Long time readers might recall that we were introduced to Korean food by Big Boy five years ago.
Since that time, we’ve had a growing fascination with the flavours of this wonderful cuisine, moving on from the widely available barbecue offerings to japchae and spicy stews like jjigae (photo above), which we’ll whip up for dinner on a regular basis. We use a fabulous recipe by Adam Liaw, taken from his Asian After Work cookbook…
![Asian After Work: Simple food for every day by [Liaw, Adam]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51EbnxKvzRL.jpg)
Earlier this year, we experimented with dolsot bibimbap for our seasonal vegetarian dinner party. This dish is traditionally cooked in a hot stone bowl to create a crispy rice crust and heat through the other ingredients. We didn’t have individual bowls, so we improvised with our Emile Henry Flame pots. It was a huge hit…
Pete and I had so much fun prepping this dish that we decided to explore Korean cuisine further.
The first step (of course) was to acquire the necessary cookware. We decided that traditional dolsot (stone/granite bowls) were too heavy for us to handle, so we settled on the far more economical ceramic ttukbaegi pots, which my darling friend Al and I found at Asiana Grocery (Korean supermarket) in the Lemon Grove Arcade in Chatswood. The folks there were very helpful and answered our questions cheerfully.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a bit obsessed with clay cookware, so finding such gorgeous new pieces was like uncovering treasure…
Next, we went looking for recipes.
Maangchi to the rescue! Many of you will already know of this prolific Korean blogger and YouTuber, but it was the first time we’d come across any of her recipes. We carefully studied her videos on shopping in a Korean supermarket and then took ourselves off to Komart in North Strathfield. This is what we came home with…
The receipt made me laugh a lot, as I have no idea what most of it meant…
The first dish we tried was Maangchi’s dakjjim (braised chicken with vegetables and starch noodles). Each of her recipes comes with an excellent video. The kids adored this dish – an entire wok full of stew was scraped clean (and yes, that’s cooked cucumber in the photo below)…
Last night we made her kimchi-sundubu-jjigae (spicy soft tofu stew with kimchi and pork belly). It was the perfect excuse to test out our new ttukbaegi pots. I soaked them in cold water before heating on the gas burner…
Again, Maangchi’s instructions and video offered excellent guidance, and we were delighted with how dinner turned out. I ate until I couldn’t bend over and had to lie down to let my stomach settle. But just look at how pretty it was!
There’s a lot more to explore on Maangchi’s website, and I’ve also purchased her cookbook, which is available in Kindle format for just $4…
![Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi: Book 1, 2, & 3 by [Maangchi]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/517TuTjCQSL.jpg)
So…it looks like 2018 is going to be the year of Korean cuisine in our house. Thankfully our sons (particularly Big Boy) both love the flavours as much as we do. I’ll keep you posted on our adventures!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Some of these dishes look amazing! I can’t say I’ve ate too much Korean food before!
How wonderful – we just cooked kimchiguk from maangchi’s video as it’s been raining a lot in brisbane and it was super delicious. Plus her video is so hilarious I ended up watching it 5 times anyway. Thanks fo showing other recipes Celia, I will keep exploring her site. YUM!
The pork belly and soft tofu sounds amazing – I just checked out the recipe. I love kimchi – the spicier and garlicky the better :)
Goodness me that all sounds so delicious. My sister has an Asian supermarket in Coffs so I learned to love the spicy bite of Kim Chi years ago. My husband can no longer tolerate spicy food so I envy your Kieran cooking adventures. I’ll just content myself with Kim Chi from our local Asian store in Nowra. Best wishes to you and yours
Oh I remember way back when we thought ‘Chinese’ was exciting , ere we knew to divide it into Szechwan and Hainanese and Hunanese and that coming from Shanghai and Beijing ;) ! And then came Thai and Malaysian and Indonesian . . . .and how exciting was Vietnamese and still is . . . and somehow last but wonderfully so we began eating and preparing Korean . . . . and now we all make kimchi and . . . . wonderful to live Down Under , , ,
Oh you guys. I can just imagine all that goings on. Sounds fabulous. i don’t know much about Korean but sure would like to.
I’ve never eaten Korean food, but it sure looks scrummy! Happy cooking.
Ooh, need to explore this cooking further once we’re back in the UK!
I love the pots – they must add to the visual enjoyment of the food.
Wonderful pots – and the contents look amazing too. I haven’t tried Korean food. There are a few restaurants (and supermarkets!) in Birmingham so I will have to check them out. I can’t imagine The Management complaining😉
Hmmmm!
Korean food is fantastic! I’m lucky to have a Korean supermarket close to me and regularly pop in and buy way too much but it’s fun. Big son even comes in with me to grab some groceries with me too which is fun.