Turning One in Korea...

...or shall we say two? In Korea, when you ask a person his or her birthday, they will tell it with one year added to their original age. That's because the time in the womb is counted as a year, so if the person says he is 18 years old. He is really 17 years old in the Western world.


I had the privilege of being invited to a baby's 2nd birthday. My Filipina friend, Wilma, is married to a korean and their son turned two. Other Filipinas in the area were also invited and of course all the baby's clan members. The custom in giving gifts for a baby's birthday is to give money in an envelope. This is to help the parents offset the expenses in renting out the restaurant and the food expenses as well.


There is this tradition that is performed after all the guests have eaten and the gifts given (and before the candles are blown on the cake). The celebrant is placed on a high chair with all the guests assembled around him.


Then things are laid out in front of the baby for the baby to reach out and grab. Different items mean different jobs or fate for the baby. The string means long life, while the golf ball means he might become a golf player someday. The notebook means he would be good in his studies while the pencil either connotes that he will be a writer or a poet someday. The last two items are the toy stethoscope (meaning he would be a doctor) and the microphone (foretelling his future as a singer).


Wilma's baby reached for the mike first. Hmmm, I guess he would be a great singer someday (or develop a good singing voice).


The next item the baby chose was the stethoscope. Does this mean Wilma's baby would also be a doctor someday? Maybe a singing doctor? :)

My friends told me that other items can be included in the choices: like money (choosing this mean the baby will be rich when he gets older), a soccer ball (I don't really have to say what the baby would be when he chooses this, do I?), and other sports items [baseball bat, basketball, etc.]. What neat and fun tradition. Wish we had this in my country.

Pancakes to start the day right...

Let me tell you a secret, I never buy pancake mix anymore. I found this great recipe on the internet and tweaked it a bit. It was better than the store-bought pancake mix. This was great since the little one (Billy) loves pancakes smothered with butter and syrup. Big Bill loves it with bacon or sausages.


Here's how you prepare the pancakes (recipe for the batter will be at the bottom of this post). First, you start out with a hot skillet and a nob of butter (that's a tablespoon of butter for you newbies). Let the butter coat the bottom of the skillet thoroughly.


Take a ladle full of pancake batter and pour into your skillet. Let it spread into a flat circle. Now you have to watch this carefully, no leaving to answer the phone or check emails (it is easy to get the pancake overdone).


Now after about a minute and half, you'll see bubbles forming on top of your pancake. This is the signal to turn it over.


See? Our pancake is nice and golden brown on this side. Let the other side cook for about a minute now. When it is done, slide in onto a plate (you should have one waiting in easy reach) and go make your next pancake.


Now when you make a stack of pancakes, here's a tip. Butter each pancake and pour syrup in between layers. This will make the pancakes fluff up with syrup and satiate your little pancake eating monster.


This is my pancake, simple and unadorned by syrup. Only dabbed with butter and that's the way I like it.


And here is Bill's plate. He loves it with sausage, adoring the way the flavors of the sweetness of the syrup and the saltiness of the sausage mixing in his mouth.

Pancake Mix

Mix ingredients:
1 and 1/2 cups flour
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

For batter:
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of milk
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tbsp butter

1. Combine all the dry ingredients for the mix in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the milk, eggs and the vanilla and stir thoroughly.
3. Don't mix too hard or too long, lumps are ok in the batter.
4. Use the butter to oil the skillet when you make the pancakes.
5. Serve pancakes with more butter and syrup.

Bimbimbap, shoo wah di wah di wah di wop...

Bibimbap is the iconic dish for Korea. It is simply cooked rice, topped with cooked veggie toppings & meat, drizzled with gochujang sauce (red pepper paste) and to top it all off, the pièce de résistance - a fried sunnyside egg. Wiki describes it as "Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables), beef, a fried egg, and gochujang (chili pepper paste). The ingredients are stirred together thoroughly just before eating. It can be served either cold or hot."


There are many ways to make Bibimbap. There is one made with minced beef in the ingredients. Another way to serve Bibimbap is with raw diced fish called Yoekhoe bibimbap. One of my favorite variations is topped with shad roe, crunchy diced yellow squash and kimchi called Albap. (Pictured on the left). The egg can be fried or raw (like the first picture up above).

And some bibimbap are served in stonepots, which gives a nice crunchy crust to the rice (this type of bibimbap is called "Dolsot bibimbap"). And some served in huge washbasins. I had the unfortunate incident of being served one like this in Ilsan city. Bill laughed out loud when he saw my face as I got a stainless steel bowl as big as a washbasin that contained my bibimbap (the one I ordered was good for two).


Here's one I made with fridge leftovers - julienned carrots & cucumbers, sauteed bean sprouts, sauteed mushrooms and fried pork.


We can't forget our sunnyside up egg, can't we?


All mixed together for spoonfuls of tasty goodness.


Here I've added sauteed spinach, strips of seaweed laver, julienned daikon radish and sauteed cabbage strips.

Again topped with that wonderful fried egg. The egg needs to be cooked with the yolk still oozing so that when you mix it all up, you get the yolky goodness permeating throughout the rice grains.

Here's a simple recipe on how to prepare bibimpab.

