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Cornbread (Oksusu-ppang: 옥수수빵)

Today I’m going to show you how to make a special Korean-style cornbread that I used to have when I was a kid in elementary school in Korea. The school provided this daily snack to the students just before class was dismissed. We looked forward to it every day, so I have fond childhood memories of cornbread, and of the anticipation of waiting for snack time at school!...

Crunchy Korean fried chicken recipe (Dakgangjeong: 닭강정)

This crispy, crunchy, spicy Korean fried chicken is incredibly delicious! You're going to love it, I guarantee, and take this chicken to a party and everyone will give you compliment: "Whoo ah~ this crispy chicken is crunchy crunchy like candy!"

egg roll

Learn how to make egg rolls. It's a simple and easy egg recipe, tamagoyaki omelette. 

Make your pancake batter go far and wide this winter.

There’s a lot you can do with pancake batter - pizza, dumplings - but fill it with the right ingredients and it becomes jeon, Korea’s take on the pancake. It’s a fluffy, crispy, savory, super-filling (and still healthy) specialty that is usually eaten as a side dish or shared family-style and dipped in a sauce.

We think Jeon makes for a great meal any time of the day, because essentially, it can be anything you want: all your favorite vegetables and meats coated in flour and fried in oil. 

It’s a great, simple, stick-to-your-ribs staple that will get surely you through the wintery blues.

For inspiration, check out this video from First We Feast, which collaborated with LA chef Roy Choi, of POT, to show you how he makes the ultimate Korean pancake.

For other ideas, check out these recipes from Pinterest:

• Scallion & Seafood Pancakes
• Kimchi Pancakes
• from tastewiththeeyes.comkimchi jeon dipping sauce - I'm missing the kimchi pancakes from the Korean restaurant in ChiaYi... hopefully I can try this recipe this summer!13316Anna MeyerFood
• Korean Potato Pancakes
  My Korean KitchenKorean Potato Pancakes (Gamja Jeon) | MyKoreanKitchen.com1018141My Korean Kitchen®Korean Food: Appetizers & Side Dishes
• Mung Bean Pancakes
  Lands & FlavorsKorean Mung Bean Pancakes are chewy in the middle and crisp on the edges. Gluten Free and Vegan.1277161lisa|parsleysagesweetAsian Eats
• Zucchini Pancakes
  from insanitytheory.netKorean Zucchini/Vegetable Pancakes.

Welcome To 'Koreatown,' A Cookbook To Tempt American Taste Buds

Bibimbap is one of the best-known Korean dishes. According to chef Deuki Hong and writer Matt Rodbard, there really isn't a definitive recipe. "The name translates to 'mixed rice,' and, in practice, rice is the dish's only constant," the authors write in their new cookbook, Koreatown.

Korean food is built on bold flavors: spicy pickled vegetables, sweet, smoky meats and pungent, salty stews. That can be a little intimidating for some American diners. But the authors of a new book called Koreatown hope to change that.

Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard spent two years eating in Koreatowns, from Los Angeles to Atlanta to New York. Restaurants like Cho Dang Gol, a little place in Manhattan that's known for its stews and house-made tofu, where we met for lunch. Rodbard ordered a bowl of kalbijjim — a short-rib stew that's savory and sweet with a fiery kick. Hong says it's a perfect example of Koreans cooking for Koreans.

"When we build restaurants, it's for us. Because we miss home flavors, we miss the motherland," says Hong. "It's not like, 'Hey, let's invite this critic in here, or this person.' It's not like we don't care about you guys. It's just not our focus. And, yeah, we don't really care."

That's great if you want Korean-Americans to eat at your restaurant. But it's not so good if you're trying to pull in large numbers of non-Korean diners, too.

Along with recipes, Koreatown features interviews, essays and original photos from Korean restaurants across the country.

"It's really a 'for us, by us' mentality at a lot of restaurants," says Rodbard. "You walk in, English is very limited, sometimes nonexistent. The cuisine just has not caught up with Thai or Japanese or even regional Chinese" in terms of popularity.

