Dakgangjeong...Korean Sweet and Crunchy Fried Chicken

 Ingredients

1 lb chicken tenders, cleaned and cubed
2-3 tablespoon potato starch or corn starch
cooking oil for deep frying

for the sauce

1 tablespoon Gochujang (Korean chilly paste)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice winegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic, about 2-3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon minced ginger, about 1" piece of ginger root

some chopped green onions and roasted sesame seeds

Directions
1.  First prepare the sauce ingredients. Mix up all the ingredients for the sauce in sauce pan and heat
     in up on medium heat until you can smell the aroma from the garlic and ginger. Turn off the heat
     and leave it to cool.
2.  Next coat the cubed chicken tenders with the potato or corn starch dust off the excess starch from
     the chicken.
3.  Heat up some cooking oil on medium heat for deep frying. When the oil is hot or reaches 350°F or      180°C, carefully drop in the coated chicken cubes and deep fry until the chicken is lightly brown
     and crispy.  Fry the chicken in batches to avoid the chicken cubes from being soggy.
4.  Drain the fried chicken cubes on a kitchen towel.
5.  When all the chicken cubes are fried, transfer them to a bowl and pour in the sauce. Mix well to
     coat each chicken cube. Finally add in the toasted sesame seeds and chopped green onions and
     mix well.
6.  Garnish with some extra toasted sesame and chopped green onions and serve with hot steamed
     rice.

Korean Fish Cake Eomuk

My daughter is off to college and I am missing her so much. I just wished that she was somewhere close enough for me to visit her over the weekend.  Feeling a bit empty inside and after cross mad with the boys for messing up the house, as usual, i started visiting some of my favorite cooking Youttube channels. I came across this fish cake recipe in Maangchi's youtube channel.  I had some of the main ingredients in my freezer and all I had to do was modify the recipe a bit based on what I had at home and fix this before the dad comes home from work. It took something like 15 minutes to make the fish paste and another 15 minutes to fry it. Pretty quick right. It tasted really good.

Ingredients

1/2 lb cod fish fillet or hake or any white fleshed fish fillet
1/2 lb shelled prawns and deveined
1/4 cup white onion
1 large egg white
2 garlic pips
1 tsp white pepper powder
1/2 cup tapioca starch
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil

Directions

1. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blitz it for about 2 mins or until all the ingredients come to a smooth paste.
2. Heat up some cooking oil on medium heat. Take about 1/3 a cup of fish paste and flatten it over the back of an oiled spatula.
3. Start rolling the fish paste from the wider edge a bit by bit until it form a long roll and drop it gently into the oil.
4. Fry until the fish cake is cooked and evenly browned. Drain any excess oil on a paper towel. The fish cake will float when it is cooked.
5. The fish cake tastes good on its own without any condiments.

Korean Jap Chae

Last year when I youngest was in 1st Grade, his school hosted an event where families from the different cultural groups presented their traditional food. In the Korean booth, the moms made Korean Jap Chae. I was on a vegan diet that day and I was so happy when I found out that the Jap Chae that they made was vegetarian. I instantly fell in love with this food. I have made this several times and both of my older kids just love it. Mav of course hates it since it is loaded with vegetables. Well you can't please them all.

Ingredients

500g sweet potato noodles or korean vermicelli

1 medium sized carrot, julienned

2 red chilies, julienned

300g shitake mushrooms, sliced thinhly

300g spinach

1 tsp chopped garlic

some chopped green onions

salt to taste

sesame seeds

for the seasoning

mix together:

1/3 cup soy sauce

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tsp black pepper

Directions

1. Wash the spinach several times. Boil some water and scald the spinach leaves. Once the spinach leaves are scaled, remove them quickly into a bowl filled with ice and cold water.

2. Drain the spinach and squeeze out any excess water. Add a pinch of salt and a dash of sesame oil to the spinach leaves.

3. In a wok, heat some sesame oil and fry the garlic under medium heat. Once the garlic is aromatic add the sliced mushrooms and fry until the mushrooms are soft. 

4. Next add in the julienned carrots and chilly and fry until the carrots and chilly are just cooked.

5. Lastly add in the sliced onions and chopped green onions and fry until the onions are slightly soft but still has the crunch.

6. Remove vegetables from the pan and leave it to cool.

7. Take a pot of water of leave it to boil. Add in the sweet potato noodles and cook for about 5 minutes or until the noodles are cooked. Drain the noodles in a colander and transfer it to a large bowl. 

8. Add the stir fried vegetables and spinach into the noodles and pour the seasoning over it.

9. Mix well with a thong and sprinkle some sesame seeds.

10. You can garnish the noodles with thinly sliced egg omelet. You can omit this for a vegetarian or vegan recipe.