One day I was talking to my husband about how original my mom was in cooking. Unlike me who buys all basic Korean ingredients from grocery markets, my mom makes everything from scratch, including Korean bean paste, doenjang.

* Doenjang is a Korean fermented soy bean paste. Doeda means ‘to be thick’ and jang means paste in Korean. Its literal meaning is thick paste.

I saw so many times her making bean paste, hot pepper paste, soy sauce, etc from scratch while I grew up. And every single time, I got mesmerized how she could handle such complicated procedures. She’s a wonder woman to me!

I would never dare to make ferment soy bean paste(doenjang) myself. As much as I wish - because I know it’s healthier, I would cherish that memory in mind only and miss it from time to time.

Anyhow, since I surprised my husband by its complication of making soy bean paste in the traditional Korean way, I’d like to share it here.

How to make soybean paste, doenjang:

1. Buy soy beans, if possible in medium size. Beans get bigger and heavier when they are soaked with water. Mothers usually know how much they need it considering what size of crocks they have.

2. Clean the soy beans with water.

3. Soak the beans with water at 1:3 ratio for about 15 or 18 hours. It’s different by temperature and humidity.

4. Boil the beans, approximately an hour with high heat and keep it with low heat for about 2 hours. It can be cooked using pressure cooker. Some people steam the beans although it takes more time and efforts.

5. Crush boiled soy beans into little bits.

6. Form the crushed paste into square blocks, 7″ by 7″. The size can varry. These bean paste blocks are called meju.

7. Dry the paste blocks, meju on the floor for about a day.

– The procedure to dry the blocks vary household by household. The following procedure is more complicated. –

8. Hang them on the wall with hay strings. Dry them about about a week. Fermentation starts with Bacillus subtilis bacteria and some yeasts as the paste blocks are exposed to the air.

9. For the next three weeks, dry them outside with sun light during the day. At night, bring them inside. More fermentation is going on with somewhat unpleasant smell - ammonia.

10. Where it’s hooked with hay strings, there should be some white spores by the bacteria. This means they are being dried (fermented) properly.

11. For about the next two weeks, put them on ondol floor with more hay. Cover them up with cotton blankets. Turn over the sides of meju every three days.

*Ondol is a underfloor heating system shown in traditional Korean architecture.

12. Dry the bean paste blocks outside for about a week again. Bring them inside at night.

13. Clean the blocks with water and dry them again for about a week in the same way.

-Well-dryed Meju

14. Now it’s ready to put them in a big crock (opaque pottery jar).

15. Melt sea salt that has little bittern in the crock for three days. Proper salinity is about 17%. When you check the salty water three days later, some residue should be all on the bottom of the crock. You just use clean salty water.

16. Put the bean paste blocks in layers in another big crock. Add the salt water from 15, some dates, some hot peppers and more salts.

17. Put some hardwood charcoal. Now it’s being fermented more.

- Well Fermented Soybean Paste - Doenjang

The fermentation process produces many beneficial bacteria. The bean paste becomes rich in mineral vitamin, and essential amino acids. Linoleic acid and linolenic acid in doenjang affect normal growth of blood vessels, which can prevent many blood-vessel-related diseases. Polyphenol contained in Korean bean paste such as isojlavin or melanoidin makes doenjang a good anti-oxidant. Some studies show doenjang is anti-cancer.

During the fermentation in the crock, solids and liquids are separated. The solid portion becomes doenjang, Korean bean paste, and the liquid portion becomes ganjang, Korean soy sauce.

Whenever I read all those weird-sounding ingredients on the label of the factory made doenjang or ganjang from markets, I truly miss my mom’s hand made doenjang and gangjang that only contains natural ingredients. Maybe some day I will try to lean it from her!

- The most popular dish from doenjang - Doenjang JJigae

Tofu, soy bean curd, dubu in Korean, is a great source of protein. It’s also cholesterol free, low in saturated fat, and rich in minerals and vitamins such as iron, calcium, manganese, etc. With all these great nutrients, tofu has low calories compared with other protein food, and helps lower LDL (bad cholesterol) levels. It’s easy and cheap to buy as well. I’ve loved tofu, but now listing all these benefits, I love it so much more!

