Jjajang Myun (짜장면) - Noodles in Black Bean Sauce

Jjajang myun consists of a thick black bean sauce served over chewy noodles; usually served with pickled radish , raw onions dressed with vinegar with a side of black bean paste. Black bean paste, chopped veggies (usually just as simple as onions & green squash) & ground meat (traditionally either beef or pork) are sauteed together then some stock is added to cut down the saltiness and some starch is added to thicken the sauce. The dish is finished with some julienned cucumbers. There are some variations on the sauce: omit the starch, instead of ground meat then chopped seafood. Basically it's a bowl of YUM.

In Korea it's a simple street food. You can have it delivered to your door like we in America have pizza delivery... It's not delivered in ugly styrofoam containers either - restaurants take the time to portion out each serving into the bowls they use at the tables & pack it into insulated stainless steel vertical hotboxes. The delivery person then secures the hotbox onto the back of a moped and in minutes you have jjajang myun at your door. What do you do with the dishes after you're done your meal? Well, you leave them outside by your door & the delivery person comes by to collect them.

As a child jjajang myun was one of my favorite foods - fun to eat, not unrecognizable nor complicated looking, not bland but not spicy... Much like getting a milk mustache, a badge of honor was getting a jjajang myun mustache & beard. One of the few times my mom would let us be messy with our food - one MUST slurp the noodles when eating jjajang myun or the experience is not complete. In Asian cultures you show your appreciation of the food/cook/host by eating noisily.

Anyhow, I used to get together with a couple girlfriends every couple of months for a cooking club of sorts... We would literally spend days bouncing emails back and forth brainstorming on food ideas. We take a traditional dish & try to lighten it. One day we settled on Jjajang myun. So I call this our modern Jjajang myun. We used a mixed of frozen chopped veggies & instead of ground beef/pork we used ground turkey. You can find the jjajang base at any Korean market.

So I came home from cooking club and I mentioned that we made jjajang myun so the craving set in my mom's mind... A few weeks later on a lazy Saturday I decided to make jjajang myun for dinner.

The food prep - diced onions & potatoes, dried noodles, mixed veggies, sliced steak (I used what we had at home) and the jjajang paste.

Ready for the sauce to get happy.

Bowl of jjajang myun piping hot ready to be eaten!

My dad

My mom

Mind you, it was a lazy Saturday at home so we were dressed in casual louge clothes - my mother would probably be mortified that I posted this picture... So shhh!

약밥 (Yahk Bap)

약밥 is a sweet rice "cake" with some sweetener, spice, dried fruit (usually jujube), chestnuts & pine nuts. It's one of my favorite snacks & it's usually saved for special occasions which makes it an even better treat. Some kids lived for ice cream, I would do anything for good 약밥. I used to bug my mom all the time to show me how to make it when I was growing up but she never did get around to it... Why? It's labor intensive... Fast forward some years to present day & I noticed a friend posted on facebook a picture of his mom's HOMEMADE 약밥 from the New Year's festivities. The craving sunk in & had to be quenched.


 Off to the Korean market to get the few ingredients I didn't have - mainly chestnuts. I was hoping to find the already roasted & peeled packaged chestnuts b/c I was really not in the mood to sit there in the kitchen to steam & peel them myself... I rinsed the sweet rice, put together the "sauce" & portioned out the raisins. I thought we had pine nuts so I didn't bother to buy them but when I looked for them they were nowhere to be found (then I found out my mom gave them to a friend so they could make porridge - but that's another story for another time). I mixed everything together & popped it into the rice cooker. So convenient - you set it & forget it!


While it was cooking, i prepped a baking dish w. some oil to give the 약밥 a home while it cooled...

So of course as it's cooling my dad walked into the kitchen. The man is on a see food diet - he sees food, he eats it. He attacked a corner & gave me a thumbs up. As my new food experiment was cooling, I quickly cleaned all evidence... (I wasn't too sure how my mom would react to my use of her precious rice cooker) She sampled some & then asked me how I made it. I went over the ingredients & steps then finally confessed that I used the rice cooker. I braced for a second but my mom didn't even bat an eye... (Either what I said didn't sink in or she was too distracted with thinking about the 약밥)

Overall, it was a success but it did come out a tad sweet. With the next batch, I'd definitely cut back on the sweetener. My friend suggested that I cook the rice first and then mix everything together & put it into the oven. (There was more liquid in the final product than I liked) So with those notes made, I wait for another day that the craving hits...

Waffles

Who doesn't love waffles? Growing up my mom bought the Eggo variety - plain, blueberry, multi-grain & every once in a while chocolate chip. Little did I know that there was more than Eggo's out there but with age came the discovery of the Belgian waffle. Getting maple syrup into every nook was a must!

Anyhow, I discovered this little coffee & waffle bar in LA by way of the many food blogs I peruse throughout the day... It's called Shaky Alibi (located 7401 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036). They specialize in the Belgian street waffle - the Liege waffle. It's a yeast-based dough so the finished waffle is crisper & a bit more dense than the plate size waffle we Americans are used to... The bonus? Pearl sugar integrated into the dough itself...They make the waffles to order with a sprinkling of powdered sugar but you can add one of their spreads or fruit if you'd like... I always get the waffle with crunchy speculoos spread. Speculoos spread is like a spiced cookie in a peanut butter form... I stop by Shaky Alibi with friends in tow & usually at night so I shy away from their coffee offerings (but according to my mocha fiend friend it's spot on) but I do enjoy their tea... 

So if you ever find yourself in the West Hollywood area - please check it out! 

Cookie Monster

I've started an Etsy shop: www.kaajacookies.etsy.com. Pray that I sell lots & lots of yummy cookies to people around the continental US! ( I don't think the cookies would survive international shipping nor the slow boat to AK or HI). I can not take credit for the beautiful pictures of my goods though... A dear friend of mine graciously offered to photograph them (his payment was LOTS of cookies). Please check out his blog: keithkimphoto.tumblr.com - he does event photography as well.

The cookies pictured are my peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I started with wanting to do more than just a basic chocolate chip cookie so I mixed in some good all natural peanut butter (peanut butter and chocolate are bosom buddies). Then I wanted the cookies to have a little more substance so I sprinkled in some oatmeal (to make you feel a little less guilty about eating a cookie or three). Lastly, I folded in quality chocolate chips. Why do all that work only to ruin it with subpar chocolate?

I got rave reviews from all my guinea pigs (my close friends) - the best cookie variety yet...

I know most people have made resolutions to eat better or work out etc etc etc but you know, you deserve a treat after doing all that hard work. Plus, depriving yourself is never a good way to eat better.