MasterChef Trina Episode 1: The Korean Experience

Lately, I've been using Stumble Upon a lot when I'm bored. After adding food to my interests, many of the links that I have stumbled upon has renewed my interest in cooking and baking phase of my petiks high school years. So, I thought... why not do a cooking/baking series for my blog? I get to cook or bake to my hearts content, I get to practice my photography and my blogging skills and I get to eat the food I bake. It's a win-win-win situation!

To begin my MasterChef series, I decided to throw myself head first into the world of Korean cuisine with two dishes I hold near and dear to my tummy: Kimbap and Pajeon. Kimbap is pretty much the Korean version of Japanese maki while Pajeon is a form of Korean pancake made with vegetables.


First, I made Kimbap. I love Kimbap but since our office moved from Ortigas to Taguig, I couldn't buy them at the restaurant we used to get them from and most Korean restaurants I go to don't serve this. Finally, I decided enough was enough and I was going to make them on my own.

Ingredients:
4 cups uncooked rice (preferably the Japanese short grained rice)
5 cups water
2 tbsps Sesame Oil
1 tsp Sesame Seeds, ground
1/2 tsp Salt
Sheets of Laver (Nori)
Pickled Radish
1 to 2 Carrots, sliced thinly
1 Cucumber, sliced thinly
4 Eggs
Bulgogi (can be exchanged for other types of meat like artificial crab, etc.)

Steps:
1. Cook the rice as you normally would. Once cooked and cooled slightly, transfer to a container and mix with sesame oil, sesame sseds and salt.
2. Stir fry Carrots until soft. You may also stir fry the cucumber but I chose not to since it was already pretty soft to begin with.
3. Beat the 4 eggs and cook in a pan, try to keep it as thin as possible then cut into strips.
4. For the Bulgogi, I bought some Rib-Eye steaks and sliced them thinly before cooking them in some store bought Bulgogi sauce. You can make this from scratch if you want to.
5. Put the laver on top of a bamboo mat. Spread some rice onto it (leave 1 or 2 inches on top) then place carrots, cucumber, Bulgogi, egg and pickled radish in rows. Roll the kimbap (put water on the edge to seal it) then brush with some sesame oil.
6. Cut into one-inch rolls and serve.

Note: I have a couple of concerns with the storage of the Kimbap. You could place them in the fridge but when I tried that, it was ice cold the next day which I didn't appreciate. I tried to warm up by leaving it out of the fridge but it dried up. Please let me know in the comments if you have any idea how to store these.

I made the Pajeon second because it is pretty easy to cook. I love the Seafood Korean Pancake at Maru and I've been craving it for a long time now. I decided to figure out how to cook it so I can have it more frequently. I also love the Kimchi Seafood Pancake at Minato and I plan to try making that next time.

Ingredients:
Onion Leaves
2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Shrimp Stock
1 tsp Salt
2 Eggs
500g Shelled Shrimp
500g Squid

For Dipping Sauce:
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tbsp Vinegar
1 tsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Sesame Seeds, ground

Steps:
1. Mix Flour and salt in bowl. Pour in shrimp stock and mix until smooth. For the shrimp stock, I dissolved a shrimp bouillon cube in 1 L of boiling water.
2. Beat two eggs and pour into flour mixture. (Make sure that flour mixture is cool or that you tempered the eggs before you pour it into the flour mixture. If not, you will have scrambled eggs instead of a smooth flour mixture.) Mix well.
3. Put oil in pan in medium heat. Dip onion leaves in batter then arrange onto hot pan. Put some shrimp and squid on top of the onion leaves then pour some of the flour batter on top. Once the bottom is golden brown, flip over and cook the top until the shrimp and squid is cooked.
4. Make the dipping sauce by mixing all the ingredients in a small bowl and serve.

Sorry I don't have pictures of the cooking process. I was so excited to start cooking I forgot to take pictures and only remembered when I was finished cooking.