacking!

Dubu Buchim -- Korean Basics

I would guess that most people think of Korean barbecue and kimchee when they think of Korean food.  For good reason - that's some tasty eats!  But it's quite easy to put together a vegetarian Korean meal.  For this week's Meatless Monday meal, I turned to tofu.

Tofu, or "dubu" in Korean, is used in many dishes, from banchans like this one, to soups and stews, in both firm and soft varieties.  This dish, dubu buchim, translates simply to "fried tofu."  You could stop there, and eat it as-is, with lots of salt and pepper, with kimchee and some mushroom banchan.  But Koreans LOVE the spicy, so here it is served with a sauce called "yang nyum jang".  I don't know what that translates to, but it is a combination of very basic Korean condiments that dresses up plain tofu and elevates the simple bean curd banchan to higher levels of deliciousness!

Yang nyum jang:  Eat the fire!

I made this for my husband last night and asked how it was.  "Great!" was the reply.  "Thank you.  But how is it, as far as authenticity goes?  Does it taste like your Mom made it?"  He said they only got the yang nyum jang when company or family came over, and usually they just had the tofu fried, with salt.  "But I like it better like this," he told me, and when the tofu was gone, he dragged his roasted broccoli through the leftover sauce.  "Koreans will put gochujang on anything!", he said with a grin.

Dubu Buchim with Yang Nyum Jang

Ingredients:

• 1 block firm tofu
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon vegetable or grape seed oil
• 1 heaping teaspoon gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 2 green onions, minced
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Directions:

1. Drain the tofu, then squeeze it between two salad plates.  You can use whatever method you want - some people wrap a brick in tin foil and place it on top of the tofu!  Just squeeze that block of bean curd, then squeeze some more - but be careful, you don't want to crush it!  Lay it on your cutting board, and slice it half lengthwise.  Then cut it crosswise into squares about 1/2-inch thick.  I got 16 squares out of mine.
2. In a large non-stick pan, heat the sesame and grape seed oil.  Salt the tofu and add to pan.  Cook for about 5 minutes on one side, and when it gets crispy and golden, flip it and cook for another 3 or 4 minutes.  Remove from heat and drain on paper towels.
3. Meanwhile, stir together remaining ingredients to make the yang nyum jang.  The gochujang is thick, so this may take a little effort to get it incorporated.  Spoon the sauce over the tofu.  You can eat this hot, warm, or cold.  Slather the leftover sauce on vegetables or mix it into rice.

Japchae -- Korean Basics

This year the Korean holiday "Chuseok" falls on September 30.  Chuseok is a day when Koreans celebrate the fall harvest, and perform ancestor worship rituals - sort of Thanksgiving meets Dia de los Muertos.  One of the traditional foods for Chuseok is japchae, which I love.  In fact, I don't need too much of an excuse to make it!

This recipe is simple and pretty cheap to make, but it does take a little time to prepare  all the ingredients.  There are two "specialty" ingredients you'll need from the Korean store:  the noodles and the mushrooms.

The noodles are made of sweet potato starch and are clear.  They don't have much of a flavor, but their texture is kind of snappy and fun.  I've never made this with a different kind of noodle, but I'm sure it can be done!

I buy packaged "dried mushrooms" at the Korean store.  I'm pretty sure they're dried shiitakes, but the only ingredient listed in English is "mushrooms", with everything else in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.  If you can't find "dried mushrooms" at your Korean grocery store, use fresh shiitakes.

And as far as the meat goes, it's pretty much whatever beef you can slice really thinly.  You don't need much, and it would be very frugal of you to just slice up any steak or bulgogi you have leftover from dinner.

I wouldn't call this a ban chan, exactly, because I like to eat a LOT of it!  To make it a meal, serve with a hearty jiggae and maybe some samgyeopsal or bulgogi.  