This is where Rodbard and Hong think their book can help. Rodbard is a food writer in Brooklyn. Hong is a 26-year-old Korean-American chef who's worked in the kitchen at two acclaimed New York City restaurants, Momofuku and Jean-Georges. Now he runs his own well-regarded restaurant, Kang Ho Dong Baekjong, in New York's Koreatown.

But Koreatown is no mere celebrity cookbook. Along with recipes, it features interviews, essays and original photos from Korean restaurants across the country. From the biggest Koreatown, in Los Angeles — said by some to have better Korean food than Seoul — to America's fastest-growing K-town, in Atlanta, to its most dense and competitive, on 32nd Street in Manhattan, where, as Hong puts it, "you'll see a [Korean] barbecue restaurant, right next to a barbecue restaurant, right across from a barbecue restaurant."

Their cookbook does cover Korean barbecue, and other staples like kimchi and bibimbap. But Rodbard and Hong intentionally focused more on soups and stews, which they call the heart of Korean cooking — dishes like seoulleongtang, a beef bone broth that simmers for hours.

"It's super milky, creamy, and you get some of that oxtail," says Hong. "That's, like, what Koreans eat. It's not like a pretty, fancy or flashy dish that you introduce to your American friends."

In their cookbook, Rodbard and Hong intentionally focused more on soups and stews, which they call the heart of Korean cooking. Above, a bowl of kongguksu, a cold soup traditionally served in the summertime and made with soy milk, thin somen wheat noodles and pine nuts.

Hong and Rodbard tested recipes for seoulleongtang and dozens of other dishes at Hong's walk-up apartment in Manhattan. They demonstrate one of those recipes:doenjang jigae, a stew with brisket and clams. The key ingredient is a fermented bean paste that's like a funkier cousin of Japanese miso. Exactly how much you add is a matter of personal taste. As Rodbard explains, there's a concept in Korean cooking called son mat — literally "taste by hand."

"It's using your hands, and using your taste to cook with," Rodbard says. "So it's difficult to sometimes put a number on a lot of this cooking."

That made it hard when it came time to write down fixed amounts of ingredients for the recipes in the cookbook. In the end, Hong says, they were steered by their taste buds.

"We were always about what's so special about this dish. It's that texture, it's that flavor," Hong says. The result may not be the most traditional cookbook. But it might help you find your new favorite spot in Koreatown.

bySam Horine/Courtesy of Clarkson Potter

Simple Korean BBQ You Can Make at Home

If you’ve been to Korean BBQ, you know how delicious it is...and how expensive. Good news at here! You can make it at home for a fraction of the cost.

Here are the ingredients that you’ll need to make a simple Korean BBQ called Bulgogi:

Korean BBQ Ingredients

• Beef
• Soy Sauce
• Sesame Oil
• Sugar
• Garlic
• Green Onion
• Onion

The type of beef that you want to buy is thinly sliced ribeye roll, which will frequently say Bulgogi on the label if you’re at an Asian market.

I used 3 lbs for my family of 5 but 2 lbs would have been sufficient.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs thinly sliced rib eye steak
• 6 T. soy sauce
• 2 T. sesame oil
• 2 t. sugar
• 6 cloves garlic crushed
• 6-8 stalks green onion cut in 2 inch segments
• 1/2 brown onion thinly sliced
• 1 T. olive oil extra virgin

Combine all of the ingredients (except the beef) in a large bowl.

Add the beef, mix well, and marinate for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator. I marinated ours for several hours.

When ready, heat a skillet or cast iron pan to medium high.

Place beef in pan and reduce heat to medium.

Cook until the beef is no longer pink.

Enjoy with rice, kimchi (fermented cabbage which is a staple in Korean food), and other banchan, or little side dishes, that you can also purchase at the Asian market.

You can find another simple Korean recipe for a spinach side dish.