Korean Job Discussion Forums

[charlieDD]

I get the sense that there are a lot of people here who feel stuck with eating out or eating prepared foods. They would like to cook, but think the ingredients aren't available or it takes too long, etc.

A sticky thread on "easy cooking recipes" based on things that are readily available in Korea might be useful. Whaddya think?

Personally, I enjoy cooking for myself. I have a lady in my building who cooks for me often . . to my western specifications and tastes . . . in exchange for talking with her kid on a "whenever your free" basis. But, I still cook for myself a lot.

I'll offer a real easy one for starters, if anyone's interested: baked potato. Well, first it would be best if you got yourself a cheap little countertop electric oven. However, if you have a decent pan and a heating coil or gas, you can still bake a potato. Wash the potato, wrap it in foil once and then once more (double wrapped; it helps keep the moisture in and the second layer tends to catch what might drip or oooze out the first layer, keeping things clean.)

If in an oven: it's "Duh" simple: low heat for a long period of time is better than a quick, high heat cooking.

If in a pan: The pan should not be teflon coated because this method could burn off the teflon. The pan should be, however, a bit thick, not one of the elcheapo super thin ones you can get for 1,000 won!

Put the foil wrapped potato in the pan and place it on the burner. Turn the heat on very, very low. If electric, the lowest setting; if gas, very lowest possible flame without it going out on you. Should take about four hours to bake. You'll know it's baked when you start smelling baked potato.

I believe you can bake a potato in a microwave too. You'd have to check the net for directions for that.

Another way: put the foil wrapped potato in your rice cooker and leave the cooker on the "Warm" mode for a long period of time. ( I've never tried it, but have heard it works.)

I knew a guy who baked small potatoes, foil wrapped, by placing them on a hot spot on the heated floor ! He'd somehow cover the potato - - with a blanket was it?

Of course there's the slow cooker ( "crock pot" ) way too. You can get slow cookers from the Namdaemun foreign goods / grey market shops.

There's more than one way to . . . .

[jennateacher]

You can get slow cookers at the Himart. I did.

Baked potato in the micro:
Srub well and poke with a fork a few times (it will explode if you do not)
still wet wrap in a paper towel and stick in oven
set timer for 3 min
check at 3 min (with oven mit or rag on hand) squeeze soft? ok-
hard? stick it back in for 2 min and check again, you may do this a few times depending on size.

[Ya-ta Boy]

In theory this is a good idea, but if you have been here a while, you would know the futility of it all. There was similar suggestion back in �99, but that thread hit the skids REALLY quickly because roughly 1 in 3 of the posters was too stupid to handle the technical details.

First we had the discussion about if it was OK to just wash a potato with your hands or if you really needed a veggie brush. The hands-only people won that part of the debate, but it was fairly bloody. Then the really technical stuff started. Which is better, a red potato or a white potato and where can I buy the best kind? There was also a bit about thin-skinned and thick-skinned white potatoes, but I forget the details.

Following that, we had the two page discussion of why an aluminum foil wrapped potato made the microwave burn out and short out the fuse in the whole apartment building and if the poster who mentioned wrapping potatoes was legally liable for replacing the complainer�s mic or whether stupidity is its own reward.

That wasn�t all. Then there were the camps who said it wasn�t worth baking a potato because sour cream was not available in this god-forsaken back water pitiful excuse for a country like it is back home and the responders who were appalled at the thought of anyone putting anything other than butter and salt on the baked potato. One guy, I think his name was Sweaty Marvin, said that if you can�t put bacon bits and chives on potatoes, then it wasn�t worth it. He had supporters.

I think the mods locked the thread when the vegetable rights crowd got on a tear about how it was immoral to bake a potato that had any resemblance at all to Kim Dae-Jung, the president at the time. The mod was a known supporter of Kim Young-Sam, the president before DJ and the two had locked horns before over their political differences.

