It's been a really long time since I have posted a blog :/ I have been busy with finals for uni and completing assignments so there hasn't been any post for a really long time :( BUT I finished all of my exams yesterday, so I'm not back with a recipe. I'm going to be on break until August so I'll probably try and do a post a week, possible more sometimes.
I hope that you have all been well ~~~
Let's see how we are going in terms of seasons, it's now summer in Korea, so we probably want some summer food right? Even though it is not the hottest time of the year just yet, this dish can still be something that you can enjoy to help cool you down. And it is also great for the colder countries in the southern hemisphere where it is winter at the moment,
The dish for today is called yukgaejang (육개장). It is a spicy soup-like dish that is made with beef and scallions as well as other ingredients such as bean sprouts (kong namuel), bracken, taro stem, onion and dangmyeon (sweet potato noodles). It is usually served with rice and kimchi.
The dish can also be made using chicken, and in that case it could be called dak yukgaejang.
This is a hot spicy dish so you may be confused about why it would be eaten in the summer. Western cultures tend to eat cold foods to cool down in the summer, this cools you down from the inside. However in Korea, they also like to cool themselves down from the outside by eating hot spicy foods to sweat more and thus also be cooled that way.
Ingredients
600g beef brisket
1 small onion
100g bean sprouts
50g taro stem (found dried in Asian marts)
50g bracken (found dried in Asian marts)
3 green onions
1/2 korean radish
3 tbs chilli flakes (gochugaru)
2 tbs minced garlic
3tbs soy sauce
60ml sesame oil
60ml vegetable oil
3tbs salt
1tbs pepper
4L water
Method
1. Soak the taro stem and bracken in warm water for an hour.
2. In a large pot add beef, onion, green onions and all the water. Boil it for 30min on a medium heat with the lid on.
3. Blanch the soaked taro stems and bracken in water for about 10 minutes. Squeeze all the water out and then cut into 10cm pieces.
4. Cut the radish into 1cm pieces
5. Remove the cooked beef from the broth and let it cool for 30 min. After that, tear the beef into small strips.
6. In a bowl mix half the chilli flakes, with 3 tbs sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, 1tbs salt and the pepper. If you want you can add more chilli flakes.
7. Add the bracken, taro stem and meat in a bowl with half of the sauce and let it sit for 10 minutes.
8. Add the sauce mixture into the broth with the radish and boil it for 40min on a medium heat.
9. In a small pot add all the remaining oil and chilli flakes and stir fry for 2 minutes, constantly stirring to prevent burning.
10. Strain the chilli oil through a cheesecloth.
11. Add some more green onions, bean sprouts, rest of the spicy sauce and chilli oil to the broth and salt to season. Boil for another 10 minutes.
12. Serve with rice and kimchi.
And there you have it, a nutritious dish to eat in summer or winter to cool you down or to warm you up. Either way it is bound to satisfy you.
I hope that you like that dish because it is certainly what I'm going to have for dinner tonight as it is super-duper cold and rainy at the moment. Have a try of it when it is super hot or cold and you will feel the heat of the dish radiate throughout the rest of your body.
I'm going to post more in the coming days, and until then remember to keep warm, safe, healthy and happy!