There are a few popular dishes with tofu in Korea such as tofu kimchi (dubu kimchi), tofu jorim (dubu jorim), soft tofu soup (sundubu), or soy bean paste soup (doenjang jjigae). I love all these, but two dishes that I usually cook at home are tofu jorim (dubu jorim) and soy bean paste soup (doenjang jjigae).

Here is a recipe for tofu jorim. It’s simple and easy.

Ingredients:
- 1 package of tofu: If possible, get firm tofu. Tofu is easy to break.
- Olive oil

Sauce (jorim sauce)
- Soy sauce (ganjang): 1/4 cup
- Minced garlic: 1 tsp
- Pepper powder (gochugaru): 1/4 tsp
- Sesame oil: 1 tsp
- Sugar: 1/2 tsp
- Sliced green onion (pa): 1~2 green onions
- Sesame seeds: 1/2 tsp
- Sliced green chili: 1 sliced green chill
- Water: equal amount of soy sauce or less

* The amount of each ingredient for the sauce is subject to personal taste. I prefer spicy, but less salty and less sweet, so I add more chili and more water.

- Green chill is not added to this sauce.

How to cook healthy soy-sauced boiled tofu, tofu jorim (dubu jorim)

1. Cut the tofu into slices.

2. Pat the tofu slices with paper towels to remove water.

3. Heat the pan over medium high heat and put some olive oil into the pan.

4. Pan fry the tofu slices both sides until they turn light yellow.

5. In a saucepan, add some jorim sauce (above) at the bottom. Heat the pan over low to medium heat. Put the first layer of cooked tofu. Add more jorim sauce on top of tofu. If needed, add the second layer of tofu and jorim sauce on top. If your pan is big enough, one layer will do.

6. Depending on how salty you want it to be, you can add more jorim sauce into the pan. With too much soy sauce, it looks dark. If color is as important as taste, add less jorim sauce and cook it less time.

7. It’s ready to serve when 80% to 85% of the jorim sauce simmers away.

Enjoy nutritious and tasty tofu jorim!

How Do I Cook Delicious Ramyun?

This question sounded strange to me first - how to cook delicious ramyun? To me, ramyun is tasty no matter what, and it’s very difficult to screw up with ramyun. You don’t need a lot of special skills to cook ramyun. To most Koreans, cooking ramyun is the easiest thing in the world.

But I realized that we could cook more delicious ramyun when I had ramyun in a restaurant specialized in ramyun only for the first time. Maybe ramen places had been popular in Japan much longer, but it’s been less than two decades since ramyun-specialized restaurants got popular in Korea, as far as I can remember.

The point is there ARE ways to cook more delicious ramyun!

Here are some tips about how to cook more tasty ramyun. I wasn’t initiated in the secrets from anybody in any way, so these are totally my ideas!

1. Add some more ingredients if possible.
There are tones of things that you can add to ramyun depending on your preference and imagination: mushrooms, potato, sausage, curry, milk, cheese, seafood, tuna from can, rice cakes, bean sprouts, garlics, spinach, hot pepper powder, vinegar, and so on.

The most common ingredients are eggs, dumplings, spring onions and kimchee. Obviously, these are additional ingredients, so pick whatever is available or whatever you’d like to. I usually add spring onions and eggs.

2. Get recently made ramyun if possible.
It’s said ramyun made within two weeks tastes the best because it absorbs water best. Unless you live in Korea, it’s very difficult to buy ramyun that recently made. But if possible, check the date when it’s made and get one made earlier. If you have ramyun that’s relatively old, it’s not a big deal as long as it’s within the expiration date. Just add more water when you cook old ramyun.

3. Turn the gas up to the highest and keep it like that while cooking ramyun.
The strength of heating power is very important. When you cook ramen, keep the gas at its highest. If you want to put the lid on after it’s boiled once, turn it down to the second highest. But it’s recommended not to put the lid on and keep the gas at its highest.

4. The amount of the water is important, too.
When I cook other Korean dishes, I usually use eye-ball measurements. But with ramyun, it’s a different story. Follow the directions of the package about the amount of the water, and it will make it more tasty.

Let’s cook delicious ramyun now!

This is for one serving.

