Dotorimuk: An Acorn-based Treat

Acorns were eaten by many indigenous people such as Native American tribes. The Oak trees that grow in America are capable of making what is in the picture here. The acorns are soaked to remove most of their bitterness and then are dried and ground to a powder. The cook who gathered them herself after soaking, drying and grinding added seasoning and water and boiled the mixture until it start to firm up. Then she put it in a mold.

The flavor was more complicated than chestnuts and are easier to grow than grain. Acorns are a sustainable eat which retain healthy medicinal value. Harrong Village Restaurant has an amazing tasting Dotorimuk.

We couldn't get the amazing recipe of Dotorimuk from Harong Village, but here is a recipe adapted slightly from the NYTimes recipe.

FOR THE JELLY

2 cups quartered and shelled acorns

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

sesame oil

For the dressing

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon kochukaru (Korean red pepper flakes) or other red pepper flakes to taste

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 scallion, cut into 2-inch lengths and julienned.

For the dressing

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon kochukaru (Korean red pepper flakes) or other red pepper flakes to taste

1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 scallion, cut into 2-inch lengths and julienned.

1. For the jelly: In a blender, combine the acorns with 1 cup water. Process to a rough paste. Transfer to a large bowl, cover with water and stir. Let sit, covered, in a cool place. (The acorn starch will fall to the bottom of the bowl while the water will become stained brown from tannins.) After three hours, drain water from bowl, being careful not to disturb acorn sediment. Cover with more fresh water and stir. Repeat process as often as possible, at least twice a day, until the water runs clear, from three days up to one week.

2. After the last drain, combine acorn meal with 5 cups of water in a large pot. Bring to a rolling boil, then reduce heat to a low boil. Keep stirring to prevent acorn meal from burning. Whisk cornstarch and salt with 3 tablespoons water until smooth. Add to pot. Continue stirring until volume is reduced by half and liquid is thickened, about 30 minutes.

3. Coat four small serving bowls with vegetable oil. Strain acorn mixture through a fine-meshed sieve and divide among the bowls. Allow to rest at room temperature until set, about 2 hours.

4. For the dressing: In a small bowl, whisk together soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, pepper flakes, sesame seeds and garlic. Add scallion, and mix.

5. To serve, invert a bowl of jelly onto a serving plate, and remove bowl. Top with a spoonful of dressing. Repeat with remaining jelly and dressing, and serve.

Yield: 4 servings.

-Greg

The Happy Bears Vist A Farm and Restaurant that Does it Organic, from Scratch and Delicious

The Happy Bears went to Harong restaurant to try Hanjeongsik, which is a Korean traditional spread of banchana, rice and meat. It was to royal cuisine in the most peasant way making simple food using what is local and prepared on the farm that they own as well.  All of prepared with a high respect for food. It was a perfect example of farm to table. Everything to the rice sugar was made for on the farm or paid for at a premium price. That oil is Rice Bran Oil. It's really expensive and is of fantastic quality.  And all of it was delicious.

The exterior was beautiful and so was the interior but we came for the food.

We had high expectations of this place before arriving. Greg requested to Ziyeon our translator that they give us everything they had and they did till we were bursting from so much of a good thing.


So instead of feeding us one meat for our meal. They fed us two 


But first, we toured the kitchen and saw some of the ingredients they were using. The farmer and cook were preparing our meals in the warm and intimate wood laden restaurant.


The woman came over and hand fed Anina tofu which Anina said, "Tasted fresher and more earthy than any other tofu I've had before."


We all liked it a lot and the other things she showed us. It was a sign of the goodness to come. We just didn't know how good it was going to be.

The Happy Bears climbed a staircase to the second floor and sat on cushions on the floor. A few minutes later, we were served our first course of white tofu sprinkled with black sesame seeds, fresh kimchi, and the  most succulent pork laid out on a platter.
The kimchi and tofu were delicious and home made.


