I just wanted to put a post up to tell you what I have cooked so far.  I am trying to cook different Korean dishes every few weeks.  It is going well.  Kimchi makes pretty much everything taste great.  My first cooking experience was Kimchi Jjigae.  Jjigae means soup.  It is a spicy soup with veggies and pork.  You use a fattier cut of pork so that makes it extra delicious.  This is a STAPLE in Korean diets.  I think one of my co-workers said she makes it three times a week.

My second culinary attempt was Doengjang Jjigae.  Doengjang is a Korean soybean paste.  It is a lot like miso paste from Japanese cooking, and thus I thought this soup would be similar to a miso soup.  Doengjang is pretty strong stuff, but I am a huge fan of it.  By this time my fridge was starting to have a lot of standard Korean ingredients in it.  I was quite proud.  This recipe called for something I have never really eaten before or cooked.  It is an extremely popular snack/ingredient in Korea.  Since I have been here I have eaten it dried, salted, in soup and pan fried…It’s ANCHOVIES!  So I took a picture of the bag, just because they are so ugly.  In Doengjang you put a lot of the paste in, some gochoojang (red pepper paste) pork, spinach, other veggies and water.  It was funny when my Korean friend Jessica came over to try it.  My soup tasted great, but I don’t think it tasted anything like it is suppose to…which makes sense because I have never tried it before.  She said my kimchi jjigae was really delicious, which is a HUGE compliment.  I was so nervous that it wouldn’t taste authentic. 

Finally, this week I made Kimchi Bokeum Bap, which is kimchi fried rice.  It is exactly as it sounds.  You fry rice in a pan with some veggies, sesame oil and kimchi.  It was my favorite dish I have made, and will definitely make it for my family when I come home.  I hope I can find kimchi easily or I am going to go into withdrawal. 

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