mo' momo

This is extremely belated but check out my winter bbq party spread --- and yes, we did that Momofuku bo ssam. I'm so excited to be coming back home for the summer and you know I'm going to get my grill on. All you babes in Caleee-four-knee-ya, be prepared for a deliciously meat-y summer because MOMMA'S COMING HOME!

Highlights of the winter BBQ: my mother did a soju love-shot with my old friend from highschool. 

삼겹살 (Korean BBQ Bacon)

For ~$10: An order of bacon, beer, soju, and endless assorted lettuce to wrap the meat in, garlic, steamed eggs (계란 찜), kimchi (to eat raw, but also to barbecue, which tastes really good), seasoned mixed vegetables (green onions and bean sprouts), green peppers, and soybean paste soup (된장 찌개). Possibly one of the best meals I've had in the past five weeks here. I'm going to miss Korea.

Korea

Spicy barbecue chicken and cabbage in Sinchon, Seoul, South Korea. More later, but this (among other things) has been my life for the past month.

And aprons, of course.

Naengmyun (냉면)

The summertime calls for some korean cold noodles. Now there's two ways we could do this, the first being mul naengmyun, which is the noodles in a cold broth. The second way is bibim naengmyun, which is served with gochuljang, a spicy korean sauce. "Bibim" mean mixed, and that's exactly what you're supposed to do with dish. Get in there with your chopsticks and aggressively work it so that the sauce gets on every bit of noodle!

There's even a song about naengmyun which is uh, pretty popular in Korea (?).

Bibim Naengmyun Recipe

파전 (Pa Jun)

파전 is a Korean vegetable pancake. My grandmother taught me how to make it while I was home. Aside from the pancake and green onion (파) base, you can really put whatever you want in it. We used the salmon my grandma's nephew sent us from Alaska (he a fisherman there apparently?) because we had some left over from the night before. Here's how it went:

My grandma also taught me how to to make 시금치 (seasoned spinach), 갈비 (short rib) marinade, and 매운탕 (spicy fish soup) among other little things, though I don't feel ready or ambitious enough to make the last one.