Japchae

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces beef, sliced as thin as possible into bite-sized strips
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 10 dried mushrooms (or fresh shiitake mushrooms)
• 2 bunches spinach, tough stems trimmed and washed well
• 2 large carrots, peeled 
• 1 small onion, sliced very thin
• 1/2 package sweet potato starch noodles, about 6 oz. 
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil, maybe a little more
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Directions:

1. Prepare meat:  Heat sauté pan and add a tablespoon of sesame oil.  Add meat and 3 cloves minced garlic and cook until done.  If you are using leftover, already-cooked meat, heat until hot and the garlic is cooked.  Remove from heat to a very large mixing bowl, and add 1 tablespoon soy sauce.  Set aside.
2. Prepare mushrooms:  Place mushrooms in a bowl and cover with boiling water.  Place a plate on top to keep the heat in.  Let the mushrooms steep and rehydrate for about a half an hour.   When they are rehydrated and soft, slice thinly.  Of course, if you are using fresh shiitakes, just slice thinly.
3. Prepare spinach:  Boil a large pot of water, and get an ice bath ready.  Blanch the spinach for about 20 seconds.  (Keep the water boiling for the noodles.)  Remove from boiling water and into the ice bath.  When cool, squeeze out  most of the water, but don't crush the spinach.  Add to the bowl with the meat and stir to combine.
4. Prepare noodles:  Put the noodles into the boiling spinach water, then turn off the heat.  Leave the noodles in the pot for ten minutes, then drain, and add to the meat and spinach.  Toss to combine.
5. Prepare carrots and onions:  Peel the carrots and cut into 2-inch lengths, then slice as thinly as possible.  Heat sauté pan, add 1 tablespoon sesame oil, and cook sliced carrots, onions, mushrooms, and remaining minced garlic until the onions are soft.  Remove from heat and dump it all into the meat bowl.  
6. Sprinkle with sugar and remaining soy sauce and toss again to combine.  Shake on some sesame seeds and taste.  You may need more soy sauce, or a little more sesame oil.  What you are looking for:  balanced umami perfection!

I like to eat this very warm.  You can eat it cold out of the fridge the next day, but I would recommend microwaving it for about 30 seconds.  

Doenjang Jiggae - Korean Basics

In Korean cuisine, there are two main types of soup:  guk and jiggae.  Guk is very brothy, while jiggae is more like a stew and is more substantial.  Doenjang jiggae is one of the most basic and traditional Korean soups, and is named for the fermented soybean paste that is the center of the stew - the doenjang.

There are many different brands.  I don't read Korean, so honestly, when I buy a tub of doenjang, I read the ingredients and hope I pick a good one.  I'm sure they can't vary that much between brands, but some varieties include other flavorings and ingredients, like anchovies, so read the ingredients list carefully, or look for illustrations on the label to make sure you buy just regular, plain doenjang.

Doenjang roulette - I picked a tasty one!

Once you buy the doenjang, you're set for a while.  It's already fermented, and will last a good year in your fridge.  The other ingredients in doenjang jiggae are readily available and won't require a special trip to the Korean grocery store. 

Enjoy this healthy, richly flavored soup with rice for a first foray into Korean cuisine at home!

Doenjang Jiggae

Ingredients:

• 1 block tofu (I like firm, but you can use any kind)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 or 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 cups water (if you are making rice to go with the jiggae, save 2 cups of the starchy water from rinsing the rice.  This will give your broth a little more substance.  If not, no biggie.)
• 1/4 cup doenjang
• 2 zucchini or other summer-type squash, sliced
• 1 or 2 hot peppers, diced (optional - I don't use them because I'm kind of wimpy)
• 1 bunch enoki mushrooms (I didn't have any, but they're very cute, so pick some up if you see them)
• 2 or 3 green onions, sliced very fine

Directions:

1. Unwrap tofu and drain away water.  I also like to press the block of tofu between two bowls and get out as much water as possible.  In a soup it doesn't matter as much as if you were frying it, but still, squeeze that baby for all you're worth!
2. In a large pot, heat over medium flame and add sesame oil and the tofu.  Saute the tofu in the oil, breaking it up into small pieces.  After a few minutes, add the garlic.  
3. When the garlic gets golden, add water and the doenjang, stirring to dissolve the doenjang.  It will still have pieces of bean; don't worry about those.  You just want to make sure the doenjang gets incorporated and doesn't sink like a stone to bottom of the pot!
4. Add the zucchini (and mushrooms and hot peppers, if you are using them), turn the heat down to low, and simmer for about 20 minutes.  Taste for seasoning - you can add more doenjang if you want a deeper flavor, or you can add soy sauce too.  Serve hot, sprinkled with green onion.

