May 19, 2025 • 32 mins
Do you have a favorite Korean restaurant? Or a favorite dish? Or a favorite ingredient? We do! To all!
We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough, authors of thirty-six cookbooks, plus one forthcoming this summer: COLD CANNING. You can click that link to order your copy. Learn how to preserve the seasons in small batches without any pressure or steam canning.
We've also got a one-minute cooking tip about chopsticks. And we'll tell you what's making us what's happy in food this week: crab apple cider and a lemon tart.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:46] Our one-minute cooking tip: chopstick etiquette.
[04:11] What do two North American guys know about Korean food? We'll take you on our journey of discovery for Korean fare.
[30:33] What’s making us happy in food this week: crab apple cider and a lemon tart.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark (00:01):
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Scarborough, and togetherwith Bruce, my husband, we have written
three dozen cookbooks plus a coupleknitting books plus a memoir for me.
We've written, I don't know, quitea few books plus some work for
hire books for celebrities, whichwe can't really talk about Dr.
Phil, but can't reallytalk about too much.
(00:22):
But this is the podcast that exploresour food and cooking passion,
the main passions of our life.
We've got a one minutecooking tip about Korean food.
We wanna explore our journey todiscover Korean food, to help you
perhaps find a discovery route toKorean food, and we'll tell you what's
making us happy in food this week.
(00:42):
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip
Bruce (00:48):
here is some chopstick etiquette fuel.
Oh wow.
You have to know this.
Mark (00:53):
I got one already.
You gotta have to know this.
No, I'm going first, Wayne.
Alright.
You go first.
No, I'm saying it right up.
Do not ever let yourchopsticks touch the table.
Okay.
The tips of your chopsticksthat you use to pick up food
should never touch the table.
You should.
If it comes in a little paper wrapper,fold that up to make a little stand for
your chopsticks or rest them on the bowl.
(01:16):
Do not let the part of the chopsticksthat touch food, touch the table.
It's
Bruce (01:21):
a whole bunch of nevers.
Here's the thing aboutchopstick etiquette.
Mark says, never touch the table.
Never.
Pick up food off the mainplatter with your chopsticks.
Eat it.
No.
Nope.
No.
Use a serving spoon to get it or
Mark (01:31):
serving chopsticks to get it to your plate.
If you go to a really fancyplace, or perhaps someone's home,
they may have serving chopstick,these giant, giant chopsticks.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
They're used to, they'reused in a wok as you cook.
Bruce (01:44):
Never share your food by giving chopstick to chopstick.
Right.
So I'm not gonna pass you a piece ofmeat for my chopstick, your chops.
I'm not sure.
I give, I'm
Mark (01:51):
deft enough with chopsticks to pull that off, but Okay.
It's rude.
Bruce (01:53):
Don't stab your food with the chopsticks.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Don't point with your chopsticksand the most important one.
No, do not lick.
Or suck your chopsticks.
Mark (02:03):
Yes.
All of those are really important toknow about chopsticks, and let's just
also say while we're sitting here aboutchopstick etiquette, especially if you
live in North America or the uk, let'sjust say we're Australia or any place like
that, it's okay to ask for a fork spoon.
No, absolutely.
It is not.
Uh, what do I wanna say?
It's not, uh, anything to be ashamed of.
(02:24):
My mom, for example, could never mm-hmm.
Get the hang of chopsticks.
Mm-hmm.
My dad actually got the hangof chopsticks, but my mom
could never figure it out.
And you know what?
It's okay.
And don't forget that thereare some cultures like.
Thai and Thai food, where infact chopsticks are served
(02:44):
in North America and the uk.
That would not appear ona tie table in Thailand.
And why
Mark (2) (02:49):
is that?
Mark (02:50):
Well, it's this whole Asian racism thing.
Mm-hmm.
That somehow all Asians use chopsticksis not necessarily the case.
Bruce (02:57):
No.
And in some parts ofAsia it is the western.
Cutlery that is usedbecause unfortunately.
Co.
Western colonizationhas happened, so, right,
Mark (03:06):
right.
Yep.
So we're gonna come outta thisand talk about our exploration of
Korean food in the hopes that we caninspire you to try some Korean food.
But before we get to that, let mesay that we have a TikTok channel.
We have an Instagram reelschannel, and we have a Facebook
channel, and all of them are named.
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Mm-hmm.
The TikTok channel is thebig one of all of them.
If you're on TikTok, check us out.
We've got all kinds of videos, cooking,tasting, doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
(03:29):
We're really silly in thosevideos and, um, it's okay.
That's how it's supposed to be on TikTok.
If you're gonna compete with a 20year olds, then you have to be silly.
I always say this, if you asa 65-year-old man is going to.
Compete with the shirtless20-year-old boys.
You gotta, in fact be silly.
So if, because I ain't going shirtless.
No, certainly not.
That would lose followers.
(03:50):
So, um, check us out on any of thoseplaces for cooking videos and videos about
us and writing cookbooks and our likesand dislikes and all that kind of stuff.
Okay?
So let's talk about Korean food and away to in fact, discover it and in fact
make it part of your culinary experience.
Bruce (04:11):
Okay, so what do two white guys know about Korean food?
I mean, seriously, I have to, I,we have to start there, right?
Neither of us are Korean.
No.
Neither of us speak Korean orpronounce it well, so there's gonna
be lots of mispronunciations going on.
It's just something we bothlove, but not something.
Either of us grew up with
Mark (04:28):
no.
In fact, let me say that I canstart this journey by saying,
in college, I'm at Baylor.
I am taking my final science course beforeI go off and take all my English courses
and my German courses for my majors andI, I'm in my last, uh, science course,
it's physics and my lab partner is Korean.
(04:48):
And she doesn't speak English verywell, so I help her a lot with
our labs and we work together.
I mean, I didn't do her labs for her,but I helped her a lot and in exchange
for helping her understand what was goingon in physics lab, she started taking
me to Korean restaurants and there was.
One, I forgot to
Bruce (05:08):
say this is Waco, Texas in the seventies.
That was one Korean
Mark (05:11):
restaurant in the late seventies in Waco.
And we went there and of courseshe was very familiar with this
restaurant and knew the people thatowned it and all that kinda stuff.
But then we actually drove twice toAustin and went to Korean restaurants
in Austin, and I learned about.
Korean food, and I wasundone with it as a kid.
I loved kid, college student.
(05:32):
I You were a kid.
You went to college as a 16-year-old.
I was.
I lied.
You did.
But I love bras.
I love really big, deep flavors.
I like bold combinations of flavors.
And when I discovered this Koreanfood, I, I was scared of kimchi because
I'd heard all these horror storiesabout it, burning people's faces off.
That's so not true.
(05:52):
I, I had heard all thesehorror stories about a hot.
Korean food is, that's so not true.
Bruce (05:57):
Well, it's not a subtle cuisine.
No, it's not.
I'll say that.
It's not a subtle cuisine.
I'm
Mark (06:01):
not a subtle eater, so I am not the, uh, incredibly
subtle Japanese connoisseur.
Mm-hmm.
I am in favor of giant, bold flavors.
Well, that's, Bruce knows I want a.
Dirty, funky red wine than a lightsophisticated, delicate white wine.
Mm-hmm.
That's just me.
And so Korean flavor profiles and Koreantaste it for my uneducated palette.
(06:27):
As a senior or junior incollege, I guess a junior I was.
Absolutely undone with itand her taking me there.
And I came back to Dallas aftercollege and after traveling around
a bit, I came back to Dallas and Itried to get other people interested
in Korean food and I could get noone to go to Korean restaurants.
It's
Bruce (06:47):
a hard sell.
People are so familiar withChinese food in the US Right.
And especially in the seventies.
Right.
You can go to Chinatowns.
So now we're in most big
Mark (06:54):
cities.
Yeah.
Now we're talking like the late eightiesand I'm outta college and I can't get.
Anybody interested in any ofthe Korean food in Dallas?
Bruce (07:01):
It was really a hard sell.
I, to be honest, I grew up with lotsand lots and lots of Chinese food, and
I did not know what Korean food wasat all until my mid thirties and New
York City has a big China town at thispoint, but it also had a big Korea
town, but it also had a big Korea town.
(07:21):
It was 32nd Street, like for twoavenues long was Korean restaurant
after Korean restaurant and.
I had lived there my whole lifeand didn't know about this.
So that's how sort ofquiet this was being kept.
Mark (07:32):
Well, at least quiet for you.
I mean.
Mm-hmm.
And I think this has something to doand I'm gonna say something horrible,
but I, I think this stuff has somethingto do with the Jews and Chinese food.
I think that there's a waythat there's this myopia that
sets in with Chinese food.
Mm-hmm.
In the culture that you came from.
Yeah.
Because it's what you eat onChristmas, yada yada yada.
(07:53):
You
Bruce (07:54):
eat on
Mark (07:55):
what?
Eat.
Nobody eats, nobody eatsChinese food on Chavez.
But okay.
Um, I think there is this myopiathat says, and so what happened is
I moved in with Bruce and in the mid1990s I was still vaguely attracted
to Korean food, but can't find no oneto go to Korean restaurants with me.
And we together found a.
Place in Midtown?
(08:17):
Yes, Manhattan calledHung, and it was a vegan
Bruce (08:20):
Korean restaurant.
And I will say the veganpart actually put me off.
You did?
Because I was like, oh, I'm a carnivore.
I've always been a carnivoreis birth and we're so okay.
We go to this, hung this, this place.
And it was so cliched.
You take your shoes off, of course you do.
They offer you kimono stylejackets They do to put on,
they do you sit on the floor?
(08:41):
They You do.
And not even with a wellto put your feet in.
Nope.
You sit on the floor.
Yep.
And we ordered things likegrilled burdock root and, which
was one of my favorite things.
Of course, it's the closestthing to a meat texture.
And they had, but there weremuch more subtle flavors.
And I, there was this pumpkin soup.
Yeah, the pumpkin soup, whichwas so simple and beautiful.
(09:01):
So I have this.
Theory now about Koreanfood, and that is vegan.
Korean food is much more subtlethan non-vegan Korean food.
Such
Mark (09:12):
an esoteric subcategory of vegan Korean food.
Well, there
Bruce (09:15):
is, there was a book that came out a few years ago called Temple
Food and it was written by a womanwho cooks in one of these, , Korean
monasteries and she makes vegan foodfor all the people who live there.
You should make me more of that and.
I had a copy of that book and quitehonestly, I found every recipe
to be so bland and so boring.
(09:36):
No.
That I never made anything out of it.
Okay.
Mark (09:37):
That goes against my big flavors, and I don't remember.
We remember hung different.
It's still in Manhattan.
Yeah.
And we remember it differentlybecause I don't remember the flavors.
It's all that subtle.
I just remember it as all incredibly new.
It
Bruce (09:51):
was new for us.
Mark (09:52):
And we took your
Bruce (09:52):
parents
Mark (09:53):
there,
Bruce (09:53):
which was We did.
They were, I mean, I don'tthink they would've ever
gone there except that I was.
Included in this.
I think if you tried to take them,they would've been like, no, no, no.
I don't So think theywere afraid to tell me No,
Mark (10:03):
no, no, no.
I, I dragged my parents toall kinds of weird places.
And, uh, not that Korean vegan foodis weird, but for them it was weird.
And that was
Bruce (10:09):
the place your dad was able to figure out chopsticks.
It was.
Your mom could not,
Mark (10:13):
it was the place Dad figured out chopsticks and.
My parents actually talkedabout that place for years
afterwards about going to lunch.
There it was, and of courseit was a nice long lunch.
It was really beautiful and anice, so again, we're slowly
making our way toward Korean food.
We're experimenting.
I've been there at college.
We're going to a vegan place.
(10:33):
And then our editor at the time,our book editor, at a one moment in
our life told us about this, be b.
Restaurant.
Mm-hmm.
That was in a really weird locationand he's like, oh, you have to go here.
So we did.
It was the East
Bruce (10:45):
Village and it was behind another noodle shop.
So you walked into a noodle shop.
Yep.
But then you had to go through aback door behind the dining room.
Yeah, literally through, through thekitchen and out a back door to get
into the second hidden restaurant.
And I didn't know what Biba was.
And if you don't know what it is,it's a rice dish and most often
the rice is hot and it's servedin a hot, hot, hot stone bowl.
(11:08):
Yeah, I know.
I see.
Mark (11:09):
Uh, at this point I'm obsessed with Korean food, so I see these
Korean videos on TikTok and Instagramreels, and they put those stone balls
right on the burners on the stove.
So when
Bruce (11:18):
the rice goes in, it gets.
Crispy on the bottom, you getthat beautiful browned crust.
And then on the top, oh, I love it.
You put all sorts of fresh vegetables,fermented vegetables, oh my gosh,
of sometimes some seasoned meat,sometimes an egg raw or fried.
So if
Mark (11:33):
you know about that, like soer at the bit of paella where the rice burns on
the bottom and people think this is very.
Ta.
I think it's very tasty and PE many peoplethink this is a very tasty part of Haya.
This is a kind of paella rice on steroids.
Yep.
'cause it's really crunchy on thebottom and it's really delicious.
Bruce (11:50):
It was about, oh, I, maybe the 10th or 12th time I had it before, I realized
after seeing enough videos online that theproper way to eat it is to mix it all up.
Yeah.
And that is actually a very traditionalway of eating a lot of these.
Korean dishes we're gonna talkabout is to mix it all up.
And I was eating it from the top down.
And that's not really the traditional way.
(12:11):
No, no, no, no, no.
A lot of Korean food.
Mark (12:13):
No, no, no.
You, you mash it all up.
You mash it all together.
And that's another reason Ilike Korean cuisine so much.
And then of course we moved fromthere from that experience too,
I think what is a lot of people'sentree point in North America and
the UK and Australia to Korean food.
And that is Korean barbecue.
But it was actually for us, a very late.
Intriguing into the process.
We were completely into vegan Korean food.
(12:35):
I was completely into glassnoodles and the Oh, che.
Yeah.
And I was, that made up from sweetpotato starch and they're really chewy.
Right.
And I was completely into allof that from my college years.
Uh, and, you know, I was, I was intothe, uh, the quote unquote Korean
sushi with the, like the machi rolls,uh, that you run through the hot.
(12:55):
Red sauce.
I was into all of that, but I didn'tactually until late know very much about
Korean barbecue, which is really weird.
'cause again, I think that'swhere most people start these.
Bruce (13:04):
And Korean barbecue is a huge category of Korean food.
Yeah.
I mean there are Korean barbecuerestaurants where that's all they serve.
Mark (13:11):
And I should say that one of the moments when we really, uh, got
into Korean barbecue was in Dallas.
We were visiting my parents.
We had had some Koreanbarbecue here in New England.
I'll let Bruce tell that story, but we'dhad some Korean barbecue here in New
England, but then we were in Dallas andit just so happened that right where I
grew up in North Dallas, a Korea townhad in fact moved into a huge area.
(13:32):
If you know Dallas, this is.
At, uh, Royal Lane and Harry Hines,and it became all of this Korean
restaurants, Korean grocery stores,Korean hair cutting salons, nail salons.
The whole business moved intothere and there was a Korean
barbecue restaurant there.
And we were with my dad and mom and,I don't know, maybe for a holiday.
And I found this place online.
I was like, oh, we're gonnago try this Korean barbecue.
(13:54):
And my mom and dadwould not go down there.
They would not come with us.
They no way refused.
So they went to the vegan Koreanrestaurant in New York City.
I think it had to do with New York City.
Put their guard down and sothey were able to go there.
But thi this, they were like, no way.
It
Bruce (14:08):
may have scared them the idea of barbecue and meats.
They might not have been, know whatkind of meat that was gonna be.
Might, well, I don't mighteven if they knew it was
Mark (14:14):
frightening.
Do it yourself.
Barbecue.
Well
Bruce (14:16):
that is the thing.
Korean barbecue is do it yourself.
They, you're, you're sittingat a table with a burner in
the middle, in front of you.
Um, some.
Restaurants, it's gas flames.
Some places they actually bringa charcoal bucket and we'll talk
about that experience we had in la.
So I think this place in Dallas,it was a gas flame and they
put a metal, yes, it was gas.
They put a metal pan overthat with slits in it.
(14:38):
And you grill your meat on this,almost griddled on this metal pan.
They bring you a platter ofmeat that you order and you can
order pork belly, you can order.
Um.
You can order pork belly,you can order short ribs, you
Mark (14:51):
can order all sorts of meat.
Okay.
So,
Bruce (14:52):
yeah.
And you
Mark (14:53):
grill it yourself.
Yeah.
You grill it yourself.
So now I, I'm sorry I'm pushingyou on, but let's you talk
about Jacque for a moment.
Bruce (14:59):
Oh, that's how we got this.
That's how we first foundout about Korean barbecue.
So a very dear friend of ours who livesin New England, right near us, her
son-in-law is Korean and his name is Yuck.
And he would.
Always make Korean barbecue for them.
Mm-hmm.
And we started to getinvited to all these dinners.
Mm-hmm.
And yuck would bring all thesefabulous short ribs and, and it's the
(15:21):
cross cut flunking style short ribs.
And he'd marinate them in beautifulKorean marinades and grill them.
And then traditionally, as always, youcut them into pieces with scissors.
Mark (15:32):
And, let me finish, let me get in and let me say that what, how.
Did, and I think what blew both of ourminds is Jacque upped the condiment game.
Mark (2) (15:41):
Mm-hmm.
Mark (15:41):
That's what we didn't know.
Yeah.
We did know about grilling the meat.
What we didn't know is all thebillions of condiments that you
can put on the Korean barbecue.
