Korean kimchi chigae, tukbokki, and chijimi

I’ve come to the conclusion that I have bad bicycle karma.

That’s the only thing that can explain it.

After I finished writing my last post about the fate of my stolen bicycle, I left to go to my karate class, only to discover that my current bicycle’s back tire was flat. I ended up going back up to our apartment on the fifth floor, grabbing the keys to my husband, Hisa’s bike, and running back down and getting his bike. I ended up being only a few minutes late to my class, but I arrived sweaty and out of breath from hauling serious butt.

So now we’re back down to just one bicycle until I can get the tire fixed on my bike. Still, I’ll take a flat tire over being stolen any day. At least I still have my bike (knock on wood)!

Last night I made Korean food for dinner.

Something you should know about me, I love Korean food. Love, love love. Several years ago when I visited South Korea, it was glorious. I loved all the food, and everything I had was deliciously spicy. Unfortunately, at the time, I’d been living in Japan for half a year, and my stomach was no longer used to a lot of spicy food, so by the tenth day of my South Korean food adventures, my digestive track kind of died. I ended up spending one night hunched over the toilet in my friend’s home wondering if I was dying. After a day I was fine again. It was so worth it.

When I was in college, I experimented with various recipes for making kimchi chigae (a kind of spicy kimchi stew) and tukbokki (rice cakes and vegetables in a spicy sauce) until I developed my own way of making them both. Chijimi or Buchimgae (Korean savory pancake) is much more simple. You just need flour, water, and an egg to make the batter. Then you just throw in some seafood, nira (chinese chives), and whatever else floats your boat.

Consequently, I don’t have an actual recipe for these three dishes when I make them, because I don’t measure anything. I know what to add, then I just adjust to taste. I really should measure stuff and write down an actual recipe next time.

In the mean time, here are some recipes for the three above mentioned dishes that are similar to how I make them.

Kimchi Chigae:

http://www.trifood.com/kimchichigae.asp

Here’s my kimchi chigae from last night. I didn’t add the green chili or the pepper flakes to mine, but other than that, it’s about the same.

Chijimi/Buchimgae:

http://www.trifood.com/pajeon.asp  (they call it pajeon in this recipe, but it’s the same thing.)

To my chijimi, I added nira (chinese chives), baby shrimp, julienned carrots, and thinly sliced onion. For the dipping sauce, I used a little soy sauce, white vinegar, and a little sesame oil all mixed together.

Tukbokki/Ddukbokki:

In this recipe, it lists “garaetuk” as one of the ingredients. That’s just the long, round rice cakes they use in Korea for this dish. You can usually find them and kochujang (the Korean spicy chili paste) at an Asian or Korean market. Do NOT use Japanese mochi for this dish! I tried it once, and the mochi dissolved into a horrible mess. I ended up having to throw the whole thing away, so you must use Korean rice cakes for this recipe!

http://www.trifood.com/tukbokki.asp

I also like to add thinly sliced fried fish cake to mine. You can also add shrimp or meat to this dish if you want.

So there you have it! Those are my three favorite Korean dishes to cook at home! It’s kind of ironic, because both chijimi and tukbokki are more street/snack foods, and not really dinner/meal foods, but I love them nonetheless! Try them out sometime! Or even better, visit South Korea and have yourself a spicy food fest!