Monthly Archives: December 2011

Patjuk, a vegan Winter Solstice Food

 

On Donjinal (December 22): Patjuk, a red bean porridge is cooked and eaten throughout Korea. It’s popularity stems from the seasonal scarcity of fresh meat and vegetables as a mid-winter food which eventually sustained as an entire meal minus all the side dishes one would normally consume during other seasons.

A popular mysterious belief is that the food drives evil spirits away, brings good harvest in the coming months, and of course good luck. It is typically served with glutinous rice flour cakes formed into small balls that resemble a quail’s egg.

I tweaked my recipe from the traditional method by incorporating cooked rice instead of using raw grain rice to cook the porridge. After all- tis the holidays and less work means more time for other things!

Ingredients

1 cup dry red beans

1 cup cooked medium grain glutinous rice

100 grams glutinous rice flour

6 tablespoons boiling water

1 teaspoons salt

6-8 cups water

Directions

Soak red beans overnight in a medium bowl with water (about 3-4 cups) to cover. Drain water before use.

Bring about 4 cups of water to a boil. Add red beans and allow to cook for about an hour uncovered on a simmer.

Stir in cooked rice, season with salt and pepper and cook for an additional 45 minutes to an hour on a simmer. Mash with a potato masher and stir in steamed rice cakes.

The beauty of this dish is that you can buy your rice cakes instead of making them yourself (which is a labor of love in itself). If you’re like me, you’ve made the rice cakes a few weeks in advance and stored them in the freezer. They’re actually very easy to make, and shouldn’t take longer than 15-20 minutes total prep and cooking time.

Combine salt and flour.

Have your boiling water handy and stir in one tablespoon at a time. Your dough shouldn’t be too mushy or too dry.

Knead your dough for about 5 minutes. Form into small quail size balls and steam them for about 15 minutes until they are completely cooked through. The center should be moist, not dry.

Transfer rice cakes into red bean porridge and serve with kimchi or other banchan on the side. You can also enjoy this on its own!

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Filed under December 2011, Holidays, Hot on the Blog, Korean Food at Home, Red Bean Porridge

Feast of the Seven Veggies: Celebrating One Year of Meatless Monday!

Being Korean born and growing up in the US was aberrant when the timely holidays rolled in. Korean holidays are virtually desolate here. My initial Thanksgiving culinary traditions began at fourteen years of age, with the help of a Betty Crocker cookbook purchased at Woolworth’s in Flushing, Queens.

I cooked my first holiday dinner for my parents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. The dishes served were mashed potatoes with gravy, buttermilk biscuits, and stuffed turkey.

Here’s my grownup version of mashed potatoes: Potato gratin. Looking back, I can’t recall serving any green vegetables that year. The tradition continued well into my twenties, where I explored traditional American holiday foods married with my Korean heritage which translated as kimchi on the side.

Patjuk is typically served as a Winter solstice food in Korea (one of very few major Korean holidays).

When I eventually married an Italian American, an entire continent of food emerged and I finally discovered how to enjoy seasonal dishes which included lots of fresh local tomatoes, fresh herbs, and really good cheese. I learned how to adjust my salt in salads according to the season, and pasta went far beyond spaghetti and meatballs. I became versed in fixing up marinara sauce discerning contrasting characteristics between marinara and Sunday sauce. Lasagna had been discovered long before the marriage of two cultures- (I have to credit myself for having perfected it thanks to a handy old copy of a NY Times cookbook I picked up from the Piermont library when I was a teen). In short, I spent the last six years exploring this new and exciting cuisine, discovering porcini mushrooms, risotto, cavetelli, pesto, and an endless repertoire of recipes from family members and cookbooks. I finally began cooking the green vegetables during this time. Our typical holidays included a marriage (literal) of Koreans and Italians. Whether it was Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. It was Italian food with kimchi as its co-star.

Kimchi & soy pajeon, zucchini pajeon.

Cooking Korean food at home meant, there was much tweaking which led to the creation of newly adapted dishes for my big Italian family. I eventually became so involved in cooking that spending six hours in the kitchen seemed conventional and acceptable. To outsiders, it may have looked like I was absolutely manic about food- that’s because I was! I loved food so much that I enrolled into culinary school to really hone my kitchen skills and became a professional chef.

Roasted beets with red onion and champagne vinaigrette.

