Good old Korean country style food

Even though I have had the great luck and opportunity to train under Dr. Tae Yun Kim for over 30 years now, and even though I have learned a lot about Korean food, there are some things that still intimidate me.  For example, making really good Deng Jang Chigae (fermented soybean paste soup)  and the many different kinds of ban chan.  Ban chan are wonderful little side dishes that liven up your rice and make a simple meal into an explosion of flavors.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim is a most excellent and very creative cook, Korean cuisine and way beyond.  She can make the most exquisite meals imaginable, yet her personal favorite are very simple, country-style dishes.

So I finally decided to conquer my fear of making ban chan and started with something relatively simple.  This particular one happens to be one of Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s favorite ones and is made out of the long, skinny kind of eggplants, this kind:

By JVRKPRASAD – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67744202

Turns out, this is really simple to make.  How simple?  Goodness, you cut the eggplant into small finger size stripes, marinate them in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, sesame seeds, a tiny amount of sugar, ground garlic, ground ginger and a touch of lemon juice; and after about 15 minutes you saute it until the eggplant is soft.

And, tada!  That’s it!

And when you mix all sorts of ban chan into your rice and add some hot sauce, you end up with this heavenly dish called bibim bap, and when it’s served in a stone pot it’ll be dul se bap.  Either way, it’s delicious!

And not only is it delicious, but also very healthy!  And the good thing is, that these kinds of dishes do not require strict recipes, but allow for a lot of creativity.

And as a bonus, here is a quote from Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s new book, “Seven Steps to Inner Power, how to break through to awesome!” I just happened to read this one today and I thought you might like it as much as I did.

“You can determine each day, then, to get to know yourself a little better and get to know what’s true for you – and have fun doing it.  You can live with a sense of excitement, wonder, and gratitude.  Nobody is going to charge you more taxes for being happy.  Appreciate every day you are given as an occasion to learn to love – to love who you are, to love others, to connect with your authentic self.  You have an opportunity each day to fall in love with the real you, to get to know who you are – your body, your hands, your feet, your eyes, your heart, your entire being – inside and out.”

Read Full Post »

It’s a Delicious Life!

It’s spring again, and according to the temperatures, almost summer!  Dr. Tae Yun Kim is very much in tune with the seasons and loves to create different dishes for different seasons.  In this first picture, is a new version of traditional Korean cold noodles; it is new because it has very untraditional, yet incredibly healthy new ingredients.  New recipe coming up!

When she is not busy on her new book tour, Dr. Tae Yun Kim loves to work in her garden, growing many of the ingredients for her special dishes.

Here you see a bed of sook, or mugwort as it is called in the USA.  It is a very healthy herb, helps to cleanse the blood and is a great spring food; but you can dry it and make it into powder and tea.

And here is Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s version of sook fried in batter – incredibly delicious and healthy!  What a win!  And it’s so simple!  Just whip up a simple savory batter, dip the cleaned sook into it and fry briefly, until the batter is cooked through.

And if you have missed the big news, Dr. Tae Yun Kim just published her new book, an all new version of “Seven Steps to Inner Power – how to break through to awesome!”  You’ll definitely want to read this one, and if you live in Southern California, you can still catch her on her book tour.

Read Full Post »

Celebrate Every Day!

With Christmas, New Year, Birthdays, Lunar New Year and Valentines, there have been lots of celebrations!  I love how Dr. Tae Yun Kim is passionate about celebrations:

“Celebrate every living breath as if it was your last breath,” she says.  I like that!

So in the spirit of celebrating every moment, I was excited to try out a suggestion that Dr. Tae Yun Kim had mentioned a while ago.  “Why not make the traditional Jim Bang healthier, by making the dough gluten-free and making the filling less sugary and add healthy nutrients.

I did one version of these buns last year, and they were good.  But they still needed to improve in the “health department.”

Steaming buns – don’t you peek!  Wait 15 minutes!

So this time, (actual recipe will be coming, promise!) I based the dough on almond flour, chestnut flour, amaranth flour, certified oat flour, sorghum flour and chia seed flour.  I know this sounds complicated, but when you need to live gluten-free AND are a diabetic, and want to live healthy, you start to do your research and learn from other bloggers, too.

To make the dough pliable and hold together, I added psyllium husks and xantham gum (I will have to measure things out next time, this time was purely experimental) and it was actually a nice workable dough.

For the filling, you start by cooking the tiny red adzuki beans until soft, which is approximately an hour or so.  Keep some of the cooking liquid, and mash the beans, not too finely and not too moist.  Add organic pure cacao powder (definitely not Hershey’s cocoa mix), a little bit of honey or maple syrup, and cinnamon to taste.

Now take a bit of the dough, put some gluten-free flour on your hand and gently flatten the dough, so you can put some of the filling and wrap it all up into a nice bun.

As usual, Dr. Kim was right – these buns were divine!  Be brave and try to re-create right away, or wait for the recipe – the choice is yours!  (I would recommend you try anyway!  They are THAT good!)

 

Read Full Post »

Creative Food choices in winter

As much as we like soups, there comes a point in the dead of winter when you just do not want soup for a while.  When your inner self wants to rebel a little and make-believe it’s warm and sunny outside and you want some – gasp – cold noodles.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim takes this concept to a whole new level.  With her limitless creativity, intuition and Ki energy, she creates food that appeals to body, mind and spirit.

While you might say ramen is bad for you – Dr. Kim just smiles and makes food that not only tastes great but is also good for you. There are many healthy versions available nowadays.  And for us gluten-free folks – not to worry, you can make these with not only ramen noodles, but different kinds of rice noodles or sweet potato noodles.

This culinary Masterpiece started out with the Korean pepper paste (yes, also available in gluten-free now), garlic, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, organic brown sugar or honey, chopped parsley and cilantro, grated or finely chopped Asian pears and Asian radishes, sesame seeds and a touch of sesame oil.  Dunk the cooked in drained noodles, and serve.  Add any cooked and cooled meat or chicken to this, and any chopped veggies and/or fruit.

Proportions are difficult to tell, because some like it sweeter and some like it hotter and some prefer more lemon juice than others.  Key is try until you love it!  🙂

Now go enjoy!

Read Full Post »

Korean Style Pancakes

I am pretty sure that there are as many different Korean Pancake recipes as there are kinds of kimchi!  And they are all very delicious.

As usual, Dr. Tae Yun Kim takes it to another level altogether.  She starts out with the basic concept, and then goes on to “healthify” it as we like to call it.  She mixed up a basic pancake batter, where she combined a “home-grown” egg,  “a little water” and whisked until was all well combined, with some salt and garlic powder added.

Then she added flour, enough to get the consistency of regular pancake batter.  If you are gluten-free, be sure to use xanthan gum or physllium powder with your gluten free flour to make the batter hold together.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim likes to kick the heat notch up a bit and adds some grated jalapeno to the batter, or finely chopped parsley.

Then, this time, she added some carrots that had been pre-cooked just enough to be very firm but not crunchy any more.  She added sliced tofu, onions, and other veggies, along with sliced up kosher hot dogs.

Then, after the batter started to barely turn solid, here comes another surprise:

Dr. Tae Yun Kim added another thin layer of batter over the top.  After a quick and swift flipping over, the newly created art form looked like this:

Doesn’t that make you want to run in the kitchen and make on of these RIGHT NOW???

And even though there are no set amounts of ingredients for this savory pancake here on this blog yet, do go ahead and try – you really can’t go wrong!  And you will thank yourself you did!

 

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »