Tag: Gochujang

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Suckered by packaging

Nein danke. Although I have a tub of gochujang in my cupboard, I have no idea what it is supposed to taste like, it gets used in things and I’ve never tasted all by itself. I saw these chips and thought, “Oh sure, what the hey…” 

To me these tasted like kimchi. (Which I do not like despite my liking all things pickle.) I can’t even describe the taste aside from hot and foreign. But I kind of like the idea of serving these to some unsuspecting guests who would be too polite to shriek, “What the fuck am I eating?” before running to the sink to spit it all out and rinse with cold water. Unfortunately almost no one I know would just sit there chewing thoughtfully with their eyes wide open and watering, and trying to guess what the hellish taste and sensation in their mouth is. Maybe I need to make friends with some elderly nuns. 

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Gochujang gone wrong

One box (container?) of this is enough to last, me anyway, like 6 years. You don’t use more than a tablespoon of the shit at a time. I suppose if I were Korean I may use it more often. In the meantime it turned black essentially. It wasn’t moldy. So I used it. I couldn’t tell if it was not any good because it didn’t really have flavor, just hot. I didn’t die, so apparently it’s still good. Just not red anymore. Not that it was ever as red as it is depicted on the lid.


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Pan fry, stir fry whatever

Whatever it is, it’s still slop, just Asian slop instead of Mexican or Italian slop. My Asian slop almost always tastes the same since I am unable to control myself when I am making Asian food. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe the vast array of various sauces disorients me.  If a little gochujang is good, a half cup is better. If a teaspoon of rice vinegar is nice, a quarter cup is gonna really ramp it up. But this time I restrained myself (and maybe most importantly I did not use fish sauce, Jesus—that stuff!!) And it made a difference. 

It was good but the next day for lunch the chicken smelled like wet cat. I ate it, but I’ll eat anything. Except anchovies and of course, cats like anchovies.



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Stir fries and ball bearings

The feeling I get as my dinner concept skitters off course, is something not unlike attempting to get across a room with a floor filled with ball bearings. What happens, after I get out celery, chicken and mushrooms with the presumption that I am going to produce something like a Chinese (or Asian in general) meal, is that I just lose my direction, I carom dangerously around the kitchen, cleaver in hand, as the goal of the meal that I once had clearly in mind abandons me. I cannot imagine why I bought mustard greens to add to this mess, squash, these stinking mushrooms (they’re fine when they’re cooked but raw they have a smell that is vaguely nauseating), celery, scallions, green pepper and bok choy. Oh, and that damn hot pepper. 

I blearily drag out all my various sauces that relate in some way to the Pacific rim—although not that horrific fish sauce—Thai red curry paste, gochujang, several soy sauces, mirin, rice wine vinegar, whatever the hell looked appropriate lurch to the pan, and in a haze of confusion slop this and that, whatever into whatever.

That feeling of disorientation, the bewildering sense of loss of purpose dissipates when I sit down to eat. Because, no matter. It always tastes the same. I have arrived at the same place I always do. Except for the mustard greens which tasted like, well, nothing. It was fine I ate it (for days), I’ll eat anything. Except anchovies and I’m gonna work on that. And maybe once I conquer that I’ll work on the fish sauce.






Posted on

Stir fries and ball bearings

The feeling I get as my dinner concept skitters off course, is something not unlike attempting to get across a room with a floor filled with ball bearings. What happens, after I get out celery, chicken and mushrooms with the presumption that I am going to produce something like a Chinese (or Asian in general) meal, is that I just lose my direction, I carom dangerously around the kitchen, cleaver in hand, as the goal of the meal that I once had clearly in mind abandons me. I cannot imagine why I bought mustard greens to add to this mess, squash, these stinking mushrooms (they’re fine when they’re cooked but raw they have a smell that is vaguely nauseating), celery, scallions, green pepper and bok choy. Oh, and that damn hot pepper. 

I blearily drag out all my various sauces that relate in some way to the Pacific rim—although not that horrific fish sauce—Thai red curry paste, gochujang, several soy sauces, mirin, rice wine vinegar, whatever the hell looked appropriate lurch to the pan, and in a haze of confusion slop this and that, whatever into whatever.

That feeling of disorientation, the bewildering sense of loss of purpose dissipates when I sit down to eat. Because, no matter. It always tastes the same. I have arrived at the same place I always do. Except for the mustard greens which tasted like, well, nothing. It was fine I ate it (for days), I’ll eat anything. Except anchovies and I’m gonna work on that. And maybe once I conquer that I’ll work on the fish sauce.






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Bibimbap in a big bowl

Bibimbap is, I now know, food served in a big heated bowl. The heated bowl probably helps because by the time you get the whole thing ready to serve it’s cold. At its base it is rice which is covered with an artfully arranged assortment of marinated and grilled, or fried, vegetables. In my case, zucchini, spinach, shittake mushrooms and carrots. On top of all of that goes thinly sliced marinated and grilled beef. The recipes I read called for boneless short ribs which I bought. Later on, in an attempt to educate myself on the elaborate process of making this mess, I watched a video in which tenderloin was used and that seems like a better choice because the short ribs were like shoe leather. And on top of the shoe leather goes a fried egg.

All sorts of various but similar marinades and sauces are called for, mostly stuff with toasted sesame oil (not so crazy about that) and soy sauce. All of the sauces called for sesame seeds and there were at least 6 tablespoons of brown sugar involved as well. After I prepped the food I collapsed exhausted in a heap and then waited anxiously until I was going to have to cook everything essentially at once.

I made the rice and the gochujang sauce which included brown sugar and sesame seeds. I purchased kimchi which is served on the side (I will have to decide how best to dispose of this since there is no possibility that I will eat this ever again).

When that was all ready I grilled the vegetables and the meat. Like I said by the time I put everything together it was tepid and there were still fried eggs to slap together. But I don’t know why one goes through the bother of assembling this with such care. Once it’s served the diner mushes all of it together into a big sloppy mess.

It was good but there is no way I am ever going to go through that much bother again.

I will have to find that original recipe that had gochujang as an ingredient. I need to use that and all my asian condiments up. I need the space in my kitchen cabinet.


 



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Gochujang

It’s like I get infected with these ideas. I’m not all that crazy about Asian food, not that I don’t like it, it’s just not, well, Italian or Mexican. Somehow, though, when I read a recipe that involved marinating flank steak in gochujang (Korean red pepper paste) and coca cola, although I’d never heard of it before, finding it became a mission.

I made special trips to the 2 Asian stores I like both were permanently closed, I feel bad about that, they were interesting stores but apparently I didn’t shop there as much as I’d imagined. I went out to Woodman’s which has an impressive display of ethnic foods (they have spotted dick in cans, fer chrissake), but no, no gochujang. I went to the Hawai’ian deli in Wauwatosa, the Vietnamese store on North, nope, and nope, respectively. So fine, I bought it online (from a Korean shopping site called The Crazy Korean who has not stopped emailing me with cheerful news, recipes, requests for “likes,” questions about their service [I mean, I bought 1 container of red pepper paste], and might seriously be the kind of crazy that needs some sort of medication.)

Once I got the gochujang, though, I decided to make bibimbap.