The pork dish is called Bossam. It is not traditional Hanjeongsik, but was presented to us to showcase good Korean organic pork. It was slowed cooked in a simmering pot with flavors of ginger, rice syrup, garlic, and soy bean paste, until the meat absorbs the flavor


It was the best pork belly these writers have tasted. Pork belly cured into bacon in America. It was so tender and so flavorsome we are still talking about it. Read more about in the amazing tastes section above.

Next came the banchan dishes (Korean 'side dishes') nestled on a woven platter.


They consisted of pickled garlic; pickled cabbage; raw white radish and a dark wild mountain green mixed with chili paste and perilla powder; sweetened pickled cucumbers; a dish on its own of kimchi; bracken fern (gosari-namul 고사리나물); and slices of chewy but slightly crunchy lotus root(yeongeun 연근)  marinated in a sweet sauce of homemade brown rice syrup, sesame oil and soy sauce.

From bottom left to right around: pickled cucumber, kimchi, gosari,  yeongeun,  and  pickled cabbage. In the center is pickled garlic. 

Gosari-namul or bracken fern is often passed by and ignored by mountain hikers in the west but it is full of vitamins, antioxidents, and LA and ALA fatty acids. It's a cheap wild food which has become a staple ingredient in bibimbap and was always around in famine times for people when they needed it. 

Andy and Greg tried to recreate the gosari namul here and they  learn a lot by what we missed. 

One might compare lotus root to what we know as water chestnut in Chinese cooking, but it is a bit heavier, chewier and starchier. And when sliced, it has a complex, geometrical design which you can see in the photo below. It's high in iron, vitamin B1 and vitamin C, and fiber.  It can be eaten as a fruit, sliced and stir-fried, or made into a tea for digestive problems. This dish we quickly devoured. 

Lotus Root  banchan which Anina and Greg were inspired to make later. 

The next dish was 'dotorimuk' which is acorn jelly. A brownish, slightly bitter flavored jelly, rich in starch, proteins, and fiber, whose flavors really come out in its sauce - drizzled in toasted sesame oil and topped with sesame seeds, its perimeter consisted of crisp green cabbage mixed with cucumber, onions, and chili paste for a fresh-from-the-ground, invigorating burst of spiciness.


The taste of the jelly was nutty with a tanin coffee body which was complimented well but it's complex sweet, sour, garlic, sesame, and ginger sauce. 

Made from wild harvested acorns the Dotorimuk sits atop a bowl of raw sliced vegetables. 

Then came individually-served black ceramic bowls containing crab legs in-shell with slices of spring onion, sesame seeds, and a thin shallow layer of fishy broth. This is called 간장 개장.


Liked by some foreigners, it's texture is a challenge for others. The results from the group were mixed. Although all liked the soft, only Greg liked the texture. If you can get past the texture of the crunchy shell the insides are succulent and delicious. 

The restaurant owners were giving us everything they had. The happy bears were bursting.  We tried our best to eat it all. Greg opted out of eating rice so I could make room for more food. Mike ate meat for the first time in 2 years to help Greg. Andy's face was red from meat consumption and Anina and Tanya did their best

Next, came a patty of tender ground beef mixed with onions and garlic and thinly drizzled with two different sauces, one sweet and dark, the other yellow and more tart, called tteokgalbi (떡갈비). The tteokgalbi aren't just beef patties. They are high quality ground meat from beef ribs. The meat is marinated for a day  in Korean flavors of ginger, garlic, rice sugar, and soy sauce, and vinegar.

The taste of tteokgalbi is like a marinated hamburger patty which is pan roasted so it retains its fat. It was delicious. 

Finally came a dish of the classic chewy, warm, slightly toasted white rice cakes with a side bowl of rice syrup to dip them in.garaetteok 가래떡; also called huin tteok, 흰떡, which means white tteok.


We all wanted to eat them all but we were too stuffed to eat all of them. But we had a job to try them, so we did. 


They were simple and delicious. Simply a plain rice cake. For those who have never had a Korean rice cake, we'll describe it. The texture is chewy. Imagine eating an inch wide chewy pasta noodle with the pleasing taste of white rice with a rice sugar on it. It was perfect simple sweet finish to the the complex flavors of food we had been eating.


And to end this perfect meal from farm to table was we a cool, light reddish colored digestive tea called Omija 오미자. It's made from the berries of schizandra chinesis. It's also known as the 'five-flavored fruit' for it encompasses the flavors of sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter. The berries from schizandra chinensis have medicinal properties that are adaptogenic which means that your body can use it strenghten any system of the body, from the immune system, nervous system, lymphatic system, cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal system, to the endocrine system. It increases our bodies' ability to fight stress. In other words, it makes us stronger. It gave us a pleasing finish to our happy meal. 


Upon leaving, we walked out through a different part of the restaurant which housed private booths of hand-cut looking wooden tables, delicately hung string lights, and a piano. Such a beautiful place.

White Crane Farm Restaurant

백학농원 호롱마을

이 희 천 010-5506-9750

전북정읍시 수성동 1030-8번지

063-531-7741

-Greg and Anina

Amazing Tasting Bossam: Simmered Pork Butt with Homemade Kimchi and Tofu

Dear Bossam,

You were the best pork I have ever tasted. 

You were pork butt simmered in a broth of garlic, ginger, onion, soy bean paste and some homemade rice syrup. Boiling doesn't quite describe how succulent your taste was. Your meat and fat absorbed the flavor of the broth. Your succulent meat tasted as fresh and as healthy as an organic food should. 

I ate you at Harong Village Restaurant (호롱마을) in Jeongup. Harong White Swan Restaurant growths their own food organically and makes most of their foods.. 

"I wouldn't grow my food any other way," the farmer and restaurant owner said. 

The efforts of the farmer for healthy raised meat showed in the delicious and high quality pork, kimchi, and the tofu the Happy Bears ate.

I am grateful to have tasted something so good.

Harong White Swan Farm Restaurant 

전북정읍시 수성동 1030-8번지/ (063) 531-7741

Go to Google Maps.

-Greg 

Why Kimchi Is Good for the Soul

I never gave much thought to kimchi before I moved to Korea. Just miles from my house, there were loads of Korean restaurants and Asian supermarkets where, unbeknownst to me, thousands of foodies (did they exist in the 90's?) and Korean expats must have been getting their fix. Personally, though, if it couldn't be cooked in the microwave or toaster oven, I just wasn't interested.

How strange then that, now, I see so many fantastic things about kimchi, and almost, if resentfully, have to nod my head when Koreans say that it just might be the perfect food. First of all, it's just great to eat. Spicy like salsa, crisp like an apple, sour like movie theater candy - no matter what you're eating, something about kimchi will compliment it. Second, it's versatile. Eat it raw, eat it stir-fried, drop it in a stew, make pancakes out of it, slap it on your burger or pizza. Third, it's healthy. Made (in its most basic incarnation) with cabbage, salt, red pepper paste or flakes, and a bit of shrimp or anchovies, it's got nutrients a-plenty and calories a-few. The fermentation process loads it up with all sorts of little bacteria that provide your body with nutrients that you might not get in a diet of exclusively raw, cooked, or processed foods. Fourth, it lasts. Whether you make it yourself or buy it elsewhere, you can keep it refrigerated for up six months in an air-tight container. It may grow sour, but it would require some serious neglect for it to grow inedible. Fifth - and this is a somewhat subtler point - cabbage can live in the ground long into the winter, even surviving when the temperatures drop below freezing, which means that it thrives long after sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and carrots have given up the ghost. Over the centuries, during the months of December, January, February, and even March, when there wasn't really a lot of stuff to harvest, cabbage and Kimchi probably saved a great number of Koreans from starvation. Now, we're more likely to think in terms of food independence, but either way, it's unarguably a good thing to have some grub growing nearby.

So, what would a Korean food tour be without some time spent immersing oneself in cabbagey glory? As I detailed in my last post, Lee Hee-cheon of White Crane Farm was kind enough to let us swipe a few of his cabbages (even though technically they were just babies whose time hadn't quite come), which we then took down to the restaurant run by his wife, Park Yang-yoon. Mrs. Park is a fantastic cook: as interested in her husband in providing clean, safe, healthy food, but probably a bit more talented when it comes to making it scrumptious.

Thanks to a giant bibimbap spread earlier in the afternoon and some raw carrots and garlic just before at the farm, we Happy Bears needed to work up a bit of an appetite before we could begin chowing down. So, Mrs. Park set us up with a table outside the restaurant and gave us a crash course in making kimchi. The photo record is somewhat incomplete, since all of us were busy washing and chopping and slathering, but here's the gist:

1) Chop the butt off of the cabbage and remove the outer leaves, which were the most exposed to dirt and bugs. These leaves can be cooked and eaten in sides and stews, but apparently don't make great kimchi.

2) Then cut the whole head in half along the vertical axis. Make another cut like you're going to quarter it, still along the vertical axis, but stop about 2/3 of the way down. This allows you to open up the cabbage for the next step, without completely disassembling it.

Andy and Anina work on Step 1 while me, Greg, and Tanya work on 2.

3) Rinse the not-quite-quartered heads thoroughly, then rub salt on each and every leaf. This kills bacteria and opens up the pores, allowing the spices to soak in later.

Andy's a'washin', Tanya's a'saltin'

4) Stack all the wet, salted cabbage halves and then apply pressure by leaving a heavy rock or pot on top of them. I guess it takes some time for the salt to do its work.

5) Prepare the sauce. Normally, red pepper paste, ginger, garlic, shrimp, and anchovies, but we also chopped up some other veggies for extra goodness.

Knife skill contest time.

6) Don your plastic gloves, let you burn off your fingers. Lie the cabbage on its back (with the outermost leave touching the plate) and lift up all but the last leaf. Rub some sauce on it, and also on the back of the leaf above it. Let the next one down and repeat, making sure to slather a bit of spice on the front and back of every leaf.

This stuff was still in the ground, alive and growing, less than 2 hours beforehand!

7) It's ready to eat! Or, you can wait a few days/weeks/months. (However it takes 2-5 days to ferment,depending on the weather).

As if the act of eating weren't reward enough, there's one more thing I'd like to point out about kimchi. The actual process of making it was also a blast! I knew two of my team members going into the project, but I had never even exchanged emails with the other two, let alone met them. We were all friendly, but, personally, I didn't quite know what to talk to them about while we were listening to the farmer and chopping our own cabbage heads off. But, when we joined together to make Kimchi, we really hit it off. All being involved in learning something together and, even more, sharing knowledge and hints and tips while working towards a common goal, gave us a comfortable atmosphere in which to get to know one another. When you're on opposite sides of the table preparing kimchi with someone, there's no need to ask awkward questions and try to figure out what you've got in common. You're already there, together, doing the same thing. It's all right in front of your eyes. The bond is more instant, and more tangible, than any "me too." It's much easier to come together over production than consumption.

I'm sure everyone else has good, if not quite this exotic or preposterous, memories of this sort. Cooking with parents in the kitchen, with the extended family over the holidays, with roomies in college, or out at some backyard barbeque. Whatever the specifics, just hanging around food with other people is one of the simplest and most satisfying pleasure life affords us. This is also one of the pleasures that we risk losing as we outsource our cooking to restaurants and corporations, leaving independence, tradition, and solidarity by the wayside. I feel lucky to have had the chance to realize this. And also to eat (some of) the following:

Tofu, fresh kimchi, and steamed pork



From 12 o'clock, going clockwise: candied lotus roots, cucumber pickled in soy sauce, radish leaf kimchi (I believe), old/sour cabbage kimchi, sauerkraut (first I'd ever seen in Korea), fern bracken with perilla dressing, and, in the middle, pickeld garlic.

Time to eat!

Translator, foodie, foodie, chef, farmer, foodie, foodie, foodie