Bruce (15:50):
So like my favorite thing, Jiang, it's uh, a paste that is
put on so much barbecued Koreanmeat, and it's a combination of.
Dun Jang, which is a fermentedsoybean paste and gochujang,
which is a sticky, sweet, spicypaste and garlic and sesame oil.
It is, dare I say, itis the Korean ketchup.
It is amazing.
(16:11):
It is the Korean versionof Indian chutney.
It's like the go-to condiment to put on.
Anything that comes off the grill.
Mark (16:18):
So after Cka had gotten us into Korean barbecue and
we'd had some, uh, elsewhere wewent to on this trip to la Mm.
And uh, we decided we weregonna go off on vacation.
We had a week.
We didn't know where to go.
Neither has really spent alot of time in la We ended up
going to La, Los Angeles Yeah.
For a week.
And both of us fell deadin love with Los Angeles.
(16:38):
And we did, but we ate like beastsfor a week and it was fantastic.
But one of the places Bruce chose forlunch was this Korean barbecue spot
in Koreatown in la and , so, I think,how do I know this place is good?
And we drive up and we open thefront door and what happens?
Bruce (16:54):
Smoke.
So it's pouring out the front door, like
Mark (16:56):
seriously, as if, as if the place inside is on fire.
So
Bruce (16:59):
it is true, every single table has a vent.
Like that comes right down over to suckthe smoke up because this place actually
brings you a box of burning charcoal.
Mm-hmm.
Puts that in the hole, in the table.
Mm-hmm.
Between you.
Mm-hmm.
Turns on the vent, but that vent is fineuntil you put the meat on the grill.
Mm-hmm.
And then the smoke, it was.
Spectacular.
(17:19):
And we did have to go back to ourhotel and take a shower and wash our
hair because it smelled like reminded
Mark (17:24):
me of being in a gay bar when, back in the days when I did such things.
Mark (2) (17:28):
And you would come out, did it smell come like Korean barbecue?
Mark (17:30):
No, but you would come out smelling like smoke disgust and you'd
have to go home and take a showerbecause it was so disgust disgusting.
Your clothes smelled like smoke.
Your hair smelled like smoke.
It was like that, except wesmelled like Korean barbecue.
But I
Bruce (17:42):
learned something else in that restaurant.
And that was the.
First place that we had ever experiencedthis idea of banchan and banchan are all
those little side dishes of vegetablesand fermented pickles and all sorts of
things that come with your main course.
And in a barbecue restaurant where theonly main courses are grilled meat,
they are first going to bring you.
(18:02):
Bowl after bowl after bowl ofbunch on, and they're gonna
put out 10, 12, 15 of these
Mark (18:08):
side dishes.
And being the total westerner that Iam, when I first started eating Korean
food, I would let all those bowls siton the table because I thought I was
being polite and waiting for the maincourse that I was to eat them with.
I didn't realize until I startedlooking around me what other people
were doing that they were just digginginto all those bowls and eating the
kimchi and eating this and that, andthe other that came and the bowls
(18:29):
even before the main course arrived.
Mm-hmm.
I was being so decorated.
We didn't
Bruce (18:33):
know what to do with this stuff.
In fact, we didn't.
We went, we went to a Korean restaurantin Bayside where I grew up in Queens,
and that when I was growing up, ofcourse in the sixties, that was an
old Jewish neighborhood, and nowit's an all Korean neighborhood.
Mm-hmm.
Everything is Korean.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
There are.
Korean restaurants in every corner.
There were even Korean Chineserestaurants on every other corner.
(18:53):
Yeah.
Mark (18:53):
Which is a really interesting category and I don't
think most people know about it.
And that is Chinese food asCED through Korean techniques.
It
Bruce (19:02):
was fabulous.
Mark (19:03):
It's really a wild subcategory.
Mm-hmm.
Of Chinese food.
It's interesting.
Bruce (19:08):
But we went to a tofu restaurant 'cause tofu is a.
Huge ingredient and thing in Koreanfood, and we went to a tofu restaurant
and we ordered this dish called kimchigge, which is a big, famous dish.
It is a stew made with this fermentedbean paste and lots of kimchi in it.
Mark (19:26):
One of my favorite things, and when Bruce asks me What do I
want for dinner at this point, Ioften say kimchi, gigga, because,.
Is so satisfying.
Lots of onions, lots of kimchi,long braised pork belly.
It's so delicious.
But as Bruce says, itdoes have tofu in it.
It has tofu in it.
(19:47):
Lots of tofu.
But
Bruce (19:48):
among all the baan they brought to us, there was one
little bowl that had an egg.
Now, mark and I both assumedthis was a hard boiled egg.
No, I don't like hard boiled eggs.
Okay, so I'm not gonna touch it.
And he didn't eat it.
And it went back with all the dishes.
Only then at the next table did we see acouple, two women ordered the same dish
(20:08):
we did, and they picked up that egg andit was raw, and they cracked the egg into
the bubbling hot dish of kimchi shige.
And I'm like, oh, I want to do over.
Mark (20:17):
I have to add to this story because our waiter came over and
she saw that we hadn't cracked theegg in before we figured out what
other people were doing with it.
And she swept.
Egg off the table becausewe had half eaten the stew.
Yes.
In disgust.
She looked at us in disgustand swept it off the table.
Well, no one ever told
Bruce (20:35):
me you're supposed to put the egg in it.
No.
I wish I'd
Mark (20:37):
known.
Now I know I didn't knowthis kind of stuff either.
So this is, this is this whole bitof slowly introducing ourselves to
Korean food and we're saying allthis because we hope that perhaps
we could inspire you to try it.
Mm-hmm.
And one of the great ways youcould try it is you could go to
a large Korean grocery store.
We've.
Talked about H Mart endlessly, butyou could go to H Mart and you could
see the prepared foods and there'sa lot of big foods that you can just
(21:00):
actually buy right there and eat.
Mm-hmm.
You could try it out.
You can go to a local Koreanrestaurant, you can try the Be
Bimba, you can try various things.
One of the places that is reallyeasy to try in North America at
this point is the chain Banon,which makes Korean fried chicken.
Mm-hmm.
Bruce and I often go to the Bon Chun inNew England about an hour away from us.
(21:21):
But when we're over at Costco, we oftenstop at Bon Chun for lunch and uh, they
make really crispy, unbelievably crispy,uh, fried chicken that I wanna have.
The super, super hotsauce doused all over it.
Now,
Bruce (21:35):
we've never ordered off the other part of the menu.
No, but they do have a whole side ofthe menu that is more traditional.
No, I know Korean dishes.
So if you go there, you can try Beam Map.
Mm-hmm.
You can try bulgogi.
No, you can try DeBakey.
No.
Which are those chewy ricecakey sticks in a sweet and hot
Mark (21:52):
sauce, which
Bruce (21:52):
are amazing.
Mark (21:54):
Yes, uh, you can, but again, Bonton is a great way to start.
And if you go there, get, uh, whatis sometimes called chicken moo
or the, the, what do they call it?
Pickled radish or something.
They call it pickled
Bruce (22:05):
radish, right?
It's often called chicken moobecause moo is the word for radish.
In Korean and you pickle it and it'swhat is served with fried chicken.
So it's called chicken moo,
Mark (22:14):
right?
Chicken radish.
And you can get that as a sidedish and eat it with your fried
chicken, which is what we do.
Um, and it's really delicious andthere are all kinds of ways to find and
expand your palate with Korean food.
Oh, and if you've done this and knowhow to do this, then eventually, maybe
the hope is you might even start.
Making some of this at homeagain, I think Kim Shiga is a
(22:35):
really great winter stew to make.
Mm-hmm.
So why don't you just do a really simplewalkthrough of how you make Kim Shige?
Bruce (22:42):
You wanna take a heavy small pan, like something you
would make a soup or a stew in.
And it's not too big 'cause you don'treally make giant batches of this,
like a two quart or one quart pot.
And I put a little sesame oilin the bottom and I know people
say, don't saute with sesame oil,but I'd like it for this dish.
And I put in a ton of freshginger and onion, raw, raw onion.
(23:02):
Raw, raw, sliced onion.
And I just, just let it start sizzling.
You don't really wantto cook it very much.
And then you.
Dump in a ton of fresh kimchi.
Chop it up so that it's alittle easier to deal with.
Mm-hmm.
Put in some sliced pork belly,and then you're going to
cover that with some broth.
Now you can use chicken broth.
You can use vegetable broth.
Traditionally, I would like to flavorthat broth with some dried anchovies.
(23:26):
If you don't have those, you canget something called Handi in an
Asian market, which is a Japanesedashi powder, and that'll give
you that slight fish flavor to it.
You be really careful with it.
Just put a teaspoon, tiny little bits inwith your chicken broth, and then you have
to put a little sweetener, so sometimesa little brown sugar, a little corn
syrup works, and then the chili flakes.
(23:48):
You need chili flakes,gochugaru, gochugaru, and then
the pork belly, as I said,
Mark (23:54):
go is a think about red.