Last year, I discovered Meatless Monday and when I was asked to submit a holiday post for Food2.com, I ventured into my old handy Betty Crocker cookbook for advise and cooked up American classics with a twist. It was the beginning of a year-long relationship with seasonal vegetables. Here’s a seasonal roasted root vegetables dish: (purple potatoes, heirloom sweet potato, chippolini onions, garlic) below:

This holiday season celebrates my one-year anniversary with going Meatless one day a week! I cooked up a Christmas dinner starring Korean food served up as the Feast of the Seven Veggies! It’s my Korean version of the classic Italian Christmas Eve supper. Christmas for Koreans has become more popularized in recent years and they have a special name for it (seongtanjeol). I made seven main dishes, with matching seven side dishes (banchan) for this special occasion. Some traditional recipes originated from the Royal kitchens of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea. It was a labor of love- the nine delicacies in Gujeolpan were  a tad bit time consuming.

I suggest if you’re going to try this at home, give yourself a few days to make the dinner. Start with Gujeolpan, use the leftover veggies to make japchae, cook your vegetables ahead of time and marinade and dress them right before consumption.  When the feast is finished, you can have the leftover banchan in a mixed rice bowl (bibimbap) the following day.

No dinner is ever complete without a hot spicy soup at the end! Spicy tofu soups and stews are an absolute food staple made with gochugaru, tofu, and garlic, this version includes kimchi.

Here are the seven Korean style side dishes I made!

Acorn Starch Jelly…looks like jello, sort of tastes like jello- except it’s 100% vegan!

Assorted mushrooms with crushed sesame seeds…

Baby Bok Choy with perilla seeds and sesame oil…

Mung bean sprouts…

Braised Korean peppers with garlic…

Marinated spinach…

What kind of Korean meal is complete without kimchi?! None!

For dessert, I made Songpyeon. A sweet and savory rice cake. It’s typically served up during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving according to the Lunar calendar). I’m currently working on finishing up a round up of all the dishes I’ve conjured up this past year for a vegetarian cookbook! Recipes are coming shortly, stay tuned…

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Filed under December 2011, Holidays, Hot on the Blog, Korean Food at Home, Meatless Mondays

Meatless Monday: Vegetarian Pancakes

The last twelve months have been an amazing food adventure. Going meatless every Monday meant putting those creative bugs to work, utilizing ingredients I’ve never used before and thinking outside of the box.

I’ve sourced local produce directly from farmers more often than I’ve bought it from a supermarket, and realized it’s always better and often cheaper buying local and seasonal.

I’ve truly become a Meatless Monday advocate, convincing friends, family and animals to go meatless one day a week. Yes — even animals! I fed my dog tofu several times this year and started including local root vegetables and rice in his diet. Thanks to the folks here at Food2, I’ve gone from amateur food writer to pro.

I’m sad to hear that the end is fast-approaching for the site. I will miss all the irreverant quirkiness! And where am I to go next? I’ll still be going meatless on Mondays, still continuing to make Korean Food at Home (the other food I love, the food I’ve spent countless hours cooking this past year).

I’m off to writing and illustrating a superhero comic book. This isn’t the last you’ve heard from me — I promise there will be more coming soon. Until then, stay tuned. I’ll be back!

Vegetarian Pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup Chinese Chives, sliced into 2″ strips
3 Korean peppers, sliced on the bias
2 California carrots, diced
1 cup sweet rice flour
pinch salt
1 cup water
2 eggs
4 eggs, beaten

Directions
Sautee vegetables in a skillet with two tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium heat. Cook for about two to three minutes, remove and set aside.

Mix batter in a mixing bowl: add flour, salt, water and eggs. Whisk until it’s nice and creamy. Reserve four eggs beaten for finishing the pancakes at the end.

Return cooked vegetables to the skillet with some vegetable oil. Pour about batter over veggies, pour beaten egg (about 1 egg per pancake).

Flip pancake over using spatula. Continue cooking for 2 minutes on each side. Remove, slice and serve!

Food2 Farewell
I’ve decided to prepare a holiday special and given the craziness that comes from shopping, re-organizing, and traveling, most individuals, including myself, don’t want to spend an entire day cooking on that special day. So I’ve started to prep my holiday meal ahead of time, by slowly purchasing groceries, cleaning, and pre-cooking them. To kick it off, I found these cute baby radishes and California carrots last week.

I blanched them in boiling water for a few minutes, threw them in an ice bath and into a ziplock bag for the freezer. I’ll see you soon little vegetables…to be continued…

Rina Oh is an artist, writer and chef and a Meatless Monday advocate. For the last year these Meatless Mondays recipes have appeared on Food2.com, a website that is owned and operated by Scripps Networks. These posts are copyrighted material and any photographs, illustrations or written material are forbidden to be used or reposted anywhere without permission. For more information on Meatless Monday, please visit meatlessmonday.com

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Filed under December 2011, Food2, Hot on the Blog, Meatless Mondays, Pancakes, Rina's Food2 recipes