Bibimbap

4 cups of cooked rice
1 cup sliced, cooked beef (stirfried in a little soy sauce)
1 cup beansprouts, stirfried in a little oil with salt and pepper
1 cup julienned carrots, stirfried in a little oil
1 cup mushrooms, sliced and stirfried in a little oil
2 cups spinach, washed, blanched and squeezed dry
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 cup seaweed wrapper, cut into strips
4 eggs, fried sunnyside up
1 squirt bottle of gochujang paste

1. For the spinach, after blanching it, mix it with a little salt, garlic and sesame oil.
2. To assemble the bowl, get 4 bowls, add a cup of rice into them.
3. Divide and arrange the cooked vegetables and beef on top of the rice.
4. Squirt a little gochujang sauce (or a lot if you want it spicy) in the middle of the bowl.
5. Top with an egg on each bowl.

Serve and enjoy!

Adjuma Alert!

An adjuma is what Koreans call elderly ladies or ladies of that "certain age". You know feisty women, old enough to know they can bully others out of their place in a line and brash enough to yell for more side dishes in a restaurant. Adjuma simply means "Auntie". I tried calling myself adjuma when I introduced myself to kids in the local elementary school and they shrieked with laughter. They told me that I was too young to be an adjuma.

Adjumas are prevalent in any city in Korea. You can see them congregating in groups and you can tell them a block away. You know why? Because you can hear the cacophony of conversations emitting from the gaggle of ladies.


How does one become an adjuma? Well for one thing, you must be above 40 or 50 to be one. And you must wear stretchy pants like this.


The more flowery, the better.


Then you throw on these loud blouses to pair with your flowery pants. The more the colors clash, the better. (Can see a pattern here?) It's like an early system warning for other people. Loud flashy colors down the end of a street? It's an adjuma coming!


To top the adjuma ensemble is a wide-brim visor like this.


Or Darth Vader visors like this.


Another adjuma trademark is the cap of curly hair. Bill asked me why do almost all adjumas have the same hairdo? Is is like a membership card or something? LOL


Adjumas can be stubborn as hell when you try to get them to do something different. Like take out the takuan (pickled radish) out of the kimbab roll (I hate takuan).


They can also be very opinionated and won't hesitate to correct you or tell you what you are doing is wrong. Good thing I don't really speak or understand Korean that well and a blank look usually shuts them up.

But they can also be very caring and understanding, like that time I was standing on the bus and an adjuma pulled Billy on her lap and took my heavy bag to hold it for me. Or that time an adjuma sitting beside me on the bus stop with her friends took kimbab rolls to pass around. I was included in the pass around and felt privileged to be included in the group.

Adjumas, you love and tolerate them at the same time. Sigh.

Pizza Bread!

A couple of days ago, I had a grand idea of teaching Billy how to make pizza. I was suppose to make pizza dough since I had all the ingredients but when I woke up that morning I felt like cr@p. My back was hurting again. So when I went to the supermarket to get groceries I saw baguettes and that's when I decided we will make pizza bread. Mark, Billy's friend, was visiting that day and he got to make pizza bread too.



Here's what I prepared for our pizza-making session.


Chopped bell peppers for the ooomph flavor.

Chopped sweet onions that adds that certain tang.

You can never go wrong with bacon on your pizza.

Another great pizza topping is ham.

Now we have our sauce (our generic meat sauce that I use for spaghetti or pizza).

The whole wheat baguette that I had our baker slice into two and then halved.

Lastly, you can't make pizza without mozarella cheese.


Now we assemble the pizzas. I told Mark and Billy to take a half baguette and to slather on the meat sauce.


Here's Billy working on his pizza.



After making sure we have covered all the bread surface with sauce, we then add the cheese.



I told the boys that the cheese is best under the topping to let our bacon and ham crisp up nicely (not like korean pizzas that bury the topping under a mound of cheese).


Now we layer our bacon and ham on the pizza. Billy just adds the two and no onions and bell peppers. Marks loads everything on his pizza.


Now we bake the pizza bread in my handy dandy turbo broiler oven. It just takes 7 to 10 minutes to bake them.


And we have Pizza Bread!

The Street Markets of Korea (Janghowon part 2)

Here's the continuation of my report on the street market of Janghowon.


Here's a stall selling various items of clothing for kids. I found cool military outfits for my boys in one of these stalls.

I adore the cute animal pillows in this stall. I was going to get one of the crab pillows but the $7 price made me put it back. Eeek!


More veggies for sale. The yellow and green pile you see are leeks piled waist-high. A bundle of leeks sell for about $1 to $2 here.


A snack stand, well more like a drinking stand, sells various dishes for accompaniment to soju (korean alcohol like japanese sake) and maekkoli (traditional rice wine). I believe these are pig skin, pig trotters and chicken feet marinated in gochujang sauce (red pepper paste).


There are also military outfit/tools stalls like this. I got my replacement Swiss Knife here (my original got stolen back in Manila).




Sun hats and visors abound on this stall. Usually elderly women and married ones prefer these type of headgear (I'll tell you more about this on the following posts).


Remember the gochujang & gochucaroo stuff I keep posting awhile back? Well here are bags of where they get that stuff. Dried red peppers waiting to be ground up into powder and made into red pepper paste.


Another snack stand, this time selling blood sausages called "sundaeguk". Usually this sausages are sliced and served with sliced steamed offal.


These are rice crackers. I'll show you how it is done.



See this gizmo? It heats up and puffs up rice kernels and then spits out this perfectly shaped rice cracker. A pack sells for 2 bucks and can keep you happy chewing and crunching the whole afternoon.

Well this ends my report on the street market of Janghowon. I'll post more pics when I find something new and unusual in our weekly street affair. :)