The Grocery Ninja leaves no aisle unexplored, no jar unopened, no produce untasted. Creep along with her below, and read her past market missions here.
I know what you’re thinking. “Acorns? Why on earth is she talking about acorns? The weather’s just getting nice and balmy, and she’s featuring autumnal nuts? Bah humbug… it’s spring!”
And so it is. But I promise you, this is a very springy kind of dish. It’s refreshing on a warm, sunny day, light on the palate, easy on the eye (and wallet), and will leave you feeling decidedly sprightly.
Posted by Ed Levine, February 24, 2008 at 11:00 AM
The New York Times reports today that the first Korean astronaut will be bringing some of that nation's beloved kimchi into space with him. The Korean national dish, a powerful, extremely pungent fermented cabbage, is not exactly shelf- or space-stable, so finding a way to bring it safely into space required a costly and time-consuming effort:
Three top government research institutes spent millions of dollars and several years perfecting a version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not put off non-Korean astronauts with its pungency.
Posted by Robyn Lee, February 22, 2008 at 12:00 PM
I think this is a genuine commercial about kimchi. And that frightens me. Just a bit. Especially when the pile of fermenting kimchi pulsates. As for why the labels on the kimchi jars are in Japanese and the commercial is dubbed in English, I have no idea.
Watch the commercial after the jump. Prepare to be blown away.
Forget barbecue or tofu stew: the true staple of Korean food is kimchi, the crunchy fermented cabbage that's always reliably on the table and growingly increasingly popular with Western palates. Did you know there's at least 200 different variations?
Daniel Gray of Epicourageous in Seoul visited Korean food chain Balena to try the portable food that you never knew you wanted: pasta in waffle cones! For as little as 2,000 won ($2.13) you can walk away with a cone of "Primavera" pasta, while meat-hungry eaters may prefer the 3,900 won ($4.16) cone stuffed with "Top Choice Chop Steak." Unfortunately, Gray didn't have the time to describe the taste of the pasta-cone combo—he was in a hurry to eat live octopus.
Budae jjigae, or "army stew," is a Korean soup dish whose name stems from the use of surplus foods from the US Army in a traditional gochujang-based soup. Su-Linadded the former Army surplus foods Spam and hot dogs to her budae jjigae along with ramen, spring onions, and Chinese cabbage, and served the stew over white rice.
"Bibimbap is basically rice mixed with vegetables, usually some type of meat, and gochujang. But that’s the simple of it. Each one of the ingredients is something special in itself. It’s like a bunch of little salads and meats individually and carefully prepared placed on shiny rice in a bowl." ZenKimchi explains the traditional Korean dish, bibimbap, and its many seasonal variations.
Depending on your level of culinary adventurousness, the following video will either make you hungry or kill your appetite. If you haven't eaten yet, click accordingly.
Austin area meat eaters and music lovers will tell you about the wonders of Stubb's, the barbecue restaurant and live music venue on Red River founded by the late chef and pitmaster C. B. Stubblefield. The recently published Stubb's Bar-B-Q Cookbook has recipes from the restaurant as well as Stubblefield's personal cookbook, as well as photos and stories from his colorful life.
The Austin American-Statesman's Kitty Crider shares the book's recipe for Korean Steak, Stubb-Style, created after Stubblefield served in Korea and "discovered that Koreans and Texans have much in common: Both love beef, chili peppers, and grilling over a charcoal pit."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 23, 2007 at 3:02 PM
I have a great love for all kinds of dumplings but the ones that find their way into my mouth most often tend to be soup dumplings (Chinese) and gyoza (Japanese). Korean dumplings are called "mandoo" and are pretty darn tasty, fried or steamed. At a place called Mandoo Bar on 32nd street in Manhattan's Koreatown, you can watch nice ladies making mandoo right in the storefront window right before you go inside and have them cooked up just for you. Jason Perlow visited Mandoo Bar recently and posted a set of mouth-watering photos on his blog, Off the Broiler—don't look on an empty stomach or it'll start rumbling for sure.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 7, 2007 at 9:57 AM
The New York Times introduces a new column today: A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark. Its first installment is A Morning Meal Begs to Stay Up Late, exploring polenta's potential as a dinner item (it of course being the first cousin of grits): "It’s a perfect first recipe for this column devoted to foods I’m hankering to eat and proud to feed to anyone willing to pull up a chair ... or a couch. These are foods that are easy to cook and that speak to everyone, either stirring a memory or creating one."
Other highlights:
Marian Burros discovers the unexpected delight of unlaid eggs, which are eggs in varying stages of development that haven't been laid and are harvested from hens sent to slaughter. "[Dan] Barber tried lightly scrambling the eggs with fresh herbs from the greenhouse garden and served them in eggshells. This is what the unlaid egg should taste like: a deep, concentrated flavor, a hint of sweetness, but not overly rich. “You don’t get that in a full egg,” Mr. Barber noted."
Koreans Share Their Secret for Chicken With a Crunch by Julia Moskin: "Korean-style fried chicken is radically different, reflecting an Asian frying technique that renders out the fat in the skin, transforming it into a thin, crackly and almost transparent crust. (Chinese cooks call this “paper fried chicken.”)"
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 1, 2007 at 4:59 PM
Korean-Mexican Fusion: Kalbi Tacos? eat drink & be merry lives in ethnically diverse LA and ruminates on the fusion of cultures by... making tacos with korean bbq ribs instead of carne asada. YES.
(Also: someone please get the Pushcart NYC guy to start making these for me? Kalbi rolls are great but now that my mind has been awakened to the possibility of kalbi tacos, it will not rest.)
The New York Times reports today that the first Korean astronaut will be 
