Last week, I published the first ever Korean recipe on Rasa Malaysia and confessed to the world that I am a total klutz when it comes to Korean food. Debra Samuels, coauthor of “The Korean Table” came to my rescue. She encouraged me to learn about Korean cooking and sent me her beautiful cookbook. I invited her to share her bibimbap recipe with us and she kindly accepted. Welcome Debra, it’s great to have you here!
Thanks for inviting me to be a guest. I couldn’t resist telling you how happy I was to see your posting on Korean seaweed salad. Finally Korean cuisine on your beautiful blog! I am the coauthor of The Korean Table, (Tuttle Publishing 2008) with my good friend Taekyung Chung. Everyone knows how tasty and tongue-tingling Korean cuisine can be. We all love going out for delicious bbq kalbi ribs or a bowl of jap chae and dipping into the myriad of little plates of banchan and kimchi that make up the landscape of the table. But the next step is making these dishes at home. I thought I would start with the iconic dolsot bibimbap, a mixed vegetable and rice dish, served in a hot stone pot. A collection of those seasoned side dishes attractively arrange atop a mound of rice sizzling from the heat captured in the stone. We use what the cook might have at home—a cast iron pan, but a Teflon skillet will work as well…(get Debra’s bibimbap recipe after the jump)
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Tempura (Shrimp and Vegetables) pictures (1 of 3)
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A few weeks ago, I tweeted about guest bloggers on Rasa Malaysia and Mable Tan—a fellow Malaysian who resides in Australia—responded and came to my rescue. Mable is a fantastic baker and a great cook; her blog “Happy Monkee” is beautiful and delicious. In her past life, Mable was a writer and stylist working with Seventeen, Marie Claire, Female (leading magazine in Malaysia and Singapore) and Going Places (inflight magazine of Malaysia Airlines). Please check out Mable’s guest post below and learn the secrets of making light and crispy tempura, a popular Japanese recipe. Please also pay a visit to her blog. Thank you!
Unlike Japanese breadcrumb (panko), tempura is a lighter, fluffier version. The idea is to keep the batter as cold as possible and also not over-mixing the batter. I’m so used to clump-free mixes that it takes ginormous willpower not to beat it till it’s smooth. Apparently, an over-mixed batter will result in activating the wheat gluten and causing the batter to be more chewy and dough-like when fried (great if you’re making doughnuts).
Now, what you might not know about tempura is that it was actually introduced to the Japanese by Portuguese missionaries and traders. The first shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, loved it so much it became widespread and adopted into the culture. If you go to Portugal today, there is a very similar dish called peixinhos da horta or “garden fishies…”
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(Attend hands-on hot pot workshop in Los Angeles by Harris Salat, the author of Japanese Hot Pots. Classes are available on November 14-15, 2009. Click here to learn more.)
Fall is in the air, even here in Southern California. Days are getting shorter and cooler. These past few days, the sky has been dull and wintry [...]
(Gallery updated with sambal asparagus with prawns/shrimps.)
Sambal is core to many signature Malaysian recipes. In its most basic composition, sambal is a condiment or chili paste made with chilies and belacan (Malaysian shrimp paste), although other ingredients such as garlic, shallots, lemongrass, galangal, etc. might be added to suit each individual recipe. Traditionally pounded with a mortar [...]
I made this string beans (french beans) recipe a few months ago but haven’t gotten to posting it. Called 干煸四季豆, this is a popular Chinese recipe that is mostly served in Chinese restaurants here in the US.
I love the texture of the deep-fried string beans; the great flavors came from stir-frying the string beans (french [...]
This is an example of perfectly cooked pan-fried dumplings (煎饺)–probably one of the best dumplings I have ever tasted (even my Chinese friends were raving about them).
I love it that these dumplings are so pretty with delicate pleats and light brown marks of pan-fried glory. I don’t think they used water to pan-fried these dumplings…they [...]
When it comes to traditional Chinese recipes, I always turn to Use Real Butter as my ultimate online resource. (I learned how to make Chinese dumplings and potstickers from her.) Use Real Butter is a seriously good blog–very down-to-earth, real, and choked full of delicious recipes plus breathtaking landscape photography and some of the cleanest [...]
(Chinese recipes, prepare authentic Chinese food now!)
Vegetables are healthy and great, but they are boring and hard to cook. Unlike protein (such as meat or fish), vegetables don’t have much flavor. In Chinese cooking, the key to cooking vegetable dishes lies in the creative use of side ingredients and sauces to bring out the taste [...]