With that history behind us, and the level of discourse we have on the board these days, I beg you to think twice about suggesting such a delicate sticky. You know not what you are letting the board in for.

[charlieDD]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I didn't mean to denigrate your basic idea. It has a LOT of merit. Someone else a few months back asked for some quicky recipes to impress his boyfriend who was coming over for dinner, or something like that. And others have asked the similar.

There is a lot of merit to the idea of contributing recipe ideas to people who are FOB and are hungry for a taste of home but have no idea what ingredients are available and where and what is possible to cook up at home.

I nominate you to organize a drive to whip those mods into submission and make a sticky for recipes that are doable...I would suggest there be categories for people with and without an oven.

[Qinella]

The simplest thing I cook is this:

package of mackerel (삼치)
potates cut into thick discs
red pepper paste and powder


Just boil it all together. Let the potatoes boil about 8 minutes before adding the fish, which you boil another 8. Use tons of red pepper stuff. That's good eatin'.


If you have an oven, get some chicken berasts. Cover them in whatever seasoning you want, and wrap with bacon. Bake for like 40 minutes on 175. Heat up a can of baked beans for the side. Protein power pack.

[Son Deureo!]

This takes about two hours to make, so I don't know if it exactly qualifies as easy, but the ingredients are easy to find, and it's not really that complicated so it's hard to screw this recipe up IMHO. If you like seafood, however, I guarantee you won't regret putting the time into making this one.

New England Clam Chowder (that's the white kind)

needed:


10 bags of small clams (the kind they use for chigae, watch the ajummas squeal when they inspect your shopping basket this time!)
200g samgyupsal
1 large onion
1 large potato
1 can of corn (optional)
1 liter of whole milk
2 tbsp. flour
some water


Steps:

1) Wash and dice the potato.
2) Peel and chop the onion.
3) Cut samgyupsal into small pieces
3) Put 2 inches/6cm of water in a large soup pot, bring to a boil.
4) Dump the clams out of the bags into a collander and rinse the clams well with cold water.
5) Put clams into the boiling water and cover pot. The clams will start to open up as they die, sounding a bit like you're making popcorn.
6) When the clams stop opening, turn off heat and remove clams from pot, but leave the water you boiled them in in the pot. A ladle works well for this.
7) Bring water/clam broth back to a boil and put the potatoes in.
Remove clam meat from shells, save the meat, toss the shells.
9) Put clam meat in broth with potatoes.
10) Fry samgyupsal, then fry onions with the samgyupsal.
11) Add samgyupsal, onions, and grease to soup pot. Add corn if you want. Let it all boil together for about 10-15 minutes.
12) Add milk and flour, stir.

The fresh clams make this a much tastier chowder than most people eat in the US and there is no need to add salt because the live clams add plenty of natural salt to the broth.

[jajdude]

Chicken and fish cuts it for me. It's really easy to cook. Add some vegetables, include mushrooms, tomato, whatever. Or put some of the meat and other stuff on toast. I'd like more variety but usually I eat some good stuff.

[billybrobby]

NO MORE STICKY THREADS

we've already got the baby furniture sticky thread, a monument to almost complete uselessness that is currently serving the furniture needs of board members who have babies (which i'm sure is cracking about 2%). Sticky threads waste space and bump current threads off the first page.

[billybrobby]

AND GET THE HELL OFF MY LAWN

[charlieDD]

[frankly speaking]

need to saute the onions in butter for the New England Clam Chowder. Without butter the flavor just doesn't work.

[stumptown]

[casey's moon]

[mnhnhyouh]

At one forum I spend time on there is a similar problem with this sort of thing. The method used to solve the problem is to have two threads. one of them is locked, and the other, like this one, a discussion thread.

As soon as good ideas are posted, they are put into the locked thread by a mod. This keeps the sticky one clean and useful.

I think is would be possible, with the forum software, to make just one person, say the OP, the only regular user able to post in the locked thread. That way it gives no extra work for the mod team.

h