Louis and I are still hooked onto our Korean dramas via cable Channel 55. Right now, we are catching Jumong, Prince of the Legend and The Song of Prince every weekday nights. Unfortunately for Louis, his Korean drama addiction is causing him to sleep much later cos The Song of Prince is airing at 11.40 pm to 12.40 pm, Mondays to Fridays.
Seeing that I have bid farewell to my cupcakes baking, I thought I should dedicate something to Korean food to match our addition. Korean cuisine is one which I only discovered when I was in France. A Korean friend of ours once organised a class get-together at a Korean restaurant, Woo Jung, in Paris. Woo Jung is located in the 16th arrondissement (Metro: Passy), very near to the Eiffel Tower. In fact, you can see the tower while standing on the sidewalk of the restaurant. We tried to return to the restaurant again last year when we were in Paris. Alas... it was closed and the staff were on vacation. Sigh...
Prior to that, my knowledge of Korean food was limited to what was sold in our local food courts. Quite frankly speaking, most weren't authentic and the repertoire were limited to different types of stir-fry hot plates such as Bulgogi. In Woo-Jung, I was exposed to the many different side dishes, many of which were deliciously prepared and were quickly gobbled up. And it was where I tasted my first tureen of Soondubu Chigae, a kind of spicy soft bean curd stew, that started me on my obsession on my return to Singapore to find chigae with exactly the same taste as those served in Woo Jung.
And I slowly learnt that there are many other Korean dishes that I was totally ignorant of, but once my eyes were opened to this "new" cuisine, I quickly lapped them all up. I especially love the bean sprout salad (kong-na-mul-mu-chim), seasoned spinach (si-geum-chi-mu-chim), stuff cucumber kimchi (o-e-so-bae-gi), sweet potato noodles (jab-chae), braised short ribs (gal-bi-jjim), spring onion and seafood pancake (pa-jeon) and a whole lot more. Most often than not, I just love the little side dishes that are served at the table and can never get enough of them.
So, I started perusing my Korean cookbook by Lee MinJung, as I watched my Korean dramas every night, pondering and deciding which of the dishes shall I attempt next. Since I had lots of soba on hand in the fridge and the list of other ingredients and condiments were easily found in the compartments of my fridge and kitchen, I decided to make Salad Guksu, a cold noodle dish mixed with vegetables in a spicy sweet sauce.
The recipe called for soba noodles but I had some spare cha soba, so I used that instead. For the vinegar, I used Japanese Mizkan grain flavoured distilled vinegar, but you can use any white vinegar The recipe for the salad noodles is as follows:
Salad Guksu
Adapted from Feast of Flavours from the Korean Kitchen by Lee MinJung
Ingredients
2 bundles Cha soba or soba noodles
5 leaves lettuce, julienned
1 medium cucumber, julienned
1/2 carrot, julienned
4 sticks crab stick, shredded
Sauce
3 tbsp light soya sauce
3 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 tsp wasabi
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp sesame oil
Method
1. Combine the ingredients for sauce and blend well. Refrigerate.
2. Blanch noodles in boiling water until al dente, then wash under cold running water. Drain well.
3. Remove the smashed garlic from the sauce. Mix noodles with chilled sauce and some vegetables and crab stick.
4. Garnish with remaining vegetables and crab stick and serve.
I find that if you put the noodles back in the fridge and let it sit for a while, the noodles will absorb the flavour of the sauce better. I like that the sauce is a little sweet and spicy, interspersed with the flavour of sesame oil, giving it an uplifting fragrance. Perhaps the next time when I make it, I would add some sesame seeds into the mixture to give a slightly crunch.
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