Korean food experimental

My plan today was to prepare Korean food. I accidentally found a blog called Kimchi Finland, where I found some Korean food recipes which can be made from the ingredients we have in Finland. 된장 찌개 was very easy to make and the taste was spicy but friendly :D

And as always, I had to count on my old but still working rice cooker, which I got from my Hyeyeon. Rice cooker isn't a must if you prepare Korean food, but it makes rice cooking so much easier :) You just add rice and water and push the button! It's possible to find rice cookers also from finnish shops (I've seen them in Sokos at least).



First I needed to go to the shop to buy potatoes, zuccini, mushrooms and a chili pepper. Vegetables were quite cheap except zuccini, which was nearly 3 euros. Regardless of that, this Korean food is very cheap (and easy) to make.

First I had to chop all the vegetables in cubes. In addition of the foods I bought from the shop I added onion and garlic. I didn't use shrimps or any meat, but it's possible to use them too. I put the vegetables into a large pot, poured water over them and let them boil for some time.


Then it gets a bit tricky, because Korean pastes can be found only from Asian markets in Helsinki :( My packages are quite old, but the paste stays good for a long time, so I just used them. Korean fermented soybean paste called doenjang (된장) is one of the main ingredients in this dish. It's very healthy because of the fermentation and it tastes very salty.



The other sauce I used in this dish was gochujang (고추장) which is my favourite hot paste ever! It's also kind of fermented soy bean paste but the difference between doenjang and gochujang are the red chili powder and glutinous rice powder in the latter one. I love the hot taste of this sauce and gochujang (and sesame oil) really is the "Korean flavour" for me :)

Back to cooking again...I mixed couple of teaspoons doenjang and couple of teaspoons gochujang, added some water and boiled the paste a bit. Then it was time to pour the sauce over the vegetables and mix. I also added tofu cubes and let the food boil for couple of minutes. And then?

Food was ready! It looks like a soup, but it's supposed to be eaten with rice which is rather difficult to find from my photo...There is some though! The chili pieces were hot, but not too hot and tofu didn't have dull taste because of the sauce. This is a very good dish to eat when it's cold outside (-15 now!) or if you're sick (like my boyfriend is).

But this food can't win my ultimate favourite Korean food, tteokbokki (떡볶이)! When I cook it the next time, I can blog it too :)