(1) Boil 550ml water at the highest gas.

(2) Add the powder soup before the water boils. Stir it once or twice.

(3) When the water boils, put noodles in it. Once the noodles get loose, massage them by lifting with chopsticks a few times and stirring after. This will make the noodles more chewy.

(4) Boil the noodles for about 2.5 or 3.5 minutes without the lid on. This can vary depending on personal preferences. I like ramyun a little bit undercooked. But some people prefer to cook 4 minutes or more.

It’s said they cook for 2 or 3 minutes at a lot of ramyun restaurants. Another important thing is to keep the same heating power while boiling. Keep the gas at its highest!

(5) Egg! When and how to add an egg can vary as well depending on personal preferences. Some like to add it when they put the noodles and break it all the way. Others don’t want to break it to have a nicely-shaped yellow yolk.

If you like an undercooked egg, separate the white and yellow yolks, stir the white yolk and add it 2 or 3 minutes after you add the noodles. Then boil it whatever time you want. Add the yellow yolk at the end before you turn off the gas.

(6) Add some spring onions if you have 1 minute or 30 seconds before you turn off the gas.

(7) Serve it in a large bowl. Kimchi is the most recommended side dish for ramyun. Enjoy!

Other ingredients
You can add some red pepper powder (gochu-garu) for spicier taste.
You can add a drop of vinegar for more fresh taste.
You can add some milk for softer taste.

* Some of most popular ramyun in Korea
Shinramyun, Ansung Tangmyun, Neoguri, Kimchi Ramyun and so on

What is Kimbap?

Gimbap or Kimbap is a Korean fast food or snack that is popular among Koreans. It literally means ’seaweed (cooked) rice’. It’s made from steamed rice (bap) and various ingredients wrapped and rolled in a sheet of seaweed (gim or kim). It’s served in bite-size slices, usually with Kimchi or pickled radish (danmuji). Among non-Koreans, it’s also known as Korean Sushi.

What are the basic ingredients?

Rice(bap): It should be sticky rice. Usually gimbap is made from white rice because it tastes better and looks prettier. But to make it healthy, I mix white rice and brown rice, 1:1.
Eggs
Picked radish(danmuji) or cucumber: Danmuji can be replaced with cucumber. Many people buy danmuji from stores for convenience rather than make it themselves. Most danmuji from stores has chemicals for taste and coloring to some level. It can be made at home, but it’s additional work. Cucumber can be a good replacement for danmuji to make it healthy and save time.

- Danmuji that you can buy from Korean grocery stores

Spinach: This can be replaced with other green vegetables.
SPAM: To make it healthy, you can replace this with soy sausage or vegetable sausage. I get mine from Trader Joe’s.
Korean fish cake or crab meat: You can buy these from Korean groceries.

- My husband calls this “fake” crab meat. It’s $3 to $5 from Korean groceries.

Carrots
Beef

How to make kimbap?

1. Get ingredients ready: Kimbap is usually considered as fast food or a snack, but it can take an hour or more, especially for a beginner, to have all ingredients ready. But once you get used to it, it will be easier and faster as in other cookings.

(1) Start to cook rice. It takes 30 to 50 minutes depending on what kind of rice you cook or what kind of method you use.

(2) Crack 3 or 4 eggs into a bowl. Add salt and mix it well. Pan-fry and cut it lengthwise with a little over a quarter inch width.

(3) Boil 4 or 5 cups of water to cook spinach. When water boils, boil spinach less than 10 seconds. If it’s too long, all good vitamins of spinach could be lost and its color changes. Rinse spinach with cold water and squeeze all the water out. Add sesame oil, salt and some sesame seeds if you have.

(4) Slice carrots in 2 inch length and stir-fry. Add some salt.

(5) If you have danmuji, cut it lengthwise in a quarter inch width. If you have cucumber, peel it and cut in lengthwise about a little less than a half inch. Add some salt and leave it for about 10 minutes. Rinse it with water and squeeze the water out.

(6) If you have Korean fish cake or crab meat, cut it lengthwise about a quarter inch width. Fish cake and crab meat from grocery stores are not the healthiest food, but if we have it once it a while, it should be okay.

