What is this thread all about?
Just a place for general discussion. A place to unload whats on your mind and talk about anything - personal, health, help needed, achievements, daily highs and daily lows, theories, predictions and what have you.
Does not need to be Q related.
I really wish you could get on board with chapchae. Really, really top class food, kind of sweet and savory and really yummy. Plus, and this is where you come in, its one of those Korean foods that is NOT spicy (there aren't that many, really)
When I first landed in South Korea, I felt like I'd come home. I discovered spicy food in my teens, and I was able to completely embrace Korean spiciness straight off.
Yuk Gae Jang was my go-to favorite for the first few years. When Korean peeps asked me "what is your favorite (Korean) food?" - a ubiquitous question probably asked of every foreigner every time they make a new Korean friend in Korea - and I stated yukgae jang, they would go "wow! Isn't it spicy?". Me, I'm like, well, yeah, that's the whole point!
The buldak was pretty good but not super brilliant. Will be better the next time.
Currently, one of my lads is having some stomach troubles, so I'm having to adjust and curb my predilections towards the spicier and richer dishes.
Other food I've become adept at is a bunch of Italian dishes, also stews (Irish-ish), and I'm working on refining my mushroom garlic sauces.
Conclusion: So yeah! I saw this. Thanks for the note!
be well, RT.
Wooooooaaaaahhhh...
You've been using fine powder chilli powder for kimchi. Ay, caramba! Or as a Korean would say: Ah-i-go! (exactly how well you manipulate your aigoes will define in the minds of Koreans how well you actually speak the language!)
This is the one you need to be using: (https://i.etsystatic.com/7169689/r/il/080bee/2272618890/il_570xN.2272618890_rgn6.jpg)
hehehe.
Anyway, otherwise, it sounds like you are on your way! If you can make friends with a Korean ajuma and ask if you can watch or be with her when she makes kimchi, you will soar!!!
This is how you know you're eating good Korean food!
You should walk away like you've just done a 30-minute sprint, with perspiration dripping and yes, nose sniffing.
Koreans love eating like this; makes them feel alive. Me too! Although in the last 10 years, my palate took a serious downturn, and I could not tolerate a lot of spices or heat. But recently as I've been making kimchi (which always means a good kimchi jiggae towards the end or during the life of the kimchi), I seem to have made a comeback.
tang vs jiggae - In the same way that Korean hangeul and Korean sounds don't really correspond to our English consonant and vowel letters, our words like stew, soup, etc don't quite correspond to tang or jiggae either; they are different beasts, sharing similarities but also with differences.
Linguistically, a tang is more like a soup, generally. Tang is a sino-Korean character (湯) which means "to boil water". It's also used for ontang - a hot bath or hot spring. jiggae is a native Korean word. gae is a suffix often used to mean thing. ji-da (찌다) is a verb meaning to steam things, or in this case, to cook hotly. So a jiggae is a "hotly cooked (water-based) thingy". kimchi jiggae = hotly cooked kimchi thingy. dwenjang jiggae = hotly cooked dwenjang thingy.
At least, that's the linguistic breakdown, but of course they are now nouns in their own right.
This page seems to have a really good breakdown of these terms. Seems very on target to me; eg. the liquid to solid portions, the broth being the main element of a tang, etc.
https://guide.michelin.com/sg/en/article/features/korean-soups-guk-tang-jjigae-jeongol-sg
I really would have been hard put to articulate the exact differences, but reading these, I'm like. Yep. That's it.
However, as my South Korean life was almost entirely that of a solitary student living in a dormitory or alone in a cha-chwi-bang (자취방), I don't remember ever being introduced to jeongol. jeongol seems to have a lot in common with sukiyaki or shabushabu.
tteobokki at 1 am. <slaps forehead> wow.
I think if you're eating kimchi and tteokbokki, assuming its done right, then you're well on your way.