Uh, pepper Flakes, you know,the, that, that you put on pizza.
Mm-hmm.
But they're not, this is a Koreanversion that's kind of like that.
It's a coarsely, ground dried red pepper.
It is hot.
I will use two tablespoons fora quart sized pot for us and.
I have watched many at this point of acooking video of people making kimchi
(24:18):
shiga online, and I see them put whatcould only be a half cob, three quarters
of a cob of the, it's really hot.
It's really hot.
We don't.
Quite go that hot, but, and
Bruce (24:31):
once it comes to a simmer, you're gonna let that simmer away
for about 40 minutes until the porkbelly is tender about halfway through.
I'm gonna open it and I'mgonna put tofu on the top.
You can use a firm tofu.
A soft tofu.
I like to use silk and tofubecause that's really good.
And if I'm using.
Silicon.
I put it in closer to theend just to warm it up.
(24:51):
'cause I don't want it to break apart.
We tend not to put the egg init when we have it at home.
Right.
But you can put the eggin it and that's it.
So it's the kimchi, the onions,the sesame oil, and that's it.
The fishy broth.
It's the, I notice thatthe writer has to fun of.
Mark (25:06):
That's it, because like that's it.
I'm sorry.
That's not just, that's it.
Okay.
Bruce (25:10):
Well if you wanna really go, that's it.
The sweetener traditionally inKorean food would be rice syrup.
Okay.
So anyway.
Mark (25:16):
Yeah, that's it.
And I have to say that we, uh, Bruceoften makes, uh, Kim Suge in a totally
non-traditional way, and he makes itinstead a pork belly with beef oxtails.
And in fact, the Korean manwho kind of got us on the jag
of Korean barbecue, fantastic.
Actually ate Bruce's oxtail,Kim Shige, and he was rather
(25:40):
speechless about the whole thing.
It's not that he didn't like it, hejust, it was like he couldn't process it.
He didn't
Bruce (25:45):
know he, that's
one of the things I've discoveredabout a lot of Korean food.
The dishes are very.
Set.
Like this dish has theseingredients, right?
And this dish has these ingredients,and once you switch out one ingredient,
it's like traditionalists will go.
I don't even know what that dish is now.
I don't recognize it.
Mark (26:01):
Well, I, yeah, I, I don't know that that's a, that that's,
uh, necessarily a Korean thing.
I think that, oh no, I thinkthat comes with a lot of things.
That's a French thing.
Mm-hmm.
That's.
It's the Jewish grandmother thing.
That's, that's, oh my gosh.
So I, I'm totally off Korean for aminute, but I just wanna say that when,
uh, years ago we wrote the UltimateCookbook, which was 900 recipes,
(26:22):
his first giant book we ever wrote.
And, um, it kind of representedtotally still represents the way
Bruce cooks on an everyday basis.
900 recipes is a huge,huge encyclopedia book.
And, um, we said we write this book.
And it got of course reviews.
And this one reviewer, his comment was outof 900 recipes, he made a big deal that
(26:48):
Bruce put garlic powder in matza balls.
And it was this whole thing about matzaballs do not have garlic powder in them.
And it, it, it, it's back to that, youknow, there is a way to make matza balls
and it's the way I grew up making it.
And that's the end of the matter
Bruce (27:05):
in my defense.
If you look at the ingredientlist on the box of Manus
Chitz, matza bowl mix, I, yeah,
Mark (27:10):
I know.
Garlic powder.
I know, but I'm just saying thatthis is the way, I don't think it
has anything to do with Korean food.
This is the way thatstoried dishes get mm-hmm.
Set.
Mm-hmm.
In a kind of, and don't
Bruce (27:22):
change them.
Mark (27:22):
Right.
In a kind of cultural matrix.
It's really weird.
Like, for example, I think that a lotof us from the South have very set
ideas about what Hop and John is, what.
Cornbread is, I havewhat fried chicken is.
I have very set ideas about cornbreadand my ideas about cornbread.
And I grew up, as you may know,in Texas, and I grew up with mom,
(27:43):
who thought that putting sugarin things made you low class.
So I grew up withcornbread that did, had no.
Added sugar to it.
And still to this day, I can hearmy mother say, my now long gone
mother say about cornbread when shebites into it, Ooh, this is cake.
Meaning, well so much.
(28:04):
It has no sugar.
Meaning it has sugar in it,and she doesn't want any sugar.
Bruce (28:08):
How often have I bitten into a piece of cornbread
in a barbecue restaurant?
Oh, and it's so sweetand it's like dessert.
Wait a
Mark (28:14):
second.
This is like a polenta cake,but you didn't grow up with it.
And again, it's part ofwhat gets set in your head.
Like, like the Jewish matza ballsand soup and like mini Korean dishes.
These are storied dishesfrom people's past.
Mm-hmm.
And so when you take this St story dishand you add oxtails to it instead of pork
belly, it changes the whole thing around.
(28:35):
It did.
Bruce (28:35):
And boy did.
I love it.
Mark (28:36):
I do.
I actually love Kimwith, uh, oxtails in it.
I think it's really tasty.
so as we come to the end of this bitabout, uh, Korean food, is there any
Korean cookbook that you would recommendif somebody wanted to buy a cookbook
and figure out how to make it at home?
Bruce (28:51):
That's really a good question.
There's a brand new cookbookthat just came out this year and
it's actually up for some awards.
And it's called Uma, UMMA,which is mom in Korean.
It's called Uma, and it is all abouthome cooking and stories that this author
knows about from her mother and hergrandmother who taught her how to cook.
And the recipes are.
(29:12):
Just beautiful to look at and theingredients sound fabulous and I have
not cooked from me yet, but I have somany flag that I'm going to be making.
Mark (29:21):
So.
I hope that in saying all this, wehave inspired you to go out and find a
Korean restaurant to just experiment.
Maybe you wanna startwith Korean barbecue.
Maybe you wanna start witha Korean vegan restaurant.
Maybe you already know all there isto know about Korean food and you
want to, uh, tell us about that.
You can find us on theFacebook group cooking.
Bruce and Mark will post this episodeof the podcast and you can tell us
(29:44):
your favorite Korean dishes or your ownexperience the first time you ever had.
Korean food, or maybe you are Koreanand the best place where you live to
get Korean food beside your mom's house,the best place to go buy Korean food.
Before we get to the final segment,what's making us happy and food this week?
Let me just say that it would begreat if you could subscribe to this
podcast and if you could rate it,if you could give it a star rating.
(30:07):
Can I ask for five?
That would be nice.
And a review that helps in the,uh, algorithms and the analytics.
Thanks for doing that.
As you know, we are.
Unsupported.
We choose to be unsupported.
So it is the way that you canactually help support this podcast.
Thanks for doing that.
I know it's an extra step and Ihate making, uh, any requests for
(30:27):
extra steps, but there you go.
Thanks for doing that.
Okay.
As is traditional, we're gonnafinish off with what's making
us happy in food this week.
Bruce (30:38):
Crab apple hard cider.
Oh gosh.
You've heard me talk about hard ciderbeing one of my favorite things over
and over, but as Mark has said in aprevious episode, we have been recently
to the Finger Lakes and there are somany cries around these lakes there.
It is not only a wine producing region,it is a huge cider reproducing region
(30:58):
and increasingly cider reproducing.
We found some fabulous ones and webought a couple of big bottles of a.
Crab.
Apple cider.
Now
Mark (31:05):
I should say, when we say cider, we're talking about hard cider.
Hard cider
Bruce (31:08):
beer levels four to 5%.
Mm.
So good.
So we had that crab, applecider with burgers for dinner,
and it was spectacular.
Mark (31:15):
It was, it was really nice.
Yeah, it was really sourand it was really great.
Okay, so what's making mehappy in food this week?
It is a lemon tart that Bruce made, andI have to say that this is a really hard
thing for me to admit because I think Iam the master of the lemon meringue pie.
But Bruce made a lemon tart recently,and you made it with a thicker crust.
(31:37):
So it was much more cookie like, andthen he put a lemon card on top of it
and he put an Italian meringue, whichis a cooked meringue on top of that.
So it's a marshmallowy sticky meringue.
I do the french meringue, thetraditional American lemon meringue
pie, where it's the French meringue.
It's really light and high.
His was much more marshmallowyand his lemon tar was spectacular.
I ate way too much of it.
(31:58):
Mm-hmm.
It was really good and it's reallyhard for me to give any creds to any
Lemon Tart except my own Lemon R pie,which you do quite well, and which I
got the recipe from my grandmother.
So I am, uh, I'm really given a hugekudos here, uh, because I think that it
was just this spectacular Lemon Tart, andit's not only nice occasionally to have a
(32:18):
dessert that kind of blows your mind, so.
Hmm.
Thank you.
That was really nice andit made me very happy.
Alright, that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for listening to it.
Thanks for being part ofour podcast community.
