kale salad with garlic-chili-oil

The minute I saw Miss Boulette's flavored oil, I knew I had found what I was looking for: a suitable dressing for raw kale. The oil is sensationally simple, strong in flavor and makes up the perfect match for the rustic texture of kale (if you prefer it tender, let it sit marinated for a day).

I kept my oil basic so that it can be complemented with different condiments from case to case.

Garlic chili oil adapted from Miss Boulette

Chop

• 1 red chili,
• 1 small spring onion,
• 2 cloves of garlic, roughly the same amount of
• ginger
  

ultra fine.

In a pan heat

• 2 tbsp butter (for a clear optic use clarified butter) with
• 1/2 cup olive oil.

As soon as the butter has melt completely, turn off the heat and add the garlic, ginger and chili.
Add 1 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp salt and the spring onion. It will yield to one small cup of chili oil.

Before using the oil you can add (1 tsp - 1 tbsp to taste)

• soy sauce (for sweetness and umami) and / or
  
• gochujang (korean red chili paste for fruity sweetness) or
• sesame oil (for a nutty flavor).
  

Kale Salad with Chickpeas

For a big bowl of salad

wash, spin dry and cut 200 gr of kale.

Slice the stems thinly.
Toss the kale with 3 cups of precooked chickpeas with at least 1/2 cup of the garlic-chili-oil (I mixed it with 1 tbsp soy sauce).

If wanted, add a dash of lemon juice (I didn't).

Don't be frugal with the dressing! Everything should be coated heavily with the oil so that it becomes a glossy, indulgent salad.

The salad will stay crisp for a couple of days in the fridge and is good to take away (then best eaten with chopsticks :)).

pan fried dumplings with corn salad and braised pears

I love it when you crave for a dish badly and you have everything on hand (with minor deviations) to go for it right away (ok, I waited till daylight). And when the recipe works out like a charm and the result tastes as good as it looked on the picture. Who wouldn't.

These pan fried dumplings (Kaspressknödel, consisting of old bread and cheese) with plain corn salad, fried onions and braised pears made up a beautifully balanced, beautiful winter dish.

I tried it with and without sour cream and found the cream unnecessary.

Rough directions:

Soak old bread (I took toasted whole meal toast which was fine and reduced the soaking time) in some milk and 1-2 eggs. It should yield to a kneadable consistency. Add 1 grated clove of garlic and grated hard cheese to taste.
Add chopped parsley and 1 small chopped onion.
Add salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.

Mold flat dumplings out of the dough and fry them in a pan with butter.

In the meantime braise some slices of pear in lemon juice (i took some cubes of frozen lemon juice) and little agave syrup.

Fry some onion slices.

Serve all with corn salad, sour cream if wanted and additional grated cheese.

roots spaghetti salad

I have slightly amended my opinion on vegetable spaghetti:

They are very impractical to eat.

And if served to guests they can evoke wrong expectations in so far as somehow they are supposed to taste better than ordinarily cut vegetables. But they taste exactly the same :)

As in these winter days one can never get enough ideas for fresh dishes, I present you this salad still.

And again devote it to Ms Bushcook, who has been recently featured in this lovely interview.

Roots salad (beetroot, kohlrabi, little parsley root, salsify, carrot)

with toasted and ground almonds and

a dressing of chopped herbs, orange juice, olive oil, fleur de sel and orange zests.

Chinese Cabbage and Carrot Salad

I can't stop eating this salad. I don't know if anybody could. I don't know either why one should.

A handful of humble ingredients (I added parsnip), foolproof to make and just divine.

Besides: you can spoon it. And salads that can be spooned falls in the comfort food, soul food category - just in case anybody wonders about the label :)

Chinese Cabbage and Carrot Salad adapted from Heike's Blog (= blog for esthetic German cooking :))

For 2 servings, prep time 10 minutes

Finely slice 5 Chinese cabbage leaves and 1 onion.
Grate 1 large carrot.
Mix all in a bowl together with canola oil (1 tbsp), white wine vinegar (2 tbsp), double cream (3 tbsp), sugar and salt to taste.

Let sit for a couple of minutes and (optionally) serve with crushed nuts as topping.

Update for the diary free folks - you can yield to an equally tasty result with coconut milk.

greener kale soup

For a long while I thought of kale as just the vegetable with the mud color. Then a couple of years ago a friend made a kale soup for me at her home in Budapest that was fresh green in color and fresh in taste. Thereafter I thought back of the soup a lot of times but had no idea how to make it and never gave it a shot on my own (the friend and I didn't keep in touch frequently and somehow I thought that if I contacted her out of the blue, I should not ask for a recipe...:)).

In my quest I got a hint by Sybille-Anna (thank you!) who is familiar to Hungarian cuisine as well as all other things food-related, I am sure :)

So with her directions I made my first kale soup - being very attentive not to overcook the green. I have no idea if this is Hungarian or if the soup in my memory was. I am not even sure if this is the taste that I was seeking for as there have been many years in between... But I am happy with the result. And pity for those winters beforehand without having rejoiced in this color and the lovely bitter aroma. It made up a fine match with orange.

basic kale soup

prep & cooking time 20 min.

1. thoroughly rinse the kale (as much as fits comfortably into a big pot), tear the leaves into smaller sizes and slice the stems finely. salt the kale a little.

2. dice 1 onion and 3 potatoes and sweat all in a large pot with 1 tbsp butter.
add the kale and sweat for around 5 minutes.

4. add 1 l vegetable broth , close with a lid and let everything simmer for around 10 min until the kale gets soft. stir from time to time.

5. add pepper and if needed, additional salt to taste. puree the soup.

6. serve with sour cream and optionally with dried or fresh orange zests.

Last but not least, I dedicate this dish to this very talented lady who appeared in a television cooking show last year and is a celebrity in the blogosphere now :)

Noodle Bliss

Handmade noodles are so cheap (3-6 USD) and omnipresent in Korea that sometimes it almost feels pity - would the people have to pay more for it, they would value such a handcraft more... I visited one internationally acclaimed place and two other noodle houses near my parent's flat. They all had humble settings but fantastic noodles.

1. Myeong Dong Gyoza opened since 1966 in the old shopping and entertaining distric of Myeongdong, Seoul. Their signature dish is Kalguksu, a mild soup with cut wheat noodles. There was a waiting line, 10 minutes during lunch time which is not really worth mentioning. Incredibly kind staff and incredibly pungent Kimchi considering the foreign visitors. I had Bibimguksu - green colored noodles, I had never seen before, mixed with crisp vegetables and a spicy sauce.

Opens everyday from 10:30 am - 9:30 pm.
Subway: Euljiro 4 Ga (Line No. 2), Myeong-dong (Line No. 4).

2. Bopyeong Memilguksu at the beach of Dadaepo. Sticky buckwheat noodles, Memilguksu, (paradox, isn't it?) in a sesame broth with tasty Kimchi and Kkagduki. As beverage they serve Sungnyung for free. I didn't ask but I bet that the dish was vegan.

보평 메밀 국수, Dadae Nakjo 1 Gil, opposite of Busan Bank.

3. Iljoeok Son Jajang, a stone's throw away from the buckwheat noodle house. This little deli is at least citywide known after a newspaper article from last October. I used to go to a famous Jajangmyeon place in Seomyeon (the central district of Busan, forgot its name...) but this one was as perfect as it was in my memories.

일조억 손짜장, Dadae 5 Jigugil.

The last two pics via the Busan Ilbo. Finding Korean addresses got easier after the introduction of the street system but it is still tricky. See this map.

My mum's Bibimbap, mixed rice with mixed memories

Five types of Namul unified in a bowl - each one with a different story. From top to bottom:

• San-Namul (wild greens) picked in the Taebaek Mountains, defrosted and sauteed
  
• Kkaenip (Perilla leaves) picked on a private island in the South Sea (there are so many little islands in that sea, that some people own one) dried, sauteed and seasoned
  
• Gosari (Fern shoots) from the local market, dried, sauteed and seasoned
  
• Pimaja or Ajuggari (Castoir oil plant), from farming relatives in the Jeollado province, dried, sauteed and seasoned
  
• Siggeumchi (Spinache) from the local market, steamed and seasoned

In my family Namul is not made for the purpose of Bibimbap. Bibimbap is rather an accidental bowl of rice mixed with anything that happens to be in the fridge, so it's kind of a leftovers' dish for us but not less pleasurable :)

When I visited my parents during holiday season there were lots of different Namul produce in the pantry and I adored each single type that made it onto the plate, every sort has a unique aroma and texture.

Partly though, that was connected with a sad memory: after the Fukushima tragedy when its impacts on the neighbor regions couldn't be foreseen and the people felt insecure in general, my mother was so concerned about the rains that during that spring she collected tons of dried vegetables for the upcoming time.

Officially the harmful clouds were said to have moved west and the rains to have hit the ocean, so after a while people in Korea (1-2 flight hours distance from the Japanese main island) went back to normal (of course nothing can't be normal after such a calamity but that's how one lives with it, right?).