A Fusion of Chinese and Korean Cuisine

Jajangmyeon's Procedures

Last week, our class just had an astonishing experience, as we all dedicated in creating a cuisine that is originated in a Gonghwachun—the Chinatown of Incheon, Korea.

To have a better perspective of Jajangmyeon, it is a fusion of Korean and Chinese cuisine—a noodle dish mixed with thick Chunjang sauce, diced pork and vegetables. Despite the fact that the cuisine originally shaped from Chinese culture, the essence of Jajangmyeon gradually evolved to become suitable for the Koreans.

Dated back in 1905, Jajangmyeon has been re-created with multiple variations; thus, it is not necessary to make an ideal Jajangmyeon dish that follows a specific list of ingredients. Understandably, these are the ingredients that our class had chosen:

Korean/Chinese black bean paste

• Chinese Noodles/Udon/Ramen 
• Scallion (150g, 5.3 ounces)
• 5 large cucumbers (550g, 15 ounces)
• 600g (1.3 pounds) diced pork
• 5 sprinkles ground salt
• 5 sprinkles ground black pepper
• Korean black bean paste
• 200g (7 ounces) lard (or 12 Tbsp cooking oil)
• 1 cup water

Preparation:

• Rinse the pork in cold water and pat it with dry kitchen towel. Slice into small pieces. Add the pork marinade sauce onto the pork and mix up for 15 minutes.
• Julienne cut the cucumbers.

• Dice the scallion into small cubes.

Cooking:

• Boil water and add the noodles in when the water is completely boiled.

• After 3 to 5 minutes, take the noodles out and rinse in cold water and drain.

• Put the noodles into serving bowls.

• For the chunjang sauce, toss up black bean paste, cooking oil, scallion, salt and pepper together, and then add starch water and stir it. 

• Add the black bean sauce on top of the noodles and serve it with pork (additional) or cucumber slices.

And this is the final result, enjoy! 

Original link to the YouTube video of our class creating the dish: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTpP990xOfc

Tyson Nguyen

Lunar New Year Dumpling

            Every New Year is celebrated formally with fabulous dishes in the Chinese tradition. The types of fabulous dishes also differ in various locations of China. In the north, people normally eat dumplings whereas in the south, people have a tradition of eating rice cakes. Dumplings looked like an ingot, so they have a meaning of bringing people wealth. Rice cakes are sliced into layers, when they stick together it forms a stair shape which means it brings people to the next level. Chinese people love eating food with auspicious meanings during big festivals.

In my family, everyone gathers at my grandparent’s house to celebrate the Lunar New Year. They celebrate the Lunar New Year by eating dumplings because my grandparents are from the Dongbei which is located in the northern part of China. The dumplings my grandparents made are the main characters of the new year dishes. My grandparents start making it early in the morning by mixing an abundant amount of dumpling stuffings. When more people arrive at their house, they would help with folding the dumplings. Usually they will have a few unique dumplings with special stuffings. When I was younger, I was told that if someone eat the special stuffing dumpling, they will be lucky for the next year. I always get excited about getting the lucky dumpling, so I will eat more than I needed because I knew that the more I eat the higher possibility I will meet the special dumpling. My grandparents love it when I eat with enjoyment. 

After a few years, I started doubting the saying about whether or not special dumplings really give people a good fortune. Nevertheless, I would still act like I still believe in it faithfully and eat very happily to make my grand parents happy. 

A White World

Spring Festival (also called Lunar New Year) is the most important festival in China. It has a history of more than 4000 years. Our ancestors attributed special meanings to Spring Festival as the beginning of the year and the time when everyone can get rid of all the bad luck from the previous year. People are willing to sacrifice their time and efforts to go back to their hometowns and reunite with their families on that day. During Spring Festival, people enjoy different kinds of traditional food varies with regions. I have been living in Shanghai with my parents since I was one. Neither of my parents, however, is from Shanghai. My mother comes from Beijing and I visited my grandparents with my mother every year during Spring Festival before I came to the US. On Lunar New Year’s Eve, our family usually ate dinner together while watching The Spring Festival Gala. Dumplings are always the main role on our dinner table on that particular day.