Thanks for being on this Foodand Cooking journey with us.
We appreciate you more than you can know,and we appreciate your being here with us
Bruce (32:37):
more than you can know.
And as Mark said, please subscribe soyou don't miss a single episode when
we talk about Korean food, Chinesefood, Japanese food, and all the
foods that we are passionate abouthere on cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
And I'm Mark Scarborough, and togetherwith Bruce, my husband, we have written
three dozen cookbooks plus a coupleknitting books plus a memoir for me.
We've written, I don't know, quitea few books plus some work for
hire books for celebrities, whichwe can't really talk about Dr.
Phil, but can't reallytalk about too much.
(00:22):
But this is the podcast that exploresour food and cooking passion,
the main passions of our life.
We've got a one minutecooking tip about Korean food.
We wanna explore our journey todiscover Korean food, to help you
perhaps find a discovery route toKorean food, and we'll tell you what's
making us happy in food this week.
(00:42):
So let's get started.
Our one minute cooking tip
Bruce (00:48):
here is some chopstick etiquette fuel.
Oh wow.
You have to know this.
Mark (00:53):
I got one already.
You gotta have to know this.
No, I'm going first, Wayne.
Alright.
You go first.
No, I'm saying it right up.
Do not ever let yourchopsticks touch the table.
Okay.
The tips of your chopsticksthat you use to pick up food
should never touch the table.
You should.
If it comes in a little paper wrapper,fold that up to make a little stand for
your chopsticks or rest them on the bowl.
(01:16):
Do not let the part of the chopsticksthat touch food, touch the table.
It's
Bruce (01:21):
a whole bunch of nevers.
Here's the thing aboutchopstick etiquette.
Mark says, never touch the table.
Never.
Pick up food off the mainplatter with your chopsticks.
Eat it.
No.
Nope.
No.
Use a serving spoon to get it or
Mark (01:31):
serving chopsticks to get it to your plate.
If you go to a really fancyplace, or perhaps someone's home,
they may have serving chopstick,these giant, giant chopsticks.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
They're used to, they'reused in a wok as you cook.
Bruce (01:44):
Never share your food by giving chopstick to chopstick.
Right.
So I'm not gonna pass you a piece ofmeat for my chopstick, your chops.
I'm not sure.
I give, I'm
Mark (01:51):
deft enough with chopsticks to pull that off, but Okay.
It's rude.
Bruce (01:53):
Don't stab your food with the chopsticks.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Don't point with your chopsticksand the most important one.
No, do not lick.
Or suck your chopsticks.
Mark (02:03):
Yes.
All of those are really important toknow about chopsticks, and let's just
also say while we're sitting here aboutchopstick etiquette, especially if you
live in North America or the uk, let'sjust say we're Australia or any place like
that, it's okay to ask for a fork spoon.
No, absolutely.
It is not.
Uh, what do I wanna say?
It's not, uh, anything to be ashamed of.
(02:24):
My mom, for example, could never mm-hmm.
Get the hang of chopsticks.
Mm-hmm.
My dad actually got the hangof chopsticks, but my mom
could never figure it out.
And you know what?
It's okay.
And don't forget that thereare some cultures like.
Thai and Thai food, where infact chopsticks are served
(02:44):
in North America and the uk.
That would not appear ona tie table in Thailand.
And why
Mark (2) (02:49):
is that?
Mark (02:50):
Well, it's this whole Asian racism thing.
Mm-hmm.
That somehow all Asians use chopsticksis not necessarily the case.
Bruce (02:57):
No.
And in some parts ofAsia it is the western.
Cutlery that is usedbecause unfortunately.
Co.
Western colonizationhas happened, so, right,
Mark (03:06):
right.
Yep.
So we're gonna come outta thisand talk about our exploration of
Korean food in the hopes that we caninspire you to try some Korean food.
But before we get to that, let mesay that we have a TikTok channel.
We have an Instagram reelschannel, and we have a Facebook
channel, and all of them are named.
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Mm-hmm.
The TikTok channel is thebig one of all of them.
If you're on TikTok, check us out.
We've got all kinds of videos, cooking,tasting, doing all kinds of crazy stuff.
(03:29):
We're really silly in thosevideos and, um, it's okay.
That's how it's supposed to be on TikTok.
If you're gonna compete with a 20year olds, then you have to be silly.
I always say this, if you asa 65-year-old man is going to.
Compete with the shirtless20-year-old boys.
You gotta, in fact be silly.
So if, because I ain't going shirtless.
No, certainly not.
That would lose followers.
(03:50):
So, um, check us out on any of thoseplaces for cooking videos and videos about
us and writing cookbooks and our likesand dislikes and all that kind of stuff.
Okay?
So let's talk about Korean food and away to in fact, discover it and in fact
make it part of your culinary experience.
Bruce (04:11):
Okay, so what do two white guys know about Korean food?
I mean, seriously, I have to, I,we have to start there, right?
Neither of us are Korean.
No.
Neither of us speak Korean orpronounce it well, so there's gonna
be lots of mispronunciations going on.
It's just something we bothlove, but not something.
Either of us grew up with
Mark (04:28):
no.
In fact, let me say that I canstart this journey by saying,
in college, I'm at Baylor.
I am taking my final science course beforeI go off and take all my English courses
and my German courses for my majors andI, I'm in my last, uh, science course,
it's physics and my lab partner is Korean.
(04:48):
And she doesn't speak English verywell, so I help her a lot with
our labs and we work together.
I mean, I didn't do her labs for her,but I helped her a lot and in exchange
for helping her understand what was goingon in physics lab, she started taking
me to Korean restaurants and there was.
One, I forgot to
Bruce (05:08):
say this is Waco, Texas in the seventies.
That was one Korean
Mark (05:11):
restaurant in the late seventies in Waco.
And we went there and of courseshe was very familiar with this
restaurant and knew the people thatowned it and all that kinda stuff.
But then we actually drove twice toAustin and went to Korean restaurants
in Austin, and I learned about.
Korean food, and I wasundone with it as a kid.
I loved kid, college student.
(05:32):
I You were a kid.
You went to college as a 16-year-old.
I was.
I lied.
You did.
But I love bras.
I love really big, deep flavors.
I like bold combinations of flavors.
And when I discovered this Koreanfood, I, I was scared of kimchi because
I'd heard all these horror storiesabout it, burning people's faces off.
That's so not true.
(05:52):
I, I had heard all thesehorror stories about a hot.
Korean food is, that's so not true.
Bruce (05:57):
Well, it's not a subtle cuisine.
No, it's not.
I'll say that.
It's not a subtle cuisine.
I'm
Mark (06:01):
not a subtle eater, so I am not the, uh, incredibly
subtle Japanese connoisseur.
Mm-hmm.
I am in favor of giant, bold flavors.
Well, that's, Bruce knows I want a.
Dirty, funky red wine than a lightsophisticated, delicate white wine.
Mm-hmm.
That's just me.
And so Korean flavor profiles and Koreantaste it for my uneducated palette.
(06:27):
As a senior or junior incollege, I guess a junior I was.
Absolutely undone with itand her taking me there.
And I came back to Dallas aftercollege and after traveling around
a bit, I came back to Dallas and Itried to get other people interested
in Korean food and I could get noone to go to Korean restaurants.
It's
Bruce (06:47):
a hard sell.
People are so familiar withChinese food in the US Right.
And especially in the seventies.
Right.
You can go to Chinatowns.
So now we're in most big
Mark (06:54):
cities.
Yeah.
Now we're talking like the late eightiesand I'm outta college and I can't get.
Anybody interested in any ofthe Korean food in Dallas?
Bruce (07:01):
It was really a hard sell.
I, to be honest, I grew up with lotsand lots and lots of Chinese food, and
I did not know what Korean food wasat all until my mid thirties and New
York City has a big China town at thispoint, but it also had a big Korea
town, but it also had a big Korea town.
(07:21):
It was 32nd Street, like for twoavenues long was Korean restaurant
after Korean restaurant and.
I had lived there my whole lifeand didn't know about this.
So that's how sort ofquiet this was being kept.
Mark (07:32):
Well, at least quiet for you.
I mean.
Mm-hmm.
And I think this has something to doand I'm gonna say something horrible,
but I, I think this stuff has somethingto do with the Jews and Chinese food.
I think that there's a waythat there's this myopia that
sets in with Chinese food.
Mm-hmm.
In the culture that you came from.
Yeah.
Because it's what you eat onChristmas, yada yada yada.
(07:53):
You
Bruce (07:54):
eat on
Mark (07:55):
what?
Eat.
Nobody eats, nobody eatsChinese food on Chavez.
But okay.
Um, I think there is this myopiathat says, and so what happened is
I moved in with Bruce and in the mid1990s I was still vaguely attracted
to Korean food, but can't find no oneto go to Korean restaurants with me.
And we together found a.
Place in Midtown?
(08:17):
Yes, Manhattan calledHung, and it was a vegan
Bruce (08:20):
Korean restaurant.
