Intercultural Life

Category: Food (Page 22 of 22)

Korean food and recipes

Milo

 

Okay so milo is different in different countries. In Australia it has a more crunchy texture and involves some vigorous mixing to get it smooth. In Malaysia it seems to be pre-mixed and more like just a chocolate milk. In Japan I just remember getting it from a vending machine…

Cookies

So it’s not like Koreans don’t have cookies* it’s just they don’t usually have home made ones. With many Korean homes not having ovens they don’t do much baking. They have their own variety of store bought cookies (can’t think of the name but I really like those ones that come in the yellow box) but sometimes homemade cookies can be a bit of a revelation for them when they come to somewhere like Australia.

My husband is addicted. He could eat a whole batch of cookies in one sitting. Eventually his obsession became too much and I had to wean him off them and only allow them as a treat because otherwise he wants to eat about 20 a day.

Seriously, when he’d come home from work he’d be like this:

For me, it’s been ingrained in me from my childhood that we should only each 1 or 2 cookies at a time and I feel guilty (and sick) if I eat too many at once. But he has no such guilt. Perhaps that is part of it too- I’ve had my whole life to get used to and to tire of cookies but for him it’s a new discovery.

He also gets upset if I want to share the cookies I’ve just baked with other people- like friends or neighbours. Such an idea usually causes exclamations like “Why??!! No!!!” But I just laugh at a grown man getting so upset about not being to eat all the cookies.

So while most other recipes on this blog will be for Korean food, I thought I’d share this cookie recipe. It’s quite simple, many other choc chip cookies recipes have many more ingredients, but sometimes simple is the best.

Favourite Choc Chip recipe:

Ingredients (Australian measurements)

250 grams of butter (softened)
1/2 cup caster sugar (or just white sugar)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
half cup of choc chips (or 1 cup if you prefer)
1 and 3/4 cups of self raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and put baking paper on some oven trays.
2. Put the butter and both sugars into a bowl and mix with electric beaters on a medium speed.
3. Add the egg and vanilla essence to the bowl. Mix with electric beaters until it becomes lighter and and fluffier (about 4 mins).
4. Add the choc chips and half the flour to the bowl. Mix with a wooden smooth and then add the rest of the flour.
5. Make the mixture into balls and put on trays. Bake in oven for 15 mins. Take out trays and let them cool for 5 mins on trays.
6. Hide from your Korean husband.

* the words cookies and biscuits in Australia are somewhat interchangeable. ‘Cookie’ is more American but since Koreans are used to American English I use the word cookie more with my husband.

Kimchi

I remember my first experience with kimchi was not actually eating it but watching some Korean friends make it. Well one step of making it. These Koreans were in my home town for a working holiday and where I’m from you can’t just go pick up a tub of kimchi from the supermarket. One time when hanging out with them I watched them salting the cabbage and putting into containers but I did not realise how important this thing called kimchi was!

Flash forward to living in Sydney with Koreans. I did not know what kimchi tasted like but I knew I didn’t like the smell of it! Every time someone opened the fridge the whole living area would fill with the smell of kimchi and I would gag (and probably complain).

I would refuse to eat it if anyone offered it to me. Keep in mind that I was a very picky eater at the best of times. It wasn’t until later when I actually started eating Korean food and a friend would wash the kimchi in some water to get rid of the spice and then give it to me to eat. “Hmm, not bad,” I thought. Gradually I became used to it until I was eating it like a normal person. And now I love it. Oh and now I also make it! But, the trials of kimchi making will be talked about in some other blog posts.

Kimchi is one of those things that if you didn’t grow up eating it… well it can take a while to really enjoy eating it. Or maybe some people will never be able to enjoy it (like non-Australians and vegemite). But if you are going to marry a Korean you better get used to it as it’s pretty much eaten with every meal!

Do you like kimchi?

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