[Korean] Yubu mandu (fried tofu dumplings)

Yubu mandu is a dumpling with skin made of fried tofu. You can eat it alone or in a soup with other things. The picture above shows yubu mandu in a fish cake soup.

Ingedients:

fried tofu pouches (As many as you need. Probably about 6. See below for picture)

1/2 tofu brick (9 oz.)

1/3 pound beef (any cut is fine)

1 finger-loop of Korean vermicelli

1 large green onion stalk, minced

2-3 cloves minced garlic

1 Tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

First, soak the vermicelli in water to make it soft (it should take about 15 minutes).

Meanwhile, mince the beef, green onions, and garlic, and mix with the tofu, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and sesame oil. When the vermicelli is soft, mince that too and mix it in with everything else. It should look like this when you're done.

Now, cut one side of the fried tofu pouches open. The pouches look like this:

You can find these in the freezer at a Korean grocery.

Stuff the tofu pouches with the filling you made. Use as many as you need. Be careful not to tear the tofu pouches while you're filling them.

Usually you tie the open end of the tofu pouches with parsley sprigs, but if you don't have any of those or something similar you can just be gentle with the mandu while you're cooking it. Cook the dumplings by boiling or steaming them until the meat is done (probably 10 minutes or so). You can cook them and eat them alone, or put them into a soup.

If you want to make a soup, yubu mandu goes well with Korean fish cakes. To make this kind of soup, first you'll need to make the stock.

Boil some anchovies, Korean-style radish, green onion, dried kelp, shiitake mushrooms and a little pepper for about 10-15 minutes. 

After you boil these together, take out and discard everything except the mushrooms and add various fish cakes (there are many to choose from at any Korean grocery. They will be in the freezer) and vegetables.

Shown here: green onions, shiitake mushrooms, mock crab, three types of fish cake, cabbage, carrots, mugwort, and yubu mandu.

Add some soy sauce (about 3 Tbsp, or to taste)

...and dry white wine (around 1 Tbsp).

Now let it cook! Boil everything together. 

The fish cakes should swell to 1.5-2 times their original size.

Once the fish cakes have swollen, your soup is ready to eat. This dish is good on its own, with rice, or as a drinking side dish.

[Korean] Bulgogi, Soy sauce marinated beef

This is one of the most popular Korean dish. If you make 'ssam' with it, you can enjoy this meal even better. Here's a simple recipe for delicious bulgogi.

Bulgogi (serves 2)


Ingredients [click here for details]
0.6 lb of beef sirloin
2.5 Tbsp Soy sauce
1 tsp honey
1/2 apple, minced*
2 Tbsp garlic, minced 1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp sesame seed oil
a pinch of ground pepper
4~5 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 green onions, sliced into 4 segments
1/2 green pepper, sliced into long thin strips
1/3 large onions, sliced
3-4 oz white mushrooms, sliced**


*You can substitute apple with a same-size pear.
** You can use various kind of mushrooms, such as shiitake mushrooms, king oyster mushrooms, or enokitake mushrooms.

Cooking Instruction

1. Slice green onions, green pepper, mushrooms, 4~5 cloves of garlic, and onions, as instructed above.

2. chop 4 cloves of garlic and 1/2 of apple finely using a chopper.

3. Slice meat thinly. It is easier to cut when it is slightly frozen.

4. Mix soy sauce, minced garlic, minced apple, honey, sugar, a pinch of pepper, sesame seeds and sesame seed oil with meat first.

5. Mix everything together in a container, and marinate overnight.

picture of meat after 1hr of marinating

6-1. After heating a pan, cook the meat and vegetables marinade with a strong fire. You can add more sugar when it's not sweet enough for you, or soy sauce for saltier taste.


If you desire, you can swollen some Korean vermicelli in the water for 10 minutes and add the vermicelli to bulgogi while cooking. Use the quarter's diameter worth of vermicelli when you grab it with your hand.


6-2.(for a bulgogi-stew), on a big pan, display more enokitake mushrooms, king oyster mushroom, and a little bit of Korean vermicelli noodles, a little bit of tofu, more vegetables, like carrots or napa cabbage. Pour 1/2 cup of beef stock and 1/2 cup of water. Bring it to boil.

How to serve

1. For ssam(click here for details)
Put bulgogi on a serving plate. 

Prepare red leaf lettuce and  pa-chae (Green onion strips with red pepper flakes)
Slice several garlic cloves and put ssamjang on a same dish.
Serve steamed rice(bop) in an individual bowl or plate, instead of dinner plates.
You can add a little bit of soy bean paste tofu stew or egg custard, samm-radish(cold sweet and sour Korean radish), kimchi.



2. For Bulgogi-stew, You can still make ssam with meat. We usually use an electric cooker (sometimes, a portable burner) to cook the stew on the middle of a serving table. You can put other various side dishes.

How to Eat
1. Ssam
Wrap a bit of all the dishes in a red leaf lettuce. For more details, click here.
Often, peopel a littel portion of Korean cold noodles after this meal.


2. For stew, you eat steamed rice, the shared Bulgogi stew, and other side dishes, alternately.
People sometimes mix the stew with bop in their personal plate.

 

[Korean] Soy Sauce Rice Cake, Royal Rice Cake

Soy Sauce Rice Cake, Royal Rice Cake (Serves 2)
      Korean name : goong-joong-ddeok-bok-ki
      It is believed that royal family of ancient Korea enjoyed this dish.
      Red sauce rice cake is more popular.




Ingredients [click here for details]
 
2 handfuls of rice cake, about 10 oz.
0.3lb of beef or pork
1/3 onion, sliced into 1*1 inch pieces
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 green bell pepper, sliced
2 Tbsp of Garlic, minced
2+1 Tbsp of Soy sauce
1+1 Tbsp of sugar 
1/2 +1/2 Tbsp of sesame seed dressing oil ( not cooking oil)
a pinch of ground pepper
[optional] various hard vegetables, I used one stem of celery.
[optional] 1 Thai pepper for hot flavor

Cooking Instruction

1. Cut up all the vegetables as mentioned above.


2. Marinate meat for 30 minutes with 1 Tbsp of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp of sugar, 1/2 Tbsp of Sesame seed oil, and a pinch of pepper. Originally beef sirloin is used, but other part of beef or pork can be used, too.


3. Cook rice cake in the boiling water for 2 minutes. Rice cake doesn't have to be cooked completely now. When it is soft, turn off the fire.


4. On a hot pan, put oil and minced garlic, and cook till garlic become translucent. If you desire, you can add Thai pepper for hot flavor.
I don't eat this pepper itself because it is too spicy. I just used it for flavor.
(Don't rub your eyes after you touch that chili: click here to see the scale of hotness of peppers.)


5. Add marinated meat till it is half done.


6. Put rice cake in a pan. Add 2 Tbsp of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp of sugar, 1 Tbsp of sesame oil, and a pinch of ground pepper. Stir well.


7. Put vegetables in order of decreasing hardness, i.e. put hard vegetables like carrots first then softer vegetables.


8. Cook till rice cake absorbs the sauce. Sauce should be shiny and sticky. I like to cook rice cake till a little crispy.




How to Serve

Put it in a large bowl.  You can eat it with kimchi as a meal, or with a cool glass of beer as a side dish.