Mushroom Ban Chan - Korean Basics

Unlike a typical American meal - protein, vegetable, and starch - a Korean meal has several components.  Rice is always present, as is a protein and some kind of kimchee.  Soup is almost always included, and my favorite part - the ban chans.  Those are those myriad little dishes that come with your dinner at the Korean restaurant, and are usually small bowls or plates of different kinds of vegetables - salads, sautés, pickles, and other presentations.  If you are cooking Korean food at home, the rice is easy to do, and you are probably putting some meat on the grill, but don't forget about the best part - the ban chans!

Here is an easy one to start with.  These are sautéed mushrooms, Korean-style.  Put the rice in the cooker (bap soot) and make these tonight!

Mushroom Ban Chan

Ingredients:

• 1 package King Trumpet mushrooms (also called King Oyster mushrooms.  Can't find them?  You can use button or creminis, but next time, go to the Korean grocery store and look for these!  They're usually $2 a package - pretty good deal!)

Serving suggestion.  Mushroom dancing lessons not included.

• 2 cloves garlic
• sesame oil
• salt
• 2 green onions
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup very thinly sliced carrots, optional (I had these left over from making kim bap, and I think they added a nice sweetness and color contrast to the dish, but they are in no way necessary to a good presentation)

Directions:

1. Slice the mushrooms into bite-sized pieces.  Finely chop the garlic, and thinly slice the green onion.
2. Add a little sesame oil to your pan, about 2 tablespoons, over medium heat.  Add the carrots, if using, and sauté for 2 minutes.  Add the garlic and mushrooms and stir to coat.  Sprinkle with salt.  The mushrooms will soak up the oil pretty quickly and you may need to add more, but don't worry, they release it back out, along with a lot of water.
3. Saute for 5 or 10 minutes, until the mushrooms sweat out all their water and they are soft and chewy.  Turn off the heat and toss with the sliced green onions and sesame seeds.  Eat hot or cool.

If you have leftovers, try them with scrambled eggs the next day for breakfast.

Lunar New Year Dumplings

Happy Lunar New Year! Some might call it Chinese New Year, but other Asian countries celebrate it as well. Good luck food traditions abound and apply to Chinese, Korean, and other cultures: oranges and tangerines for sweetness and good fortune, long noodles for a long and healthy life, and dumplings, which look like silver ingots and are said to bring wealth and luck. I've always loved dumplings (or "gyoza" in Japanese, and "mandu" in Korean), so I decided to make some to celebrate the new year!

I had no trouble finding recipes online. They all varied infinitesimally, so I cobbled together a generic recipe for pork mandu. A few of the recipes called for the pork to be cooked before stuffing into the mandu skins, but most did not. I, however, was a little freaked out by stuffing raw meat into the skins, so I did cook the pork a little - not to doneness, but just so it wasn't pink anymore. Yes, the filling will be more cohesive and less crumbly if you leave it raw, and please feel free to do so, but it just creeped me out!

Everything should be pretty easy to find in your regular grocery store. You can use won ton wrappers, which are square, instead of mandu or gyoza wrappers, which are round. I used Napa cabbage, but you can easily substitute green cabbage - just be sure it's diced very small since it's pretty stiff.

May you have good luck in the Year of the Rabbit, and may your dumplings be delicious!