(7) Beef: Especially when you have SPAM, fish cake or crab meat, you can easily pass this. If you want to add beef, slice it into small pieces and stir-fry with some seasonings.

- Carrots, Spinach and soy sausage

- Eggs, crab meat and cucumber

(8) Finally rice again: When the rice is fully cook, add some salt, sesame oil, sesame seeds and mix them well.

2. Let’s roll!

If you have a bamboo mat, rolling will be so much easier. It’s about $1 or $2 from many Korean groceries, but I’m pretty sure it’s easy to buy from other stores, too.

Place a sheet of kim (dry seaweed) on the bamboo mat. Put about a cup of rice on the center of the seaweed and using a spoon, spread it evenly over the 2/3 or less of the seaweed from the bottom.

Place a little bit of each ingredient on a single line and start to roll it up. Roll it slowly and gently. Every time you roll, pause and squeeze the roll a little bit to tighten the ingredients together.

At the end, place some rice at the end edge of the seaweed to seal the roll, if necessary - sticky rice is a good glue.

3. Cutting

Remove the bamboo mat and slice up the gimbap roll. Every so often, wipe your knife with some sesame oil. Otherwise, the knife will be too sticky because of small rice pieces taken while cutting kimbap.

In Korea, it’s a tradition that kids bring kimbap for seasonal excursions or special events. When I was an elementary school student, an excursion was a special fun thing because it only happened a couple of times a year. On top of that, it was so exciting to see mom busy cooking special dishes including kimbap. I especially liked kimbap because it was very colorful and looked very difficult to make.

I make my first kimbap only a few weeks ago. It didn’t taste magical as my mom’s was at excursions. But it was still healthy and tasteful, and it definitely soothed my longing for Korea.

I was busy making and eating gimbap, and I forgot to take a photo of nice-looking gimbap slices. These are the ones that are left. =)

- Insam(인삼, 人蔘) is Korean word for Ginseng.

It’s the end of September and finally the weather starts to cool down. Living in the San Fernando Valley makes me think that even 85 degree is cool! Of course, I have a strong resistance against heat or gets cold really easily.

Cool weather reminds me of many kinds of warm, aromatic, sweet, sour or bittersweet Korean teas made of fruits, roots, leaves or grains such as yuja cha (citron tea), maesil cha, dunggule cha, gugija cha, bori cha (barley tea), oksusu cha (corn tea), mogwa cha and insam cha (gingeng tea).

I am being a little surprised that insam cha is included in my list because I wasn’t very fond of it when I grew up. Because it’s known for preventing winter colds or illness from fatigue, every October or November my mom used to make insam cha and forced(?) my siblings and me to have it. It was such an ordeal for me! Not only I had to drink the bitter tea but had to eat the actual insam (gingeng) and all other ingredients such as daechu (jujube or Korean dates). They didn’t taste good!

- Daechu (dates or jujube)

Maybe it’s natural that now I actually miss having the insam cha and all the ingredients that my mom made because she’s not here in America to make it for me and I’ve realized that it worked for me who has low body temperature and low blood pressure. I rarely had colds or wasn’t much sick at all in winter when I lived in Korea. Only if I had known, I wouldn’t have been such a spoiled resistant!

Insam cha (Ginseng Tea) is good for fortifying the immune system, increasing energy, improving blood circulation, and relaxing the nerve system. It’s also good for those who have low blood pressure, anemia or low body temperature.

The best way to have insam cha is to boil actual insam with some daechu (dates).

Sample Ginseng Tea Recipe
1. Boil 500ml water with 50g insam and several daechu. Boil it until the water almost becomes half.
2. Drain water and add a tea spoon of honey when serving.
3. You can also have insam and daechu with some honey. It tastes bittersweet.

* 6 year old insam is usually considered the best ones.

Insam cha is a little expensive for a daily tea if you want to actually boil it yourself. It also can be difficult to get freshly harvested insam in the USA. The alternative way it to have powdered insam cha made of insam extract.

* It’s commonly accepted that ginseng (insam) or ginseng tea is not good for those who have high blood pressure or high body temperature. It’s not recommended for pregnant women because ginseng warms up their bodies. Limit the amount of ginseng or ginseng tea in summer.