The First Bite: India

One of the things I looked forward to most about India was eating the food. There were a few let downs, but mostly gems in Mumbai. Mumbai is the capital of the Maharstra state which is a large stretch of barren land. Apparently, the people have a simple diet subsisting of grains and pulses. Not very exciting. However, India is a large country and each region has its own unique variations of popular dishes. Since people from all over India live in Mumbai you can get any kind of Indian cuisine you want. Quite exciting!

We took advantage of that fact and tried some Parsi cuisine. The Parsis are a group of people who practice Zoroastrianism, a religion started in Persia during the sixth century. Eventully the Parsis were forced to leave and some migrated to India. Parsi cuisine is a mix of Northwest Indian food. We ate at Ideal Corner, a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet guidebook. I loved the quirky and colourful interior: a beautiful creamsicle orange with bold royal blue trim. It was full of business men and shoppers grabbing a quick bite.

Atheli Aloo Chicken Masala

Andrew and I tried two Parsi dishes: mutton curry and atheli aloo chicken masala. The masala was heavy on the garlic, onion, and spices in a good way. It was full of tangy flavour with a hint of heat. Andrew's mutton curry was tasty but the meat was a bit tough.

Samosa with sweet chili sauce

                                    
The real star in the city by the sea was the street food! Street food is always good because it's cheap, just what the budget traveler wants and needs, and it's delicious. I know a lot of people who hesitate to eat street food because they think they'll get sick. I've eaten a lot of street food and haven't been sick. So, I don't mind taking the risk, especially with the delicious eats you can find on the streets of Mumbai. The samosas at the stand we found by chance after seeing the sights and sounds of Crawford street market were incredible. They were in a tender and flaky pastry package that had a potato filling full of the flavours of India: coriander, turmeric, cumin and curry. We washed down our samosas with hot chai teas. Delicious!

The photo above is the most unique and complex street food I've had: bhlel puri. Bhlel puri is its name in Mumbai; masala puri outside Mumbai.  It's kind of like a nacho. It has a crispy base and layers of ingredients are stacked on top of it. But that's where the similarities end. First, the vendor took a crispy papdi, a savoury chip made from flour, next he put a spoonful of stewed chickpeas, than a coriander chutney followed by a sweet chutney, than a mixture of chopped red onions and  tomatoes and, finally, a shower of sev, rice vermicelli noodles. This is quite the mouthful of flavours and textures! As you can imagine all the ingredients mingle together and create a sublime combination of tastes that dip from savoury to sweet to sour and back again. All on a twoonie sized chip!

Those are some of the foods we've enjoyed so far. I'll be posting again soon about my first impressions of Mumbai and Goa.

Top Ten Korean Foods

 

Even though I've left Korea, I still love the food and want to share it here with you!

Korean food is best known for its fiery dishes that induce serious face sweats or for Korean bbq, a carnivore’s dream: meat grilling on a bbq in the table.  While I enjoy the occasional sizzle dishes like dalk galbi, spicy stir fried chicken, provide and I love Korean bbq, especially a 3am galbi, pork rib meat, session.  I also enjoy other dishes and you should too! Korea has a diverse cuisine ranging from simple soups to complex royal feasts. In fact, most Korean foods use sauces and mixtures to enhance the natural ingredients and not all of these sauces are spicy. Staples such as soya sauce, sesame seed oil, garlic, honey, vinegar, ginger, chili pepper, chili pepper paste and fermented soya bean paste are used to add a lot of flavour to meat and vegetables.  I found a Korean maxim in the The Very Best of Korean Cooking: Simple Recipes for Beginners by Kim Young-hee,  which states:“The taste of food depends on the taste of the sauce.” This expresses perfectly the practice of creating elaborate mixtures and sauces to create dominant and flavourful dishes.

I’ve compiled a list of my favourite non-spicy and non-bbq Korean dishes so you can enjoy them if you visit Korea or have a Korean restaurant in your city. Better yet if you feel like having a cooking adventure check out the recipes below. Japchae is labour intensive but worth the effort!

1.       Fire Meat (Bulgogi)

2.       Ginseng Chicken Soup (Samgyetang)

3.       Fermented Soya Bean Soup (Jeong-guk-jang)

4.       Sweet Squash Porridge (Hobakjuk)

5.       Meat Dumplings (Gogi Mandu)

6.       Seafood Pancake (Haemeul Pajeon)

7.       Glass Noodles (Japchae)

8.       Dumpling Soup (Mandu guk)

9.       Sushi rolls with tuna or beef (Chamchi or 
          Seo gogi kimbaps)

10.     Sparerib Soup (Galbitang) 

Bulgogi served at a Korean restaurant

Fire Meat/ Bulgogi--Is a prime example of a dish that uses sauce to create a strong flavour. Thin strips of beef are marinated and then sautéed or grilled. The following recipes are adapted from the ones I used in my Korean cooking class. 

Bulgogi (Fire Meat) Ingredients:  Thinly sliced beef approximately 400-500grams (serves 4)

Sauce: 5 tbsp. soya sauce, 3 tbsp white sugar, 4 tbsp. pear juice, 2 minced green onions, 1 tbsp. minced garlic, 2 tbsp. crushed sesame seeds, 2 tbsp. sesame oil, 1 tsp. black pepper.