Pork Mandu

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1 large carrot, shredded or chopped in a food processor
• about 1/2 cup cabbage, shredded finely
• 4 green onions, chopped small
• 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped small
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for the cabbage
• 1 package gyoza skins (mine had 25 skins in the package)

Directions:

1. After you've shredded your veggies or chopped them in the food processor, sprinkle with a good teaspoon of salt, focusing on the cabbage. Let sit for 15 minutes or so, and then squeeze out the water. You can do this by hand, or put them in a strainer and press with your hands or the back of a spoon. You don't want watery filling.
2. You can skip this if you like, but I browned the pork in a little sesame oil, just until it wasn't pink anymore. Take the meat off the heat and into the strainer and press out any water and fat.
3. Add pork and veggies to a mixing bowl, then add the ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce and salt. Stir to combine.
4. To fill dumplings, hold a gyoza skin in your left hand, and spoon a teaspoonful (don't be tempted to over-fill!) of filling into the middle. Dip your finger into a bowl of water and wet one half of the edge of the skin, making a C. Fold the other half over and press to seal. I gave mine two little pleats, just to be pretty, but a straight fold is fine too.

To cook: you can add these to soup, or just boil them in chicken broth and add some green onions and a little soy sauce for a really fast dumpling soup. I like mine fried. Heat a teaspoon of sesame oil in a skillet and add your dumplings. Cook for 2 or 3 minutes on medium-low heat until they get golden and crispy (watch carefully, they burn quickly!) Flip the dumplings, add 3 tablespoons of water to the pan, and cover. This steams them and cooks the filling evenly. After 3 or 4 minutes, remove lid and cook until golden and crispy. Serve with a dipping sauce of 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar, and 1 tablespoon sugar.

Korean Tacos

I'm not a follower of trends; never have been. (Skinny jeans? Ugh, no thank you.) I prefer the tried-and-true basics, the classics that will never go out of style. Food is also subject to trends. 10 years ago you'd have been hard-pressed to find a cupcake outside of a kindergarden birthday party. Fast-forward to today, where gourmet cupcake shops can be found in every city, charging $3 and up for the kiddie confections! What's the newest culinary must-have? According to newspapers and food blogs nationwide, it's the Korean taco.

Korean tacos, a mash-up of Korean and Mexican fare, usually involve marinated "kogi" (Korean for meat) that's been grilled and served in a tortilla, although pork is gaining a following too. Restaurants and food trucks serve them with their own spin; some stay traditional and add only onion or cilantro, while others make cabbage slaws, mango relishes or kimchee purees to top them off.

As luck would have it, my mother-in-law dropped off a package of beef earlier this week. In typical Korean-grocery-store cryptic fashion, it only said "Sliced Chuck." Good enough, I thought - I don't need fancy short ribs for Korean tacos. Any old thinly-sliced (and therefore easily marinating) beef would do. It was pretty, though - nicely marbled, perfectly sliced ... this could be a tasty experiment!

I decided for the first run of Korean tacos, we'd go rustic: just kogi, onions, and cilantro in corn tortillas. I thought maybe it could use a tiny bump in both color and spice, so I threw together a quick Korean taco sauce. The result: delicious, simple, satisfying, and a natural melding of two food cultures. This is one trend I'm glad I followed!

Korean Tacos

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 1/8 cup soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced very fine
• 1 small onion, finely sliced
• 1/2 pound finely sliced chuck (you can use another cut of beef and slice as thin as possible at home)
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• 1/2 red onion, sliced very thin
• small corn tortillas

Directions:

1. Place the first six ingredients in a Ziplock bag, squish around to combine, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, but 24 hours is preferable.
2.  Grill or fry the beef (discarding the marinade, but feel free to cook up any onion slices or garlic chunks you can fish out.) Depending on the thickness of your meat, this could take anywhere from 2 minutes per side to longer, like if you marinated a flank steak.
3. Warm the tortillas quickly in a dry saute pan over low heat, and top with meat, cilantro and onions. You can give it a squirt of regular hot sauce, or you can try my Korean version:

• 1/2 teaspoon Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang) or more, if you're brave
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Whisk the ingredients together and enjoy on your trendy kogi tacos!