The Sugar Bar

Have I been missed? I’ve been away for quite a bit that’s for sure (nose deep in books, essays and my laptop til my eyes crossed) and so has the sun. But just for today (can’t be too confident with English weather) – for one day only? – the sun is out and I’m back with a quick and scrummy blogpost.

When summer arrives in its fully glory, I have less exciting food cravings and more urges for ice cream and fruit. I’ve some friends who completely lose their appetites too which of course is just a little sad. If its unbearably hot and humid, I get too grumpy to even bother with food. My cure is to sit on the patio, feet soaking in the koi pond whilst I guzzle down jugs of iced water or soda. One way to restart your tastebuds, however, I find is eating something with a combination of flavours like hot and spicy, sweet and sour, sweet and savoury. And that brings me to this seasoning for bibimguksu noodles, or a Korean spicy mixed noodle dish. I don’t have all the right ingredients but what I really wanted was the sauce so I decided to use the recipe for its seasoning and whack it into my own concoction of ingredients that I had on hand. This is not authentic bibimguksu I’m afraid.

I’m unembarrassed to say I’m currently going through a barren-fridge moment. Living off junk and processed foods, completely in line with being a starving student/artist type. I know students get so much mick taken out of them and wrongly accused for being bad cooks, etc. I beg to differ. The student race can be pretty talented at cooking, a discerning food shopper and foodie right down to his/her toes. Only when the going gets tough, do we get a little lazy. Doing the washing up, food shopping, cooking properly on the hob all gets thrown out the window for takeaway, cold sandwiches bought cheaply from Tesco, dry cereal, microwaveable meals and cuppa soups. I shudder even as I type that but yea, that’s really my life at the moment. I hope you can sense the dread and utter unwillingness.

I’m starting to lose my train of thought now and before this post actually gets nowhere and bores everyone to death, let’s just say I was pretty glad to have fresh ingredients between my hands this afternoon, to get out the chopping board and to see a real proper hot meal appear before my eyes in the kitchen. This is quick and I swear, one of the best sauces for preparing noodles. Totally delicious.

Recipe can be found on My Korean Kitchen that is a wonderful reservoir of Korean recipes. Here, I’ve reproduced the part containing the seasoning.

I’ve used soft egg noodles and fried it with onions, garlic, yellow peppers, sansai vegetables and codfish. Fry this all together, then add the pre-mixed bibimguksu sauce and garnish with whatever you fancy; some ideas like boiled eggs, black sesame seeds, chilli pepper, spring onions.

Bibimguksu sauce
Ingredients
2 tbs gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
2 tbs rice vinegar
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs honey
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tbs brown sugar
sesame seeds, lightly toasted (for garnish)

This yields 2 servings.

Mix together well. Set aside until use for mixing into noodles.

Sam G.: The fridge stinks.
Diva: -sniffs- I don’t smell anything.
Sam G.: Well I’ve got a big nose so I’m pretty sensitive to smells.
Diva: -sniffs fridge again- Nothing stinky is hitting me yet.
Sam G.: It smells. Like really bad.

Bewildered, I sniffed the fridge about every hour, thinking that my morning sinus was probably fogging up the system and thus needed a little time before it cleared off. Lo and behold, I was the cause of this clinging stench lingering on the fridge shelves and what was the bringer of stink? Kimchi. Who would have guessed that this lovely-tasting Korean pickle could turn out to be a major stink bomb? The smell just kinda came and went when you peered into the fridge. You could only smell it if you really stuck your head in and moved it from top shelf down — something you’d normally do to check out what food you’ve got in the fridge. Blimey. It was pretty bad. I was in a pickle (don’t mind that pun, eh).

The only thing to do was either eat it straightaway or cook it and then seal it up in airtight lunchbox. I did the latter. I had stuffed my face with kimchi and tofu for lunch, I wasn’t going to do it again for dinner. It would be too sad. There wasn’t very much kimchi left anyway to bother repacking the damn thing in a lunchbox so I decided to turn it into a soup as my younger sister advised. She is the queen of Korean food. Actually, she is just a Korea-obsessed chick. It’s truly adorable and very handy when you’re craving something Korean.

This jjigae is rather experimental because instead of using a kimchi broth or adding gochujang, a Korean chili paste, I played around with Japanese kombu stock and added konnyaku to produce some sort of nabe hot pot / jjigae creation. It surely isn’t authentic and thinking back on the time I had real kimchi jjigae, the taste is very different and you can blame this on the difference in stock and lack of gochujang. However, the taste wasn’t bad at all and you can say it is a less spicy and milder version of the real McCoy. I’d make this again, this time without all my post-its stuck up everywhere declaring my love for all types of food and therefore, apologetic for bringing home Stinky (as I would now call my yummy Korean pickles). Gosh, let’s try to avoid that embarrassing situation in the future!

Experimental Kimchi Jjigae
Ingredients

1 chicken breast, sliced into strips or chunks
1 tbs sake
a handful shiitake mushrooms, stalks removed and tops slit
2 bundles konnyaku
1 cup kimchi
2 cups water
1/2 to 1 packet tofu, sliced
2 spring onions, sliced
1/2 cup chopped white onions
1 tbs vegetable oil

For seasoning:
2 tbs kombu soup concentrate
1/2 tsp hot chili powder
1/2 tsp minced garlic
soy sauce, optional

In a large saucepan, heat some vegetable oil. Lightly sauté the minced garlic and white onions. Then add the kimchi and 2 cups water. Bring it to a boil, then add the sake, kombu concentrate, hot chili powder and half the spring onions. Give it a good stir before adding the chicken to cook. Leave this to cook and simmer about 10 minutes with the lid on.

Next, add the shiitake mushrooms. Give it a taste and add more chili powder if needed or a little soy sauce if needed. Then gently slide the tofu into the soup. Cover and let simmer for 10 to 15 minutes on low heat. Remove lid after simmering, turn the heat up slightly. Add the konnyaku, give it a stir to let heat through.

Serve with the rest of the spring onions.

Tonight, the plan was to head to Margarita’s for mexican. but that was cancelled due to the lack of table – this was abt 8pm and we were hungry and grumpy so there really wasn’t a chance we were going to stand around to wait. Next option – Korean. I adore all cuisines, especially Japanese & Italian & Korean. so you can tell i was excited abt this.

The side dishes that you start off with are almost the most exciting part in my opinion. I polish off almost everything so quickly. And i love how it’s similar to chinese cuisine where diff sauces for diff items are all put quaintly in little tiny sauce dishes.
Although these side dishes weren’t exactly very korean (one or two had a little singaporean twist…made it look slightly odd), it definitely teased my tastebuds for the final bi bim bab (this would be the stone bowl rice).

When you get it, this is what is looks like.And then you’ve gotta mix it all up before you eat it. The great thing abt the stone bowl is that is keeps you rice hot for ages!Even though this wasn’t the best korean we’ve had, tasted very good to me because of the good service,and the fact that i’m having dinner with the family. I’m gonna leave for another 3-4months soon, i’m gonna miss sitting around as a chinese family. there’s just sth about being chinese