The Perfect Summer Meal

Summer, especially in Korea, is to be dreaded, with terribly hot and sticky days, melting into long rainy spells that never end. However, one thing to look forward to in the summer is the food!

Two different meals that are an absolute necessity during summer in Korea consist of naengmyeon, and galbi.

Naengmyeon is a chilled buckwheat noodle soup dish, where buckwheat noodles and starch are served in a chilled beef broth. Additionally added toppings include pickled radish, sliced Korean pear, a hard boiled egg, and vinegar or mustard.

Naengmyeon soup, the superlative conclusion to a hot summer day.

Galbi, on the other hand, is a meal of grilled beef ribs often marinated in a seasoned soy sauce(gan-jang). The juicy sizzling meat is sometimes even cooked right at your table!

Can it get any better than this?

Photo courtesy to my uncle, Eui jong.

Making Kimchi at Home

Today was a very exciting day. After years and years of eating store bought kimchi, we finally had the chance to make it ourselves, right at home! (But what is kimchi? Briefly, it's a Korean style mixture of Napa cabbage, vegetables, and lots of chili powder!)

Kimchi is actually a lot simpler to make than I first imagined. Here's a quick description of the procedure we used to make it.

The first thing we did was to clean the Napa cabbage and place it in a bowl of salty water. We put pressure on it, then left it to soak overnight.

In the morning, we poured out the salty water and carefully cleaned the cabbage in fresh water. After straining as much water as we could, we put it aside.

Then it was time to get to work on the filling. First, we peeled and finely minced some garlic. In a separate bowl, we grounded radishes. In another bowl, we sliced up some green onions before pouring in a little bit of sugar and salt(if you would like to put in shrimp or anchovy preserves, this would be the time). Next, we mixed the green onion mixture together before pouring it and the garlic into the radish bowl and mixing.

Finally, it was time for the most important step. Being careful not to rip the leaves, we placed small amounts of the mixture in between the leaves of the napa cabbage, and placed it in a seal-able bowl. For the final touch, we poured in a little bit of water and closed the lid.

Now all we have to do is let it sit in a shady spot for a week(letting it ferment) before it's ready to eat!

Tentatively tasting the kimchi a few days later, I felt so proud and happy knowing that Korean food was a new world that we could make ourselves, right at home!

So, why don't you give it a try?

(Every family has its own recipe for making kimchi, and this is just one of billions!)