And I will say the veganpart actually put me off.
You did?
Because I was like, oh, I'm a carnivore.
I've always been a carnivoreis birth and we're so okay.
We go to this, hung this, this place.
And it was so cliched.
You take your shoes off, of course you do.
They offer you kimono stylejackets They do to put on,
they do you sit on the floor?
(08:41):
They You do.
And not even with a wellto put your feet in.
Nope.
You sit on the floor.
Yep.
And we ordered things likegrilled burdock root and, which
was one of my favorite things.
Of course, it's the closestthing to a meat texture.
And they had, but there weremuch more subtle flavors.
And I, there was this pumpkin soup.
Yeah, the pumpkin soup, whichwas so simple and beautiful.
(09:01):
So I have this.
Theory now about Koreanfood, and that is vegan.
Korean food is much more subtlethan non-vegan Korean food.
Such
Mark (09:12):
an esoteric subcategory of vegan Korean food.
Well, there
Bruce (09:15):
is, there was a book that came out a few years ago called Temple
Food and it was written by a womanwho cooks in one of these, , Korean
monasteries and she makes vegan foodfor all the people who live there.
You should make me more of that and.
I had a copy of that book and quitehonestly, I found every recipe
to be so bland and so boring.
(09:36):
No.
That I never made anything out of it.
Okay.
Mark (09:37):
That goes against my big flavors, and I don't remember.
We remember hung different.
It's still in Manhattan.
Yeah.
And we remember it differentlybecause I don't remember the flavors.
It's all that subtle.
I just remember it as all incredibly new.
It
Bruce (09:51):
was new for us.
Mark (09:52):
And we took your
Bruce (09:52):
parents
Mark (09:53):
there,
Bruce (09:53):
which was We did.
They were, I mean, I don'tthink they would've ever
gone there except that I was.
Included in this.
I think if you tried to take them,they would've been like, no, no, no.
I don't So think theywere afraid to tell me No,
Mark (10:03):
no, no, no.
I, I dragged my parents toall kinds of weird places.
And, uh, not that Korean vegan foodis weird, but for them it was weird.
And that was
Bruce (10:09):
the place your dad was able to figure out chopsticks.
It was.
Your mom could not,
Mark (10:13):
it was the place Dad figured out chopsticks and.
My parents actually talkedabout that place for years
afterwards about going to lunch.
There it was, and of courseit was a nice long lunch.
It was really beautiful and anice, so again, we're slowly
making our way toward Korean food.
We're experimenting.
I've been there at college.
We're going to a vegan place.
(10:33):
And then our editor at the time,our book editor, at a one moment in
our life told us about this, be b.
Restaurant.
Mm-hmm.
That was in a really weird locationand he's like, oh, you have to go here.
So we did.
It was the East
Bruce (10:45):
Village and it was behind another noodle shop.
So you walked into a noodle shop.
Yep.
But then you had to go through aback door behind the dining room.
Yeah, literally through, through thekitchen and out a back door to get
into the second hidden restaurant.
And I didn't know what Biba was.
And if you don't know what it is,it's a rice dish and most often
the rice is hot and it's servedin a hot, hot, hot stone bowl.
(11:08):
Yeah, I know.
I see.
Mark (11:09):
Uh, at this point I'm obsessed with Korean food, so I see these
Korean videos on TikTok and Instagramreels, and they put those stone balls
right on the burners on the stove.
So when
Bruce (11:18):
the rice goes in, it gets.
Crispy on the bottom, you getthat beautiful browned crust.
And then on the top, oh, I love it.
You put all sorts of fresh vegetables,fermented vegetables, oh my gosh,
of sometimes some seasoned meat,sometimes an egg raw or fried.
So if
Mark (11:33):
you know about that, like soer at the bit of paella where the rice burns on
the bottom and people think this is very.
Ta.
I think it's very tasty and PE many peoplethink this is a very tasty part of Haya.
This is a kind of paella rice on steroids.
Yep.
'cause it's really crunchy on thebottom and it's really delicious.
Bruce (11:50):
It was about, oh, I, maybe the 10th or 12th time I had it before, I realized
after seeing enough videos online that theproper way to eat it is to mix it all up.
Yeah.
And that is actually a very traditionalway of eating a lot of these.
Korean dishes we're gonna talkabout is to mix it all up.
And I was eating it from the top down.
And that's not really the traditional way.
(12:11):
No, no, no, no, no.
A lot of Korean food.
Mark (12:13):
No, no, no.
You, you mash it all up.
You mash it all together.
And that's another reason Ilike Korean cuisine so much.
And then of course we moved fromthere from that experience too,
I think what is a lot of people'sentree point in North America and
the UK and Australia to Korean food.
And that is Korean barbecue.
But it was actually for us, a very late.
Intriguing into the process.
We were completely into vegan Korean food.
(12:35):
I was completely into glassnoodles and the Oh, che.
Yeah.
And I was, that made up from sweetpotato starch and they're really chewy.
Right.
And I was completely into allof that from my college years.
Uh, and, you know, I was, I was intothe, uh, the quote unquote Korean
sushi with the, like the machi rolls,uh, that you run through the hot.
(12:55):
Red sauce.
I was into all of that, but I didn'tactually until late know very much about
Korean barbecue, which is really weird.
'cause again, I think that'swhere most people start these.
Bruce (13:04):
And Korean barbecue is a huge category of Korean food.
Yeah.
I mean there are Korean barbecuerestaurants where that's all they serve.
Mark (13:11):
And I should say that one of the moments when we really, uh, got
into Korean barbecue was in Dallas.
We were visiting my parents.
We had had some Koreanbarbecue here in New England.
I'll let Bruce tell that story, but we'dhad some Korean barbecue here in New
England, but then we were in Dallas andit just so happened that right where I
grew up in North Dallas, a Korea townhad in fact moved into a huge area.
(13:32):
If you know Dallas, this is.
At, uh, Royal Lane and Harry Hines,and it became all of this Korean
restaurants, Korean grocery stores,Korean hair cutting salons, nail salons.
The whole business moved intothere and there was a Korean
barbecue restaurant there.
And we were with my dad and mom and,I don't know, maybe for a holiday.
And I found this place online.
I was like, oh, we're gonnago try this Korean barbecue.
(13:54):
And my mom and dadwould not go down there.
They would not come with us.
They no way refused.
So they went to the vegan Koreanrestaurant in New York City.
I think it had to do with New York City.
Put their guard down and sothey were able to go there.
But thi this, they were like, no way.
It
Bruce (14:08):
may have scared them the idea of barbecue and meats.
They might not have been, know whatkind of meat that was gonna be.
Might, well, I don't mighteven if they knew it was
Mark (14:14):
frightening.
Do it yourself.
Barbecue.
Well
Bruce (14:16):
that is the thing.
Korean barbecue is do it yourself.
They, you're, you're sittingat a table with a burner in
the middle, in front of you.
Um, some.
Restaurants, it's gas flames.
Some places they actually bringa charcoal bucket and we'll talk
about that experience we had in la.
So I think this place in Dallas,it was a gas flame and they
put a metal, yes, it was gas.
They put a metal pan overthat with slits in it.
(14:38):
And you grill your meat on this,almost griddled on this metal pan.
They bring you a platter ofmeat that you order and you can
order pork belly, you can order.
Um.
You can order pork belly,you can order short ribs, you
Mark (14:51):
can order all sorts of meat.
Okay.
So,
Bruce (14:52):
yeah.
And you
Mark (14:53):
grill it yourself.
Yeah.
You grill it yourself.
So now I, I'm sorry I'm pushingyou on, but let's you talk
about Jacque for a moment.
Bruce (14:59):
Oh, that's how we got this.
That's how we first foundout about Korean barbecue.
So a very dear friend of ours who livesin New England, right near us, her
son-in-law is Korean and his name is Yuck.
And he would.
Always make Korean barbecue for them.
Mm-hmm.
And we started to getinvited to all these dinners.
Mm-hmm.
And yuck would bring all thesefabulous short ribs and, and it's the
(15:21):
cross cut flunking style short ribs.
And he'd marinate them in beautifulKorean marinades and grill them.
And then traditionally, as always, youcut them into pieces with scissors.
Mark (15:32):
And, let me finish, let me get in and let me say that what, how.
Did, and I think what blew both of ourminds is Jacque upped the condiment game.
Mark (2) (15:41):
Mm-hmm.
Mark (15:41):
That's what we didn't know.
Yeah.
We did know about grilling the meat.
What we didn't know is all thebillions of condiments that you
can put on the Korean barbecue.
Bruce (15:50):
So like my favorite thing, Jiang, it's uh, a paste that is
put on so much barbecued Koreanmeat, and it's a combination of.
Dun Jang, which is a fermentedsoybean paste and gochujang,
which is a sticky, sweet, spicypaste and garlic and sesame oil.
It is, dare I say, itis the Korean ketchup.
It is amazing.