Directions:

1.       Combine and mix all sauce ingredients.

2.       Place beef in a bowl and marinate with the sauce
          for approximately 20-30mins.

3.       Gently grill or sauté in a lightly oiled pan 
          over low-medium heat.

4.       Cook thoroughly and serve with rice.

Note: My Korean cooking instructor told me you don’t want to caramelize the meat because it alters the flavour. The pear juice can be substituted for other fruit juices (apple or pineapple).  This dish shouldn’t be too sweet, so test the flavours before marinating the meat. 

Japchae—Is one of my all time favourites. Shiny glass noodles and colourful vegetables all gleam in the sauce--it's a beautiful dish. Glass noodles or sweet potatoes noodles (dangmyeon) are mixed with sautéed meat and vegetables. Omit the beef to make this a vegetarian dish.

100 grams of beef, 2-4 shitake mushrooms, 10 Chinese ear mushrooms, half a large onion, 1 carrot, 50 grams sweet potato noodles, 1 egg, white and yolk separated, 1 red pepper, 1 green pepper (serves 4)

Sauce 1: 3 tsp. soya sauce, 2 tsp. sugar, 2 tsp. pear juice, 1 tsp. minced green onion, garlic, 1 tsp. sesame oil, ½ tsp. minced ginger.

Sauce 2: 2-3 tbsp. soya sauce, 2 tbsp. sugar, 1 tbsp. olive oil, ½ -1 tsp. sesame oil, 1 tbsp. warm water

1.   Mix all the ingredients for sauce 1. Divide the sauce into two portions. Mix all the ingredients for sauce 2. Start with the sugar and warm water to dissolve the sugar. Add the rest. 

2.   If using meat, cut into thin strips. Marinate in sauce 1 for 15 minutes. Cut the shitake mushrooms into thin strips and marinate them in the sauce for 15 minutes. Use 4 shitake mushrooms if omitting the beef.

3.   Soak Chinese ear mushroom in warm water until tender. Tear them by hand.

4.   Sauté the meat, and mushrooms over medium heat and set aside.

5.   Cut carrot, onion and peppers into matchsticks or very thin strips.

6.   Lightly oil frying pan and quickly sauté the vegetables over high heat for 1-2 minutes. Set aside.

Don’t let the vegetables caramelize. In my class, I had to sauté all the vegetables individually. You can do it that way but it’s more work and doesn't change the taste of the final product.

7.   Bring water to a boil and cook noodles until aldente. Remove from heat and strain. Cut noodles in half. Tongs and scissors work best.

8.   Heat the frying pan over low-medium heat. Pour the egg white so it is a circle. Gently cook so it doesn’t break apart. Repeat with yolk. Then cut into thin strips. This is a garnish and can be omitted.

9. In a large bowl, add the noodles, meat, mushrooms, and vegetables and mix by hand with sauce 2.  At this point, you should try some noodles and adjust the flavours. There should be a good balance of  sweet and savoury. If there isn’t much flavour just add more of the ingredients from sauce 2.

10. Place on a serving tray and top with egg. Enjoy!

Note: Sesame seed oil is delicious but pungent. I don’t say this often but less is definitely more when it comes to sesame seed oil. If you add too much just try to balance out the flavours with soya sauce and sugar.

The First and Final Bite in Korea

It’s hard to believe but today is my last day in Korea. I feel a mix of nostalgia and excitement as I pass the final hours of my Korean sojourn and anticipate the upcoming five month travel adventure I'm going to start tomorrow.

I have lived here for three years. Living in another country is one of the best and most rewarding things I’ve done, however, it’s not without its challenges. Obviously, the biggest challenge is the language barrier, but you don’t realize, or at least I didn’t, how much it would affect daily life. I remember one of the first Korean meals my partner Andrew and I had was a total shot in the dark, well, more of a random point at the menu. It was our first week in Korea and we got some advice about Korea in general, and food specifically, from some friendly foreigners at the local bar. They said go to “orange” restaurants. Orange restaurants? Yeah, the ones with the orange signs. Ooohhh. 

Kimbap Chunguk

Orange restaurants like KJM Pasa or Kimbap Chunguk are known for their cheap and delicious Korean meals. The next day, we decided to eat at one. Since our Korean was rudimentary we nervously gazed at the menu.  Puzzled by the simple but unknown characters on it we pulled out our Lonely Planet guidebook and tried matching up the characters to the ones we found in the food section. Eventually our drive gave way to our hunger. We quit trying to figure out the characters and simply pointed at two dishes that seemed reasonably priced and had a lot of words. More words equals more food, right?!

The anticipation grew as I imagined what dishes the server would bring out. She plopped down two plates of food and some banchan, sides dishes of pickled radish and kimchi. Andrew’s dish was ojinguh,  spicy squid stir-fry, a heaping pile of noodles with squiggly tentacles tossed in red paste.  This red paste was gochujang,  a fermented red chili pepper paste that had a prickly heat with a sweet and tangy taste. A small bite of this dish awakened my tongue. We probably wouldn’t have ordered this dish had we known the English translation. So it was nice to have the first of many food adventures in Korea. 

Donggasuh

 My plate had different sections. The small slots were filled with cubed radish, a creamy corn salad, and kimchi. The main dish was donggasuh, a deep fried pork cutlet with a sweet gravy sauce on top. It wasn’t love at first bite. The flavours were familiar yet strange. The crisp and soggy texture of the fried pork and gravy was odd at first, but I gradually enjoyed it. 

My finger pointing days are over, at least in Korea.  I can order food, side dishes and drinks with ease. In this respect, the language barrier has been overcome and I feel comfortable. However, there were many aspects of daily life were I had to rely on my little Korean, a lot of English and the kindness and patience of Koreans with the foreigners living in their country!