From Korea with Love

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Category Archives: Recipes


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Learn How to Cook Korean Food from ‘Maangchi’

I can still recall the first time I tried to cook Korean food… it was a disaster!

When I was single, I couldn’t cook anything, not even rice. It was my Mom who did the cooking and she would even prepare my meal for me. I know, I know… I should have learned how to cook before I got married… but well, those “princess days” are over. Now that I am a wife of a Korean, I am the one serving, not the one being served.

My Omonim (mother-in-law) was always busy to teach me how to cook Korean food, so every time she was cooking something for dinner, I would watch her. I had this little notebook where I would write down the ingredients and procedures. I learned how to make kimchi jjige and doenjang jjige just by observing my Omonim.

My Abonim (father-in-law) loves my kimchi jjige. ^^

Everyone in the family likes my doenjang jjige. ^^

Later, I started making banchan (side dishes), too.

Buttered mushrooms and spring onions with sesame seeds: This is one of the side dishes served in my favorite yongyang bop restaurant. The side dish should have carrots, but I don’t like carrots, so I didn’t put any in my recipe.

Dried squid and dried fish cooked in soy sauce, corn syrup and sesame oil

Gamja jorim (Potato in sweet soy sauce)

After a while, when I found out that my husband is not really fond of his mother’s cooking, I began looking for other Korean recipes on the internet. One of my favorite recipe blogs is Maangchi.com. The one doing the cooking demo is a Korean. (Who knows Korean cooking best but a Korean?) She explains everything in English and her recipes are easy to follow. (She can be funny, too. ^^)

Even now that I can cook several Korean dishes well, I still check her videos regularly. There is always a new Korean recipe on her blog.

Last week, I made 매운 무국 (Maeun mooguk: Spicy radish and beef soup). My husband loves beef and I usually don’t have enough time to prepare a lot of side dishes for lunch, so I thought beef soup would be great, since it doesn’t require banchan when you eat it with steamed rice. This is the video of the recipe in Youtube:

This is the one I cooked:

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Cheesecake Day

July 30 is National Cheesecake Day in America, but here in South Korea, it seems that some Koreans know about it, too. No wonder we saw different kinds of cheesecake on sale when we went to Homeplus yesterday.

How is Cheesecake Day celebrated? Simple! ^^ Just buy your favorite cheesecake from your favorite bakery and enjoy the cake with your family or friends. In the US and in some stores and bakeries in SK, you can buy cheesecake at a discounted price.

Some people prefer to bake their own cheesecake to make the celebration “more special”.

I have wanted to try this no-bake cheesecake recipe which I have found on Joyofbaking.com, but I can’t find graham crackers for making the crumb crust. (Why are graham crackers hard to find in Korea?) Perhaps one of these days, my husband and I can go to Costco. I’m sure I’m going to find graham crackers there.

My husband and I are cheesecake lovers. Our favorite cheesecake in Korea is the one from Ashley. In fact, it has been our tradition to have that cake on our anniversary and on Valentine’s Day or White Day.

“Sweet” things come in small packages. ^^

Some goodies, sweet wine and our favorite cheesecake from Ashley on White Day~~~ ^^

This is the way we like to eat our cheesecake. We don’t slice it and put it on a dish… we devour it like monsters! ^^ We can finish half of it in one sitting!

Cheesecake can be enjoyed any day of the year, but I’m glad there is Cheesecake Day. At least I have another reason to ask my husband to buy me one. ㅋㅋㅋ ^^v

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