(16:11):
It is the Korean versionof Indian chutney.
It's like the go-to condiment to put on.
Anything that comes off the grill.
Mark (16:18):
So after Cka had gotten us into Korean barbecue and
we'd had some, uh, elsewhere wewent to on this trip to la Mm.
And uh, we decided we weregonna go off on vacation.
We had a week.
We didn't know where to go.
Neither has really spent alot of time in la We ended up
going to La, Los Angeles Yeah.
For a week.
And both of us fell deadin love with Los Angeles.
(16:38):
And we did, but we ate like beastsfor a week and it was fantastic.
But one of the places Bruce chose forlunch was this Korean barbecue spot
in Koreatown in la and , so, I think,how do I know this place is good?
And we drive up and we open thefront door and what happens?
Bruce (16:54):
Smoke.
So it's pouring out the front door, like
Mark (16:56):
seriously, as if, as if the place inside is on fire.
So
Bruce (16:59):
it is true, every single table has a vent.
Like that comes right down over to suckthe smoke up because this place actually
brings you a box of burning charcoal.
Mm-hmm.
Puts that in the hole, in the table.
Mm-hmm.
Between you.
Mm-hmm.
Turns on the vent, but that vent is fineuntil you put the meat on the grill.
Mm-hmm.
And then the smoke, it was.
Spectacular.
(17:19):
And we did have to go back to ourhotel and take a shower and wash our
hair because it smelled like reminded
Mark (17:24):
me of being in a gay bar when, back in the days when I did such things.
Mark (2) (17:28):
And you would come out, did it smell come like Korean barbecue?
Mark (17:30):
No, but you would come out smelling like smoke disgust and you'd
have to go home and take a showerbecause it was so disgust disgusting.
Your clothes smelled like smoke.
Your hair smelled like smoke.
It was like that, except wesmelled like Korean barbecue.
But I
Bruce (17:42):
learned something else in that restaurant.
And that was the.
First place that we had ever experiencedthis idea of banchan and banchan are all
those little side dishes of vegetablesand fermented pickles and all sorts of
things that come with your main course.
And in a barbecue restaurant where theonly main courses are grilled meat,
they are first going to bring you.
(18:02):
Bowl after bowl after bowl ofbunch on, and they're gonna
put out 10, 12, 15 of these
Mark (18:08):
side dishes.
And being the total westerner that Iam, when I first started eating Korean
food, I would let all those bowls siton the table because I thought I was
being polite and waiting for the maincourse that I was to eat them with.
I didn't realize until I startedlooking around me what other people
were doing that they were just digginginto all those bowls and eating the
kimchi and eating this and that, andthe other that came and the bowls
(18:29):
even before the main course arrived.
Mm-hmm.
I was being so decorated.
We didn't
Bruce (18:33):
know what to do with this stuff.
In fact, we didn't.
We went, we went to a Korean restaurantin Bayside where I grew up in Queens,
and that when I was growing up, ofcourse in the sixties, that was an
old Jewish neighborhood, and nowit's an all Korean neighborhood.
Mm-hmm.
Everything is Korean.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
There are.
Korean restaurants in every corner.
There were even Korean Chineserestaurants on every other corner.
(18:53):
Yeah.
Mark (18:53):
Which is a really interesting category and I don't
think most people know about it.
And that is Chinese food asCED through Korean techniques.
It
Bruce (19:02):
was fabulous.
Mark (19:03):
It's really a wild subcategory.
Mm-hmm.
Of Chinese food.
It's interesting.
Bruce (19:08):
But we went to a tofu restaurant 'cause tofu is a.
Huge ingredient and thing in Koreanfood, and we went to a tofu restaurant
and we ordered this dish called kimchigge, which is a big, famous dish.
It is a stew made with this fermentedbean paste and lots of kimchi in it.
Mark (19:26):
One of my favorite things, and when Bruce asks me What do I
want for dinner at this point, Ioften say kimchi, gigga, because,.
Is so satisfying.
Lots of onions, lots of kimchi,long braised pork belly.
It's so delicious.
But as Bruce says, itdoes have tofu in it.
It has tofu in it.
(19:47):
Lots of tofu.
But
Bruce (19:48):
among all the baan they brought to us, there was one
little bowl that had an egg.
Now, mark and I both assumedthis was a hard boiled egg.
No, I don't like hard boiled eggs.
Okay, so I'm not gonna touch it.
And he didn't eat it.
And it went back with all the dishes.
Only then at the next table did we see acouple, two women ordered the same dish
(20:08):
we did, and they picked up that egg andit was raw, and they cracked the egg into
the bubbling hot dish of kimchi shige.
And I'm like, oh, I want to do over.
Mark (20:17):
I have to add to this story because our waiter came over and
she saw that we hadn't cracked theegg in before we figured out what
other people were doing with it.
And she swept.
Egg off the table becausewe had half eaten the stew.
Yes.
In disgust.
She looked at us in disgustand swept it off the table.
Well, no one ever told
Bruce (20:35):
me you're supposed to put the egg in it.
No.
I wish I'd
Mark (20:37):
known.
Now I know I didn't knowthis kind of stuff either.
So this is, this is this whole bitof slowly introducing ourselves to
Korean food and we're saying allthis because we hope that perhaps
we could inspire you to try it.
Mm-hmm.
And one of the great ways youcould try it is you could go to
a large Korean grocery store.
We've.
Talked about H Mart endlessly, butyou could go to H Mart and you could
see the prepared foods and there'sa lot of big foods that you can just
(21:00):
actually buy right there and eat.
Mm-hmm.
You could try it out.
You can go to a local Koreanrestaurant, you can try the Be
Bimba, you can try various things.
One of the places that is reallyeasy to try in North America at
this point is the chain Banon,which makes Korean fried chicken.
Mm-hmm.
Bruce and I often go to the Bon Chun inNew England about an hour away from us.
(21:21):
But when we're over at Costco, we oftenstop at Bon Chun for lunch and uh, they
make really crispy, unbelievably crispy,uh, fried chicken that I wanna have.
The super, super hotsauce doused all over it.
Now,
Bruce (21:35):
we've never ordered off the other part of the menu.
No, but they do have a whole side ofthe menu that is more traditional.
No, I know Korean dishes.
So if you go there, you can try Beam Map.
Mm-hmm.
You can try bulgogi.
No, you can try DeBakey.
No.
Which are those chewy ricecakey sticks in a sweet and hot
Mark (21:52):
sauce, which
Bruce (21:52):
are amazing.
Mark (21:54):
Yes, uh, you can, but again, Bonton is a great way to start.
And if you go there, get, uh, whatis sometimes called chicken moo
or the, the, what do they call it?
Pickled radish or something.
They call it pickled
Bruce (22:05):
radish, right?
It's often called chicken moobecause moo is the word for radish.
In Korean and you pickle it and it'swhat is served with fried chicken.
So it's called chicken moo,
Mark (22:14):
right?
Chicken radish.
And you can get that as a sidedish and eat it with your fried
chicken, which is what we do.
Um, and it's really delicious andthere are all kinds of ways to find and
expand your palate with Korean food.
Oh, and if you've done this and knowhow to do this, then eventually, maybe
the hope is you might even start.
Making some of this at homeagain, I think Kim Shiga is a
(22:35):
really great winter stew to make.
Mm-hmm.
So why don't you just do a really simplewalkthrough of how you make Kim Shige?
Bruce (22:42):
You wanna take a heavy small pan, like something you
would make a soup or a stew in.
And it's not too big 'cause you don'treally make giant batches of this,
like a two quart or one quart pot.
And I put a little sesame oilin the bottom and I know people
say, don't saute with sesame oil,but I'd like it for this dish.
And I put in a ton of freshginger and onion, raw, raw onion.
(23:02):
Raw, raw, sliced onion.
And I just, just let it start sizzling.
You don't really wantto cook it very much.
And then you.
Dump in a ton of fresh kimchi.
Chop it up so that it's alittle easier to deal with.
Mm-hmm.
Put in some sliced pork belly,and then you're going to
cover that with some broth.
Now you can use chicken broth.
You can use vegetable broth.
Traditionally, I would like to flavorthat broth with some dried anchovies.
(23:26):
If you don't have those, you canget something called Handi in an
Asian market, which is a Japanesedashi powder, and that'll give
you that slight fish flavor to it.
You be really careful with it.
Just put a teaspoon, tiny little bits inwith your chicken broth, and then you have
to put a little sweetener, so sometimesa little brown sugar, a little corn
syrup works, and then the chili flakes.
(23:48):
You need chili flakes,gochugaru, gochugaru, and then
the pork belly, as I said,
Mark (23:54):
go is a think about red.
Uh, pepper Flakes, you know,the, that, that you put on pizza.
Mm-hmm.
But they're not, this is a Koreanversion that's kind of like that.
It's a coarsely, ground dried red pepper.
It is hot.
I will use two tablespoons fora quart sized pot for us and.
