Seoul 11.12 - Namdaemun ham hocks

It was just about time for lunch while John and I were browsing through Namdaemun Market. I had read about these delicious ham hocks in an old shop inside Namdaemun, so I had my mind set on having ham hocks for lunch!

The ham hock shop was located inside Namdaemun Market, off and near exit 5 of Hoehyeon Station.

When we got close to where the shop was supposed to be I realized there were two ham hock shops couple door away from each other.



Which was the one that I read about? I couldn't read Korean so I had no idea what I was looking at on the signs. Both of the shops looked fine to me.

So we ended up walking into the one that had more people in it. As I think back now I still can't remember which one we picked!

Anyhow, I don't think you could go wrong with either of these shops. It's ham hocks, baby!

We walked into the shop. It was busy, and we were seated by a small table by the door. A lady came by and started saying things. I replied in Korean that I couldn't understand Korean, so she started using both Japanese and Mandarin Chinese to talk to me. I replied in Mandarin, and it worked!

She asked what size ham hocks we wanted, and if we wanted anything else with it.

We figured we would order a small one so we would have room left to have other yummy food later on.

And then the soups and side dishes came.


The lettuce and sides were for wrapping up the ham hock pieces, or simply for eating on their own. I tried all of them and they were delicious.

And then the ham hock came. The lady told us she brought us the "smallest one."


Yes she said it was the "smallest one."


Oh my. These ham hocks and sides were yummy! The meat and skin were soft and chewy (or as us Taiwanese people say it, "QQ") and when wrapped in the lettuce with various kimchi and spicy miso (?) it was simply amazing.


John and I ate and it didn't seem to dent the pile of ham hock slices much. Remember how it was the "smallest one"? We would take the rest to go if we were heading back to the hotel right away, but since our next stop was Myeongdong, we left the slightly-dented-pile-of-slices-of-the-smallest ham hock where they were. We thank the ladies at the shop and told the lady that spoke Mandarin it was delicious. They were happy, too.

Oh boy. I think I'm craving some soft and QQ ham hocks right now!

kimchi pork

One of the dishes I like to make (to go with rice) these days is stir-fried pork with kimchi.




It's very easy to make. Slice pork thin (I usually cut boneless pork shoulders into thin slices,) and marinade quickly with a tiny little bit of soy sauce and sugar. Cut kimchi into thin strips (do not discard its juices). Heat a little bit of oil in the pan to cook the pork. As the pork start to brown, add kimchi and stir-fry together. Continue cooking until the pork is fully cooked and the kimchi is heated. Yum!

baked pork

These days John likes to bake marinated pork in the oven with spices rubbed into and/or sprinkled on it.



I don't even ask what he marinates the meat in, or what spices he uses anymore, because it always turns out super tasty!

i love it when john makes dinner

John is recovering steadily, and he has been working and using his foot well. While he spends a little more time at home these days, he has been making us dinner most of the nights!

He makes yummy dinners!

Sometimes he makes rice, and we'll make some Taiwanese sausages with garlic, and "tomato eggs." Other times he will make rotisserie chicken thighs and we'll have that with kimchi or other Asian pickles. Still other times we will have noodles with yummy sauces, or curry. I can go on and on with this!

Even though we don't change our dinner menus super often, John did try some new items for our dinner table sometimes.

The other day he made us pork tenderloin with rosemary. He also put in some special ham in the tenderloin. Tasty.




And another day he made us a chicken-mash-biscuit bake. It was with chicken soup, mash potatoes, and biscuits.



I love cooking, and I also love it when John makes us dinner. These days we close the caffe at 6pm, and therefore we have a little more time preparing and cooking food. I love it!

pressure cook it!

I made some fatty pork (pork belly) in the electric pressure cooker. The meat turned out amazing!


Fatty pork and quail eggs on rice.

I seared the sides of the fatty pork first, place the slices in the pressure cooker, and added soy sauce, sake, water, dry chives, garlic, red hot peppers, and sugar. The pork was cooked on high pressure for 75 minutes, and then I added some (a can) of boiled quail eggs and cook for another 10 minutes.

