Blog:
2008 Toronto Meetup
On Dec. 13, 2008 I met up with some of my Canadian readers and viewers in Koreatown in Toronto.
I arrived there before 11:00 am and one by one they showed up at the restaurant. I noticed who was there for the meetup right away because they seemed to recognize me before I recognized them.
“Oh~ Maangchi, oh~!!”
“yes, yes!”
”haha!”
We just hugged each other just like long time friends!
Of course we kept talking about Korean food. Someone asked me “Where can I get sashimi grade raw fish for hwedupbap recipe?” Someone asked, “Maangchi, who taught you your cooking skill? Where did you get all the recipes?” Whatever I answered, whatever they asked, we were ready to laugh and smile!
We ordered “grilled pork belly” which is the restaurant’s specialty. There was one who doesn’t eat meat, so she ordered “roasted mackerel with rice.”
I showed them how to wrap the grilled pork in lettuce.
“Ok, see what I’m doing. First put the cooked crispy pork in here, then put seasoned green onion, sliced garlic , a piece of chopped green chili pepper, and ssamjang! And wrap it like this and eat like this!” : )
Everybody had fun while they were eating lunch.
I suggested they meet regularly to go to a Korean restaurant together. I was going back to New York so I couldn’t join them next time.
I was told that they already emailed each other. It’s awesome! Isn’t it?
Good food, good people!
Toronto Meetup
Hello, Torontonians!
I’m planning Toronto Meetup on Saturday, Dec.13, 2008 at 11:00 am
(from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm).
I’m going to visit Toronto soon!
We are going to a Korean restaurant all together.
Don’t expect me to cook at this time. : ) I have no kitchen to cook there.
If you want to meet me or other blog readers, please contact me at maangchi@gmail.com
I haven’t decided where it will be yet. I am going to let you know it through email.
My second cookbook is published
My second cookbook is now available for sale. The first one was very popular, so I made another with all my recipes from the last year. You can download the .pdf e-book for free, or buy a full-color printed one on the Createspace website and on Amazon.com.
I also made a book that contains books one and two in one volume. So if you want all my recipes so far, you don’t have to get 2 books, you can buy just one. You can download that e-book for free, too.
These books are made to be practical, with all of my recipes plus lots of color photos so you can bring the book with you to the grocery store and easily find the ingredients you need.
My next DVD is also coming soon, I will let you know when it’s done.
Here are some photos of my new book, I think they look great!
The recipes in the second book are:
- Beef short ribs (galbijjim)
- Bulgogi
- Kimchi fried rice (kimchi bokkeumbap)
- Sweet and crispy chicken (dakkangjung)
- Mandu (dumplings)
- Butternut squash porridge (hobakjuk)
- Sweet red bean soup (danpatjuk)
- Dessert punch with persimmon, cinnamon, and ginger (sujunggwa)
- Fried squid (ohjinguh twikim) and fried sweet potato
- Rice cake (gyungdan)
- Rice cake (songpyeon)
- Egg side dish (gyeranmalyee)
- Egg side dish (gyeranjjim)
- Spicy egg side dish (maewoon gyeranjjim)
- Eggplant side dish (gaji namul)
- Oi naengguk (cold cucumber soup)
- Potato side dish (gamja jorim)
- Potato side dish (gamjachae bokkeum)
- Soybean side dish (kongjang, kongjorim)
- Stirfried dried anchovy side dish (myulchibokkeum)
- Yeolmu mulkimchi (young summer radish water kimchi)
- Naengmyeon (cold noodles)
- Spicy fish soup (maeuntang)
- Soondubu jjigae (soft tofu stew)
And here’s some pictures of the volume that’s Books 1&2 together:
Chinatown shopping list
I went to Chinatown this afternoon. It was a very exciting and pleasant visit as usual. I bought these items.
Chestnuts, ginkgo nuts, air vacuumed sticky corn, green onions, Asian chives (buchu) shrimp, thin noodles, Chinese black bean sauce, a can of bamboo shoots, and fresh pork belly! And a dozen live blue crabs!
I cooked the chestnuts and tasted them after my dinner and they were very sweet and delicious! The live crabs are in my freezer! Sorry crabs! Tomorrow, I am going to make “gae jang” (salty crab side dish).