My mother used to be in charge of making dumplings. She liked to sit at the side of table where she could watch TV and while making dumplings. Flours gradually transformed into a dough as she gently kneaded and added water. Then she rubbed the dough into a long strip and cut it into smaller pieces on a cutting board. She used a rolling pin to make those pieces into flat, smooth dumpling wrappers. Once in a while, she applied some flour powder to the cutting board in order to prevent the dumpling wrappers from sticking. As soon as the dumpling wrappers were ready, the rest would be much faster. My mother usually dipped a little water with her forefinger on the edge of the dumpling wrapper to help the seal stay closed. She then put the stuffing in the middle of the dumpling wrapper and closed it with her thumb and forefinger. Within ten minutes, she could make more than fifty dumplings. Boiling them was also a simple process. After putting them into boiling water, they would be done in five or six minutes. 

When I opened the pot, the steam came out and covered everything in my eyes with a white mist layer. Looking outside the window, the white snow was falling on the white ground. Whenever I recalled those days I spent with my family, I thought of the whiteness I saw. Although white is not used to represent delightful moments in China, for me, it can be a symbol of the pure happiness of being with my family.  

A Harmony of Flavors

Vietnamese Avocado Cabbage Salad 

Green Cabbage (Left); Purple Cabbage (Right)

Hanoi in spring, coats on a picture of blooming cherry blossom, families purchasing goods, and markets filled with flamboyant flowers, and ingredients. Spring is also the time when Hanoi citizens celebrate their long-lasting culinary traditions and cultural values. As an illustration, Chung cake—a traditional Vietnamese rice cake, with pork meat and green beans, wrapped in bamboo leaves—is considered as an indispensable Lunar New Year’s cuisine. However, besides having those traditional Vietnamese cuisine, as a vegetable-lover, my grandma always prepares for the whole family her own entrée—Vietnamese avocado cabbage salad.

Avocado Purple Cabbage Salad

Grandma’s avocado cabbage salad was a simplified version of the traditional Vietnamese Avocado Zoodle Salad Bowl—a salad bowl, which consists of avocado, zucchini noodles, tofu and cabbage. With the same concept and ingredients, the Vietnamese avocado cabbage salad was simplified by removing the tofu and zucchini noodles and replacing the original vinegar dressing with yogurt-base dressing.

As written in my grandma’s cooking notes, the recipes listed: ½ of unsweetened yogurt, ¼ cup of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, ½ teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, mozzarella slices, garlic, pepper, and dill, together with two avocados, 2 green and red pepper each, and 8 ounces of cabbage. The preparation procedures of the dish are quite simple and straightforward. To begin, the first step is to slice the avocado and the chili peppers lengthwise in ½ inch slices. The next step is to separate the cabbage leaves and put all the main vegetables in a bowl. Then, whisk together yogurt, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, sugar, garlic, pepper, and dill in a small bowl in order to create the salad-dressing. The last step is to pour the salad-dressing into the vegetables and gently toss up the ingredients.

Avocado Green Cabbage Salad

Embedded with the sweetness of yogurt, sourness of white wine vinegar, spiciness of chili peppers, and balanced out with cabbage and avocados, Vietnamese avocado cabbage salad is certainly a harmony of flavors. Within approximately 15 minutes of preparation and 10 minutes of cooking, the salad is the dish that can be served for dinner and lunch entrée, or even as a road-snack. The salad is not exactly a traditional Vietnamese food; however, it is something nostalgic that evokes the memory of celebrating Lunar New Year’s Eve with my grandma when I am now 6000 miles away from home.

Nutrition Facts

Tyson Nguyen 

Traditional New Year

Indispensable Traditional Food 

When someone ask me what is my family tradition, the first thing that comes to my head is New Year’s Eve. I love December 31st and January 1st because all of the family members gather together on those days. My mother has lived in my hometown for her whole time, and my father married into her family. Therefore, my mother’s mother, my grandmother, also lives near my house. All of my three of brothers are living separately now, but they always come back to the hometown on the New Year’s Eve. I really love traditional food of the New Year. 

Through December 31st to January 3rd, there are some traditional food; tohikoshi-soba and osechi. Toshkoshi-soba is our tradition that we eat noodles before the change of year, so that we can live healthily through the year. When the clock turns to elven o’clock at night on December 31st, my mother starts to prepare for toshikoshi-soba. Even though I am full, I can still eat all of toshikoshi-soba because it is very good. Osechi is specially-prepared New Year’s dishes that we eat during the first three days of January. Various kinds of beautifully-prepared dishes are set in three-tiered lacquer boxes. Each of the dishes in the box has some auspicious meaning which reflects people’s wishes, such as good health, happiness, prosperity, and long life. For example, lobsters represents longevity because their bodies are bent like an old man’s. Recipes is passed down within the family, and usually mothers and grandmothers cook it. 

Our New Year’s traditional food; osechi and toshikoshi-soba are indispensable. I cannot survive the year if these traditional food is taken away. When I wake up on the first day of the year, osechi is well prepared on the table, and it is very beautiful. It is like a treasure box to me.  

Osechi

Toshikoshi-soba 

The Day People Gather with Family

            In China, the biggest and the most important holiday is Spring Festival. People who are busy with their work all go home to their families and have a big meal. This festival is my favorite holidays because I can see all my cousins and get New Year’s money. Since I came to US, it has been three years not spending Spring Festival with my family, but there is another holiday I also have experienced with buddy family here for three years: Thanksgiving.

            Thanksgiving is the closest holiday to Spring Festival that I have experienced in US because dorm will close and my Buddy family will invite me to their house spending time with them. I also love Thanksgiving because people are thankful to everything they got. On Thanksgiving, there are primarily two parts: cooking Thanksgiving dinner and eating it. The primary dishes are turkey, mashed potato, pumpkin and apple pies, and stuffing. Those pies are already cooked at the night before the day, and the hardest dish to prepare is the turkey.

            I always want to help them with cooking, but I am not good at it. Especially the turkey, I cannot even look at the raw turkey, and usually, the father will handle the turkey. The child and I are in charge of snacks, such as place the cheese, crackers, cranberry sauce. I love the delicious hand-made cranberry sauce, which is so different from the sauce in stores because it is more exquisite and smooth. I enjoy eating cracker with cheese and cranberry sauce on top so much. Near the evening, I will help to place plates, knives, and forks and wait for the guests who are usually the other families and good friends coming to the house. The mother will take lots of photos for us and guests. We will also write about what we are thankful for and put it in the turkey shape box. On the dinner, we pass dishes around, and after that, I usually eat both pies with cream. Then we will read all the notes from the turkey box.  Everyone will be so full and so happy, but when we think of the dishes that we need to wash on the day after the dinner, that will be a torture. However, it is still the best day of life in US.

Cozy Memories

It was around this time last year when I fell in love with Thanksgiving holiday. I stayed with my domestic friend, Analiese, for thanksgiving, and it definitely is one of my favorite memories I have made in the United States. In Japan, the closest event is probably the New Year celebration where all the relatives gather together and eat this traditional new year food called “Osechi”. However, I like Thanksgiving a lot more because it has this cozy and festive atmosphere that I loved, possibly because Analiese has an amazing and welcoming family that made me feel at home. 

The atmosphere in her house was very warm, cozy and homie; I can still imagine exactly how my four days of thanksgiving went by. On the actual Thanksgiving Day, I was so hungry because we tried not to eat as much earlier that day to be ready for the big meal ahead. The cooking took a while so I was starving by the time the dinner was served. There was table full of food. The turkey was really tender and flavorful with the stuffing served with fruity sweet cranberry sauces, the mash potato was very creamy, (I have to say the mash potato was definitely my favorite dish), home-made bread, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, and the list goes on and on. I was so full by the time the cakes were served. I stuffed cakes in my mouth while thinking how I will not want to eat anything for the next few months. The next morning, surprisingly I was hungry again…. We had left overs for breakfast.

Thanksgiving Day

Spending Thanksgiving as a Korean

Thanksgiving  Day is a national holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. People gather around with their families and close friends to share a food that they cooked. Usually, people have roasted turkey, pies, and cranberry sauce as a dinner in Thanksgiving. Different from America, there is no Thanksgiving Day in Korea; therefore, when I first had my Thanksgiving day, I was astonished by the tradition and the food.