Mmmmm. This was probably one of the best fatty pork stew I've tasted! Next time I'll probably shorten the cooking time to 65... just so the meat doesn't fall apart as soon as I pick it up with my chopsticks!

i *heart* the rotisserie

John and I have been enjoying cooking with the little rotisserie. I think it's like our way of compensating not using the outdoor grill these days.


John cooked up a seasoned pork tenderloin in the rotisserie... in the metal basket attachment... hence the cross marks. Awesome.


Someone likes to watch the pork being prepared... a lot.

And yes, the dogs get to have some, too.

colored pepper stir-fry

I loved colored peppers. They are so yummy!

I usually like to stir-fry them with meats, and I add a little bit of sauce of some sort to it, but recently I've been stir-frying them with just a little bit of olive oil, and then season it with Hondashi, and Shichimi. Tasty.


Sliced pork and green peppers.

I was going to make a more colorful version of the stir-fry by using all sorts of colored pepper... but John already ate the read and orange peppers (raw) so I only had the yellow and green ones to use last night. Still really yummy.


Yay for colored peppers!

asian meat sauce for noodles

I made some Asian meat sauce for noodles in the slow cooker (crock pot). It's really easy I think it's really tasty on noodles or rice.


OK I think I put a little bit too much meat sauce on my noodles.

Asian Meat Sauce for Noodles

1 lb. ground pork
1 package hard tofu (the "pressed" kind that's brown on the outside), cubed
2 T miso
2 T sweet flour sauce (optional - substitute with 2 T miso)
2 T chopped garlic
2 t Asian chili paste/sauce/oil
1/4 C rock sugar (crystals or chunks) or white sugar
1/4 C soy sauce
fresh ground pepper
enough water to just cover all ingredients in the slow cooker

I mixed everything in the slow cooker and cook it on high for 4 hours and it's done!

It's really yummy on noodles by itself. I also tried to boil some frozen broccoli while cooking the noodles and place it on the noodles before pouring on some meat sauce and it was really tasty, too.

[Tokyo Fall 2008] Yokohama: Aka-Renga Soko Part.2 - "Kitchen Curtis"

There were many interesting shops and restaurants at Aka-Renga Soko, and it was almost difficult to choose from all the yummy-looking food!

But then we saw this:


They were bone-in sausages!

Now that was just crazy! And we had to try it!


The shop was called "Kitchen Curtis," and we ordered their signature platter to share.

According to the posters from Curtis, the shop uses top-grade ham from Kamakura. I don't know the significance of its origin, but the meats were super yummy!


In the plate there were some smoked ham, seasoned fatty pork, and of course, the bone-in sausage (I believe they called it "Bone-in Frank.")

OMG. Yummy.


"Bone-in Frank" close-up.

The main purpose of the bone was for people to better grab the sausage for eating, I belive, plus it looked cool. The sausage was juicy and flavorful. It was probably the best sausage I've had for a long time!

Hmm... sausages.

gyoza and potstickers

Some people think gyoza and potstickers are the same things, but after doing some research and readings, I learned that gyoza is usually more rounded, with thinner skins and filling that fall apart, while potstickers usually are longer in shape, has thicker skins, and whose filling is firmer and "stuck" together.

Anyhow, I made some gyoza this past weekend. I learned a while ago that when you want to pan fry the gyoza or potstickers, you pour some flour-water mixture to the pan, and then you'd get the thin crispy bottom on the dumplings. It worked!


Fresh gyoza. I simplified the recipe from last time I made them, but the dumplings still come out great!


So this is what you do: first heat a little bit oil in the pan, then place/line the gyoza in the pan, followed by pouring a thin layer of flour-water mixture (1:6) in the pan, then cover the pan and cook the gyoza for approx. 10-15 minutes (fresh) or 20-25 minutes if the gyoza is raw and frozen.


When they are done the'd have a thin layer of crispy goodness on the bottom of each gyoza!

Apparently one of the secrets to beautifully fried gyoza is the flour-water mixture... with practice I may be able to have a "line" of gyoza like the ones we had in the ramen shops in Japan:




I think it's also interesting that I never feel full after eating 10 boiled dumplings, but I felt pretty satisfied after eating the 10 fried gyoza... hmm...

gyoza with a lot of cabbages

I have been wanting to make Chinese dumplings (gyoza) for a while. This past weekend I finally made some! I used a whole cabbage for the filling, and because I didn't want to pull out the food processor, I cut the cabbage into pieces by hand, and therefore the pieces are not as "chopped" as it probably should have been, nor uniform. The dumplings turned out yummy, though, and I esprecially enjoyed the texture of the bigger veggie pieces.

