The Foodie By: itserinne 2 comments

     I've always had an interest in cooking, but I'm not the type to try to learn the technicalities about it. I'm more the youtube tutorial type. I usually download the video, watch it and see if I'd be able to copy it. And since most of the food that I'm interested in cooking have ingredients not readily available in supermarkets here, I learned to substitute.


    My first attempt at following a youtube cooking tutorial vid. This is kimbap/gimbap:

Image not mine. Taken from Wiki

Gimbap or kimbap is a popular Korean dish made from steamed white rice (bap) and various other ingredients, rolled in gim (sheets of dried laver seaweed) and served in bite-size slices. Gimbap is often eaten during picnics or outdoor events, or as a light lunch, served with danmuji or kimchi.


  
  


    There are a few ingredients in kimbap that I wasn't able to find until later, so instead of the actual steamed ham they used on authentic kimbap, I used the regular cheese dog I was able to buy at the local supermarket and skipped the fermented radish. It turned out fine for the first time. So the next pictures are mine.

Before it gets sliced, it really looks ugly

Tada! Sliced and packed!

   If you're interested in making gimbap, here's a step by step guide for you. It has pretty pictures too! Kimbap 101

   Then I did rice cakes during New Year. I made Gyeongdan, this is a type of rice cake that has sweetened red bean paste inside. I decided to make it when I saw a packet of glutinous rice flour during one of my supermarket trips. The process was easy, but actually shaping the rice cakes was pretty difficult since you need to handle them while they're still malleable. They get hard if you left it too long. And the mixture sticks to your hand like glue, I decided to put olive oil on my hand at first so it won't stick, then I read that you're supposed to put flour on your hand instead.

    My rice cakes look more like mochis (a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape ) than those pretty korean rice cakes I see online. Here are some pictures:

Aren't they pretty?

    These type of rice cakes are usually served during weddings (traditional weddings, that is. They say if the married couple eats this, they would stick/stay together forever or something like that) and New Year celebrations (mostly during the Chinese New Year, not the Western one).

    The next picture is a Japanese mochi. This is how mine would look like but imagine it being more messy.

I just wanted to add this, kawaii ne?

    Having seen those pictures, you'd probably have an idea how badly I failed at doing this project. So the next photo would be my lame attempt at trying to copy the cute mochis you see on the photo above (minus the faces). Oh and before I forget,  a mochis (or maybe it's just mine) shelf life is really short. Mine laster for about 24 hours. After I removed it from the fridge it looks ugly as hell, I admit even I didn't want to eat it.

Lame, isn't it?

    My next projects are egg dishes. The first one was an egg roll. It looks easy when you see the tutorial video. But when I attempted to do it, it wouldn't, ummm roll. After a few tries I was able to make a decent looking one, when I say 'decent' I mean it looks like this

The picture's not mine, I wasn't able to take a photo of my dish,
but just so you'll have an idea

    But this is what it would actually look like if done perfectly:

I want to make something as yeopo as this! ;A;

    The egg roll ingredients are simple, it's just like making an omelette. You just need to roll it. Speaking of omelettes, my recent project is Omurice.

    Inspired by Park Ha from the Rooftop Prince. This is the first dish that Crown Prince Lee Kak and his entourage tasted after they got transported to modern Korea. It originated from Japan, as per Wikipedia: Omurice is an example of contemporary Japanese fusion cuisine consisting of an omelette made with fried rice and usually topped with ketchup.

Courtesy of KBS' Rooftop Prince

    This is one of the simplest dishes to prepare, you just need to cook fried rice, that's going to be your stuffing and then you fry two beaten eggs in a large pan. the instructions says to fold the egg... How would you fold the  fried egg into a sqaure if it's not big enough to cover the rice? That was my main problem. the first attempt was a failure, then my Mom decided to intervene and told me that I was putting too much rice. When I have about three or four tablespoon of rice in the middle of the fried egg, I tried folding it again and TADA! I was bale to make this.

Thanks Orange for the picture! ^^

    I still have soooo many other dishes I want to work on but I don't have time (and the budget) to do all of them. And I wish I'd be able to taste the real ones, you know what I mean, go to Korea and eat everything my stomach allows me to eat, then maybe I'd be able to perfect those dishes and make a few more to add to my collection.

**if you're interested in other Korean dishes, you can visit these sites: Aeri's Kitchen, My Korean Kitchen or if you're not much of a cook, you can just drool over the pretty pictures. ^.^