During my sophomore year, I was invited to my sister in law’s family Thanksgiving dinner. I was nervous and excited to meet her family and to celebrate my very first Thanksgiving day in America. My sister in law’s mother invited me and my brother over to her house, which was on Vashon Island. When I went to her house, the entire house was full of delicious smells. My sister in law’s mother offered us some crackers with cheese and apple cider. As she was finishing up the dishes, me, my brothers, and my nephew went out to play. We played with arrows for a while and we tried to chop woods for the fire. After a while, more of my sister in law’s families arrived and we spent time talking to each others. They also brought some foods that they prepared and shared it with people during dinner.

When the dinner was all ready to be served, everyone gathered around the table and grabbed their own plates. We were responsible for serving our own food from the big plates and sharing with the others. My favorite food among them was mashed potatoes with gravy sauce. It was savory and easy to eat, even though I was not familiar with American food at that time. While we were eating dinner, I was able to talk to my sister in law’s families and get to know them more. After talking to them more, I felt closer to them as a family and I was glad that I joined my sister in law’s families Thanksgiving day. Everyone in the house was joyful and loving, which made me feel even warm from the cold November weather. Therefore, I think Thanksgiving day in America is not only a day for appreciating and blessing the next harvest season, but also a meaningful day for people to gather around and share their love to each other.

Tangyuan

Tangyuan

Tangyuan is a traditional Chinese dish made from glutinous rice and is cooked in boiling water. Tangyuan can be either filled or unfilled, either small or large. The name "tangyuan" is used more often in the south while the older name "yuanxiao" is more common in the north. The fillings in different regions also differ: in the south, sweet fillings such as sweet black sesame, rose, and red beans are used often; while in the north, salty fillings are preferred, such as minced meat and vegetables. My family comes from Southwest region so we use the name Tangyuan and I always prefer sweet filling, especially sweet black sesame.

Traditional tangyuan can be handmade and all the materials are easy to get form any markets, including glutinous rice flour and black sesame powder. Simply mixing the sesame power with sugar and melted lard makes the filling. Tangyuan is usually served with syrup soup or fermented glutinous rice. In some specific regions or seasons, it can also be served with osmanthus flowers. The softness of the glutinous rice outside, the thick sweetness of the black sesame, and the freshness of the osmanthus flower, all of these makes tangyuan a unforgettable dessert in my family.

Moon Festival

Moon Festival

Growing up in an agricultural village, my grandparents and parents have a close relationship with their neighbors. They exchange necessities and crops such as potatoes vegetable, and meat that they raise. During holidays, the elder in my family always invites close relatives, distant families, and good friends as well as their neighbors for a big meal to show appreciation and gratitude. Moon Festival, especially, is valued and celebrated today as one of the biggest holidays.

Before the day of Moon Festival, my entire family will gather at my grandparents’ house to prepare for the feast the following day. Children like me are often assigned with simple tasks such as placing table cloth on tables, moving chairs out from the garage, and polishing them until they are dustless. Adults, on the other hand, play a great role in preparation of food and traditional Moon Festival desert such as mooncakes of which the recipes has been passed on for generations. As the only person who knows how to successfully make mooncakes, my grandma cannot leave the kitchen where she steams the mooncakes and checks on the texture of the cakes every other minute by putting her fingers in a three hundred degree steamer to feel the softness of the mooncakes. When I pass by the kitchen to taste the snacks and pomelos she prepares for the next day, I can easily tell how painstaking it is to stay in that environment for hours by observing the perspiration dripping down from her forehead.

On the day of Moon Festival, adults, neighbours, and friends all arrive at my grandparents’ house at about ten o’clock to celebrate this holiday as one of the few days when they can reunite and see each other. The elders have the privilege of tasting the food first, and after they are done, it is then the children’s turn. Despite our hunger and eagerness for the ceremonial food including barbecue, honey walnut shrimp, garlic green beans, and bok choy, we must wait until the elders finish. Lucky enough, my grandmother always prepares extra food and store it “securely” so that the food does not run out when it is our time to eat. When everyone including the children finish eating and feel stuffed, the growing excitement in the house is noticeable. Knowing that everyone is waiting on something, my grandmother goes into the kitchen and brings out the last but certainly not the least dish of the afternoon: mooncakes on a big tray more than enough for all of us to have until we feel content and satisfied. The afternoon then ends with a delightful sweetness in my mouth and a fresh memory of everyone.