Homemade Chinese Dumplings / Gyoza

Ingredients (filling):

1 lb. ground pork
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Hondashi seasoning (optional)
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon oil (I use olive oil)
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 head chopped cabbage + 1 teaspoon salt
6 "sticks" chopped green onions
1 Tablespoon grated ginger root (optional)

2-3 packages of storebought gyoza skins or homemade ones. I use the two packages that were in my freezer. Thaw before use, of course.

First place the chopped cabbage in a large bowl. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon salt over the cabbage and "squeeze" the salt and the cabbage together. Set aside. This will allow some extra water from the cabbage to come out. Drain (if there's water) before combining with the pork.

Mix the ground pork, salt, Hondashi seasoning (optional), soy sauce, olive oil, sesame oil, and white pepper in a large mixing bowl and stir until everything are "bonded". Add the chopped cabbage, chopped green onions, and grated ginger (optional). Mix well. Now you have your filling. Yay.



Place a gyoza skin in your left palm. Use a pair of chopsticks to pick up about 2 Tablespoons filling and place in the center of the skin. Wet the edges (not necessary if using homemade fresh gyoza skins) before closing the dumpling. I like to make little folds on them... seem to help closing up the dumplings better. Repeat until either the filling or the skins run out. I never know how many dumplings I'm making. I made about 45 the other day and I still have way more than half of the filling left. I'm guessing this recipe probably makes 100-120 dumplings.

Lightly dust a place with flour. Place each of the dumplings on the place after it's made. After completing a plate, stick it in the freezer for about 20 minutes. The dumplings will harden and you can bag them and store them in the freezer.


Nuki wants some dumplings too.

To cook the dumplings, first boil a large pot of water. Add the dumplings, stir with long chopsticks to prevent sticking. Wait until the water boils again and turn the heat to medium-low (just enough to keep the water boilig) for about 7 minutes. Drain and serve with dipipng sauce, or in soups.

To make the dipping sauce: Cominbe soy sauce, vinegar, and sesame oil to taste.

So this is the deal... the dumplings look pretty good before cooking this time, but after I boiled them a lot of the skings fell apart. I think it was because I used the package of gyoza skins that was in the freezer too long. They were still very delicious... just broken-looking. :(

I still have a lot of filling left. I think I'm going to make my own gyoza skins for it. I'll post the recipe for the homemade gyoza skins soon-ish (when I figured out the right ratio for flour and water.)

Oh, and if you're just tired of making dumplings but still have too much filling left... make little patties and fry them in a pan. I've done it a few times, and the patties were super yummy by themselves or with rolls!

taiwanese meat sauce (tainan version)

I usually make the Taiwanese meat sauce with regular ground pork, but this time I decided to take some friends' suggestions and try to make it with hand-cut fatty pork. "What's fatty pork?" you say. OK I don't know its real name, but it's almost like big chunk of bacon... with more meat.

This recipe of meat sauce is for the Tainan sticky rice. Tainan is a city in southern Taiwan, where many of the best Taiwanese dishes originated. The meat sauce is not only yummy on sticky rice, it's also great on regular rice or noodles.


I threw in a few boiled eggs and they came out very delicious, too!

Taiwanese Meat Sauce (Tainan Version)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. Fatty pork (available at Asian markets) or regular pork shoulder cuts.
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 cup fried shallots (available at Asian markets)
2 Tablespoons "rock sugar" (sugar crystals) or regular sugar
1 quart water

Cut the pork into small cubes or pieces. Stir-fry in a pan until slightly brown. Place the pork in a slow cooker (crock-pot), add the soy sauce, fried shallots, sugar, and water. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 8 hours. Add boiled eggs or tofu along with the pork if desired.


It looks pretty much like this when it's done.

Traditionally this meat sauce is prepared in clay pots over a gas range for a few hours. I'm lazy and I don't want to keep watching it for hours, so I make it in the slow cooker. Turns out pretty good! :)