Oh, I love China town and Chinese sellers, too. One seller was very funny even though his English was poor.
Me: how much is this?
crab seller:…. tting tting shawa … (It sounded like that)
Me: Why this crab is more expensive than that crab? (Price tag was on the basket of crabs)
crab seller: … pause .. “boy!”
Me: haha, boy crab is more expensive than girl crab?
The crab seller and I were laughing loudly because we exactly understood the jokes!
Sushi
I made this sushi using the fish on the left (forgot the name but it’s pickled and tastes is like mackerel), avocado, seasoned and cooked eel, laver (kim: nori). I bought these fish at a Japanese grocery store.
On the lettuce, the red stuff is a pickle that I made with beets. Its actual color is very beautiful, but the photo did not seem to show the beautiful color. Anyway, I enjoyed this sushi a lot. It’s very simple to make. I made a wasabi and soy sauce mix to dip it in.
Maangchi is in Joongang Daily
I was interviewed a few days ago by Ms. Jinhwa Jo (조진화) who is working for Korea Joongang Daily News in New York. She let me know the article is already on today!
You may not understand what it says because it’s written in Korean.
It’s all good things about me! Check out my face! I interviewed her, too! : )
My jjajangmyun recipe is updated!
Hi, Everybody,
I think I should let you know that I updated my jjajangmyun recipe.
I made my jjajangmyeon by following my own recipe a few days ago because a few people pointed out their jjajangmyeon turned out too bland.
I exactly followed the measurements in the recipe and found out some were wrong! I don’t know what happened to me when I wrote down the recipe! If you stick to my video recipe, you might not have noticed anything wrong, but those who followed my written recipe closely would have found the measurements were not clear.
Before I started my cooking video recipe stuff, I had never used universal measurements such as cups, teaspoons, table spoons… I used just my spoon. I still don’t use measurements while I’m cooking my everyday meal. I use measurements only when I make videos. It’s actually difficult for Koreans to measure cups and tbs exactly because some sticky ingredients like hot pepper paste or bean paste are not easy to scoop.
Fortunately I’m getting more accustomed to measuring these days.
I corrected the recipe and already updated it on my website, and also edited the podcast and video to make it clearer. But I can’t do it for YouTube because it doesn’t allow us to replace a video.
I hope those who bought my books read this blog. I will correct the cookbook too.
Anyway, I corrected this:
from 6 cups of water to 3 cups of water
from 2 tbs of black bean paste to 6 or 7 tbs of black bean paste (in the video, I used 2 big spoonfuls of black bean paste which is amount of 6-7 tbs!)
Thank you Linda and Jen! Without your comments, I probably would never have found that I wrote down the wrong measurements.
5000th subscriber
I’ll never forget the moment of joy when I got the first subscriber for the first time on YouTube. “Oh my god, someone approves of my cooking ability!” From that time on I felt like I shouldn’t disappoint her! :)
Yesterday I eventually got 5,000 subscribers on YouTube! My 5000th subscriber was Sarah living in California. I decided to blog about her. I sent her email to ask whether or not she wants me to blog about her.
“My name is Sarah and I am 16 years old. I am currently a junior in high school and I work part time in a Sanrio store. The only time I eat Korean food is when my friend cooks it for me. I love the taste of Korean food and instead of always bugging her to cook for me, I decided to learn how to make some for myself :] . Even though I know how to cook Filipino food, I wanted to impress and please my parents with newly acquired cooking skills … hehe… This is when I came across your channel, Maangchi! yay! Unlike other Korean cooking tutorials, you make things very easy to understand and I adore your personality! I have learned a lot from your videos and I’ve recently tried some of your recipes, too (although i still need to work on them >_<). hehe. I'm looking forward to learning more from you, Maangchi!
Tokyo Mart
I was so happy to find this store yesterday. It’s at 91 Mulberry St in Chinatown. The closest subway is Canal St.
I saw many Korean ingredients (hot pepper powder, paste, seaplant.. etc) sold at a cheap price. They even have the short grain rice that I eat! I bought some dried noodles and Chinese egg roll skins.
I love to hang around this area. When you get out of the store, the street vendors on the sidewalk are selling all kinds of fresh vegetables at a tremendously cheap price. I bought a bunch of Asian chives for $1!
