Friday, December 26, 2008

Cooking Korean Food with Maangchi

My husband found Maangchi's Korean cooking videos on YouTube. I liked them so much I went to her site and found a wealth of no-nonsense information on home-style Korean cooking. Even if you've never tasted Korean food, her recipes and instructions will have you making Korean food like an old Korean grannie. The fun and instructive videos are what really makes the site special. And what makes the videos special is Maangchi's sweet and out-going personality.

Here's Maangchi making tang su yuk, which is sweet and sour pork remastered to suit Korean palates. It's basically a Chinese dish which you'll usually find in Chinese restaurants catering specifically to Koreans, as well as in some Korean restaurants. I'm classifying it as sweet and sour pork but tang su yuk is usually made with beef, although more and more restaurants are now letting you choose either beef or pork. Personally, it's not a dish I like making at home. It's a lot of work and you have to really love deep-frying. And I don't. I've had most of my worst accidents deep-frying*. It's also one of those dishes that will almost always taste better at a good restaurant. There's something to be said about cooking a dish over and over again, night after night. Like practicing the scales on the piano.






*If you cook on a regular basis, you will not be able to avoid burning yourself. That's why I always have a tube of organic aloe vera handy, one with a very high concentrate of pure aloe vera. I've had extremely severe burns heal before my eyes using aloe vera. The trick is to slather it on thick and often. The gel becomes like a second skin, healing and protecting.

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