I have watched many at this point of acooking video of people making kimchi
(24:18):
shiga online, and I see them put whatcould only be a half cob, three quarters
of a cob of the, it's really hot.
It's really hot.
We don't.
Quite go that hot, but, and
Bruce (24:31):
once it comes to a simmer, you're gonna let that simmer away
for about 40 minutes until the porkbelly is tender about halfway through.
I'm gonna open it and I'mgonna put tofu on the top.
You can use a firm tofu.
A soft tofu.
I like to use silk and tofubecause that's really good.
And if I'm using.
Silicon.
I put it in closer to theend just to warm it up.
(24:51):
'cause I don't want it to break apart.
We tend not to put the egg init when we have it at home.
Right.
But you can put the eggin it and that's it.
So it's the kimchi, the onions,the sesame oil, and that's it.
The fishy broth.
It's the, I notice thatthe writer has to fun of.
Mark (25:06):
That's it, because like that's it.
I'm sorry.
That's not just, that's it.
Okay.
Bruce (25:10):
Well if you wanna really go, that's it.
The sweetener traditionally inKorean food would be rice syrup.
Okay.
So anyway.
Mark (25:16):
Yeah, that's it.
And I have to say that we, uh, Bruceoften makes, uh, Kim Suge in a totally
non-traditional way, and he makes itinstead a pork belly with beef oxtails.
And in fact, the Korean manwho kind of got us on the jag
of Korean barbecue, fantastic.
Actually ate Bruce's oxtail,Kim Shige, and he was rather
(25:40):
speechless about the whole thing.
It's not that he didn't like it, hejust, it was like he couldn't process it.
He didn't
Bruce (25:45):
know he, that's
one of the things I've discoveredabout a lot of Korean food.
The dishes are very.
Set.
Like this dish has theseingredients, right?
And this dish has these ingredients,and once you switch out one ingredient,
it's like traditionalists will go.
I don't even know what that dish is now.
I don't recognize it.
Mark (26:01):
Well, I, yeah, I, I don't know that that's a, that that's,
uh, necessarily a Korean thing.
I think that, oh no, I thinkthat comes with a lot of things.
That's a French thing.
Mm-hmm.
That's.
It's the Jewish grandmother thing.
That's, that's, oh my gosh.
So I, I'm totally off Korean for aminute, but I just wanna say that when,
uh, years ago we wrote the UltimateCookbook, which was 900 recipes,
(26:22):
his first giant book we ever wrote.
And, um, it kind of representedtotally still represents the way
Bruce cooks on an everyday basis.
900 recipes is a huge,huge encyclopedia book.
And, um, we said we write this book.
And it got of course reviews.
And this one reviewer, his comment was outof 900 recipes, he made a big deal that
(26:48):
Bruce put garlic powder in matza balls.
And it was this whole thing about matzaballs do not have garlic powder in them.
And it, it, it, it's back to that, youknow, there is a way to make matza balls
and it's the way I grew up making it.
And that's the end of the matter
Bruce (27:05):
in my defense.
If you look at the ingredientlist on the box of Manus
Chitz, matza bowl mix, I, yeah,
Mark (27:10):
I know.
Garlic powder.
I know, but I'm just saying thatthis is the way, I don't think it
has anything to do with Korean food.
This is the way thatstoried dishes get mm-hmm.
Set.
Mm-hmm.
In a kind of, and don't
Bruce (27:22):
change them.
Mark (27:22):
Right.
In a kind of cultural matrix.
It's really weird.
Like, for example, I think that a lotof us from the South have very set
ideas about what Hop and John is, what.
Cornbread is, I havewhat fried chicken is.
I have very set ideas about cornbreadand my ideas about cornbread.
And I grew up, as you may know,in Texas, and I grew up with mom,
(27:43):
who thought that putting sugarin things made you low class.
So I grew up withcornbread that did, had no.
Added sugar to it.
And still to this day, I can hearmy mother say, my now long gone
mother say about cornbread when shebites into it, Ooh, this is cake.
Meaning, well so much.
(28:04):
It has no sugar.
Meaning it has sugar in it,and she doesn't want any sugar.
Bruce (28:08):
How often have I bitten into a piece of cornbread
in a barbecue restaurant?
Oh, and it's so sweetand it's like dessert.
Wait a
Mark (28:14):
second.
This is like a polenta cake,but you didn't grow up with it.
And again, it's part ofwhat gets set in your head.
Like, like the Jewish matza ballsand soup and like mini Korean dishes.
These are storied dishesfrom people's past.
Mm-hmm.
And so when you take this St story dishand you add oxtails to it instead of pork
belly, it changes the whole thing around.
(28:35):
It did.
Bruce (28:35):
And boy did.
I love it.
Mark (28:36):
I do.
I actually love Kimwith, uh, oxtails in it.
I think it's really tasty.
so as we come to the end of this bitabout, uh, Korean food, is there any
Korean cookbook that you would recommendif somebody wanted to buy a cookbook
and figure out how to make it at home?
Bruce (28:51):
That's really a good question.
There's a brand new cookbookthat just came out this year and
it's actually up for some awards.
And it's called Uma, UMMA,which is mom in Korean.
It's called Uma, and it is all abouthome cooking and stories that this author
knows about from her mother and hergrandmother who taught her how to cook.
And the recipes are.
(29:12):
Just beautiful to look at and theingredients sound fabulous and I have
not cooked from me yet, but I have somany flag that I'm going to be making.
Mark (29:21):
So.
I hope that in saying all this, wehave inspired you to go out and find a
Korean restaurant to just experiment.
Maybe you wanna startwith Korean barbecue.
Maybe you wanna start witha Korean vegan restaurant.
Maybe you already know all there isto know about Korean food and you
want to, uh, tell us about that.
You can find us on theFacebook group cooking.
Bruce and Mark will post this episodeof the podcast and you can tell us
(29:44):
your favorite Korean dishes or your ownexperience the first time you ever had.
Korean food, or maybe you are Koreanand the best place where you live to
get Korean food beside your mom's house,the best place to go buy Korean food.
Before we get to the final segment,what's making us happy and food this week?
Let me just say that it would begreat if you could subscribe to this
podcast and if you could rate it,if you could give it a star rating.
(30:07):
Can I ask for five?
That would be nice.
And a review that helps in the,uh, algorithms and the analytics.
Thanks for doing that.
As you know, we are.
Unsupported.
We choose to be unsupported.
So it is the way that you canactually help support this podcast.
Thanks for doing that.
I know it's an extra step and Ihate making, uh, any requests for
(30:27):
extra steps, but there you go.
Thanks for doing that.
Okay.
As is traditional, we're gonnafinish off with what's making
us happy in food this week.
Bruce (30:38):
Crab apple hard cider.
Oh gosh.
You've heard me talk about hard ciderbeing one of my favorite things over
and over, but as Mark has said in aprevious episode, we have been recently
to the Finger Lakes and there are somany cries around these lakes there.
It is not only a wine producing region,it is a huge cider reproducing region
(30:58):
and increasingly cider reproducing.
We found some fabulous ones and webought a couple of big bottles of a.
Crab.
Apple cider.
Now
Mark (31:05):
I should say, when we say cider, we're talking about hard cider.
Hard cider
Bruce (31:08):
beer levels four to 5%.
Mm.
So good.
So we had that crab, applecider with burgers for dinner,
and it was spectacular.
Mark (31:15):
It was, it was really nice.
Yeah, it was really sourand it was really great.
Okay, so what's making mehappy in food this week?
It is a lemon tart that Bruce made, andI have to say that this is a really hard
thing for me to admit because I think Iam the master of the lemon meringue pie.
But Bruce made a lemon tart recently,and you made it with a thicker crust.
(31:37):
So it was much more cookie like, andthen he put a lemon card on top of it
and he put an Italian meringue, whichis a cooked meringue on top of that.
So it's a marshmallowy sticky meringue.
I do the french meringue, thetraditional American lemon meringue
pie, where it's the French meringue.
It's really light and high.
His was much more marshmallowyand his lemon tar was spectacular.
I ate way too much of it.
(31:58):
Mm-hmm.
It was really good and it's reallyhard for me to give any creds to any
Lemon Tart except my own Lemon R pie,which you do quite well, and which I
got the recipe from my grandmother.
So I am, uh, I'm really given a hugekudos here, uh, because I think that it
was just this spectacular Lemon Tart, andit's not only nice occasionally to have a
(32:18):
dessert that kind of blows your mind, so.
Hmm.
Thank you.
That was really nice andit made me very happy.
Alright, that's the podcast for this week.
Thanks for listening to it.
Thanks for being part ofour podcast community.
Thanks for being on this Foodand Cooking journey with us.
We appreciate you more than you can know,and we appreciate your being here with us
Bruce (32:37):
more than you can know.
And as Mark said, please subscribe soyou don't miss a single episode when
we talk about Korean food, Chinesefood, Japanese food, and all the
foods that we are passionate abouthere on cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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