Korean cuisine is becoming quite popular in the West, especially with the influence of K-pop music and melodrama. With the rising popularity of Korean influence, there are a lot of people getting to know Korean cuisine. And I am one of them who is fascinated by their spicy dishes! It is also going to be my next travel destination!
In this Korean Home Cooking cookbook, Sohui Kim shares the authentic Korean flavours found in the dishes at her restaurant and the recipes from her family. The book contains a comprehensive 100 Korean recipes and includes recipes for kimchee, crisp mung bean pancakes, seaweed soup, spicy chicken stew, japchae noodles and more traditional fare of soondae (blood sausage) and yuk hwe (beef tartare). Korean Home Cooking will be available to buy from 16th October 2018 by Abrams.
This book is categorized into different sections: Vegetables & Sides, Korean Barbecue, Seafood & Meat, Stews & Soup, Noodle, Rice & Dumplings and lastly desserts. Sohui also shares stories from her family, and photographs from her travels in Korea in this book.
My family are not big fans of spicy food, which is quite the opposite to myself. I love spicy food and can eat a lot of it, but in order to please them, I will usually cook non-spicy food, like this recipe for Vegetable Fritters (Yachae Twigim). This is also a good way to get them to eat more vegetables! It is suitable for vegetarians.
I found that in some of her recipes, potato starch flour is one of the few key ingredients. I only know of this being sold in good Asian supermarkets. You can’t substitute it with plain flour as it will cook differently.
Ingredients:
- Vegetable oil
- 240g julienne carrots
- 145g julienne sweet potato
- 240g julienne zucchini
- 145g julienne potato
- 30g julienne perilla leaves (I was not unable to get these, hence I left them out)
- 120g plain flour
- 150g potato starch
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 240-700ml cold seltzer (carbonated water)
- Haemul Pajeon dipping sauce (or any sauce you like)
Methods:
- Mix all the vegetables in a large bowl and add 2 tablespoons of plain flour and 2 tablespoons of potato starch. Toss the vegetables until they are coated.
- In another large mixing bowl, combine the remaining flour and starch, salt and seltzer until it reaches the consistency of a loose crepe batter. Watch out for the bubbles as it might spill out while mixing!
- Transfer the floured vegetables to the bowl of batter and stir to coat them well.
- Fry the vegetable fritters until golden brown.
- Strain them out of the oil and transfer them to a rack. Immediately sprinkle them with salt.
This recipe is quite easy to prepare if you have the right tool like a julienne peeler. I didn’t have one and it took me a long time to cut them all. But it is worth it as it tastes great. This is not a recipe I would normally cook but this book inspired me to try something different!
Besides learning how to make this awesome dish, I also pick up a tip through the book. When deep frying the food, leave them on a rack rather than on paper towels, so they don’t get soggy.
There are many recipes to choose from and I am looking forward to trying some of the spicy dishes for myself. The measurements come in both US and UK metrics which makes it easy to follow.
This book will be available to buy from good bookstores and Amazon from 16th October 2018. Click here to check out more from Abrams & Chronicle Books: https://www.abramsandchronicle.co.uk/book/9781419732409-korean-home-cooking/
Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We have included an Amazon affiliate link to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission.