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

Raw Trout: A Rare Eat

There's a certain silence that comes with exhaustion. In my day-to-day life, I can never quiet my mind enough to meditate unless its after a intense and focused yoga class. Well, it was a different kind of exhaustion at the end of our very long and active second day on the 1st Korean Traditional Food Tour for Foreign Foodies that had me meditating over our last meal of the day.

Our day had started early. Before noon we had already participated in kettle-cooked tofu making, perilla seed harvesting, chicken slaughtering and butchering, an expansive lunch, and had begun our transit to the market. After the joy and excitement of the market, more long (nauseating) transit, makkeoli-making, banchan-making, even more long (and still nauseating) transit, I felt our tour van finally pull into a parking lot. I looked out the windows: pitch black. We got out of the van: still nearly pitch black. And quiet! Haunted by the faint rush of river water nearby and the dark night sky, it felt almost eerily desolate. I had no idea where we were, but it truly felt like the middle of nowhere to me. An occasional rustle of invisible autumn leaves, cold outdoor toilets, not a single other patron except for our group... we lumbered into a cold, long room whose sleepy under-floor heating system was slowly, slowly waking from its slumber.

I sat the end of our long, low table, still very much in my quiet, meditative state as my body worked overtime to digest the feast we had had at lunch. A long day of action and excitement will do this to you. A long day of travel will do this to you. A long day of intelligent and enthused discussion in great company will do this to you. But it was in this very quiet state that I saw the brilliant food brought to our table with utter clarity.

Most restaurants in Korea specialize in just one thing. This restaurant did raw trout. As the plates arrived, the warm coral orange flesh glimmered with silver remnants of skin. Flanked by raw garlic, hot pepper and a plate full of raw cut vegetables for making "ssam" wraps, I unexpectedly found my appetite again. Sure, we eat with our eyes first and these platters we gorgeous, but this was actually the food my body had been craving. Totally whole, fresh food.

Wasabi and other assertive ingredients compliment slices of raw trout


Its a shame that there's a major grocery chain that shares the same name because real whole foods are far more significant that that and deserve more understanding and appreciation in the mainstream public. Some people extol vegetarianism as a virtual solution to so many important issues today. Some firmly believe that organics are the way to planetary and bodily health. I don't discount either of those but I do believe that switching to whole foods is the single, most powerful dietary choice any person eating a conventional, SAD (Standard American Diet) or otherwise highly-processed diet can make. Whole, unprocessed food makes the body think, makes it work the way it was designed to. Contrasted with processed foods that consist mainly of just corn, wheat, soy and a complementary mix of synthetic preservatives and processing agents, whole food forces seasonal eating, varied eating, enzymatic and nutritionally rich eating that wakens the taste buds, the spirit, and the body. Its easy and it feels good great.
This revival is what happened to me that night and it is one of the most exciting things about Korean traditional food. It may be safe to say that nearly all traditional foods around the world are, by default, usually whole or only marginally processed. And in Korean many of them are often naturally preserved or even raw, which offer additional benefits. The particularly impressive thing about Korean traditional, whole foods, however, is that even though Korea is a rather developed country, they are still TOTALLY a part of every day life. Korean traditional foods are are still what is served at the majority of restaurants in any city, at family dinners at home, even in the lunch trays at school. To be clear, processed junk food has made its place in the contemporary Korean lifestyle as well, but in 12 trips abroad, of all the developed countries I have visited, Korea has certainly made the biggest impression when it comes to the perseverance of whole, traditional cuisine in the face of globalization, marketing, monocrop subsidies and artificial food technology.

Lettuce, carrot, cucumber, cabbage and bean powder await a spot in my trout lettuce wrap.

This brings me back to our meal. And the restaurant. Our dinner was like a mini-retreat for my entire self. Subdued and simple, but delicious and unexpectedly/exactly what I needed. And possibly just what the rest of the team and our crew needed as well. Our meal together in the deep, dark countryside fostered candid discussions, quiet reflection and authentic exchanges with every new plate that graced our table. In addition to the glimmering raw trout, our table also experienced the house's selection of side dishes, their hearty trout-head jjigae, juicy and crisp cut Asian pears, and gorgeous glowing trout roe. Wrapped with rice, wasabi and soy sauce in a fresh lettuce leaf, the little tender, translucent beads burst silky omega-rich fish oil between my teeth in one nourishing, flavorful mouthful. It gave me energy for a night that was not yet finished and it carried me contently past midnight at our pension as we prepared for the events to come.

Who ate all the fish head and all the robust broth from our jjigae stew? ;-)

Trout, roe, kimchi, pepper and a one messy mixing dish make for a bright-colored array.

Our rare adventure into the depths of Jeolla province resulted in a rare treat that turned out to be exactly, precisely what my weary self needed. I am grateful every little treasure Korea shares with me.

~Tanya

Making Gosari Namul banchan

Our accommodation for the night was a pension. We arrived late partially drunk on the greatest makkoli to ever exist, what’s better is we had a keg of the stuff donated to us from the owner! Unlike the stuff you retire off nowadays this pension provided great comfort and warmth and reasonable kitchen with which to start preparing our banchan dishes which would be served for breakfast the next day.

I first rinsed the fern bracken with water. This is the bulk of the dish to which I added a perilla powder and to this I added a dash of salt to add flavour. As I sipped away at the delicious makkoli we acquired earlier I just couldn’t resist but add a dash into the banchan. Maybe I was a little drunk or just over come by the sheer ‘맛있 factor’ of the makolli it didn’t really make a difference and I can imagine had I added more I could have spoilt the flavour completely; lesson 1 great tasting alcohol won’t necessarily lead to great tasting food.

My Gosari namul

As you can see this dish is very quick and simple to make. The next morning we ate our banchan dishes. Unfortunately my dish didn't taste half as good as the ones in the restaurants. I think this dish was lacking in one or more ingredients.

After doing some research I realized the dish was lacking in more than just one ingredient. Garlic gloves, minced onion and a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce would have really made the dish!

So if you want to make the ‘fern bracken banchan dish’ follow the method below:

You will need:

Boiled fern bracken (1 package)

Perilla powder (cooks choice, keep adding until you can taste the flavour)

Perilla oil (2 table spoons)
sesame oil

Salt

Garlic cloves (1 full sliced garlic)

Minced spring onion (1 stick)

Soy sauce (2 table spoons)

(Note: we bought pre boiled fern bracken so if you buy it dry you will have to boil it first)

First heat some sesame oil in a pan and add in your fern braken and mix just to heat and get the oil to stick. Then in a sepparate boil add some chopped garlic, minced green onion and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and sauté. Then add the fern braken.   Add some perilla powder to your fern bracken and a little salt and mix it together.  Then add a dash of perilla oil at the end. You can eat right away or save it for the next morning as we did.

Our delicious side dishes

Banchan breakfast

-Andy

DakDoriTang: A Great Food at SongChamBong Folk Village

Try to imagine a really good chicken soup with garlic, ginger, pepper sauce, sesame oil, potatoes, onions carrots, and greens which are bubbling in front of you.

Then imagine the chicken was just freshly killed and it is simmering in a boiling pot on a stove right in front of you. As you eat, the chicken and sauce is continually cooking down and the flavors of the soup become more intense and integrated. The meat itself becomes more tender and flavorsome.

So with each passing moment the flavor is changing and improving. Each sip of soup and bite of meat tastes novel and unique.

This is one of the great eats at SongChamBong Folk village along with Baeksu.

DakDoriTang is served for two and its often eating with a group of people. The quantity of meat is shared and it isn't something to eat everyday. Traditionally a chicken was slaughtered for friends, visitors and special occassions.

This chicken in the DakDoriTang I slaughtered myself, for reasons which I explain in The Paid for Chicken, has personal meaning.

You have to try it.






Contact information:

Song ChamBong Chosun Village
www.folkvillage.co.kr
Geurung, Jeollabukdo

063-532-0054

011-734-4506

-Greg

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