A Korean Fish Dish

Mrs. You is a chef and owner of Korea House restaurant in Portland, Maine. She was so nice to share with us how to cook her favorite dish from South Korea. It's called galchi jo rim. Now, personally I find cooking this food a little scary because there are a lot of new ingredients (galchi fish?) and processes (fermentation). While we wait for some Korean company to fly me over there to familiarize us about how to ferment beans into a delicious paste, we'll just have to be brave, get some stuff in a bottle, and go for it. If I get really nervous I might not be able to resist asking, "What would You do?" Click at right for all the juicy details.

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Spicy Korean fish with vegetables

Galchi jo rim

As Kum You from Yeosu-si, South Korea, taught Lindsay Sterling

in Portland, ME, October 2010

Cooking time: 30 min

Serves 4

¼ cup soy sauce

¾ cup water

1 tsp garlic minced

1 tsp honey

3 tbsp Korean hot pepper*

1-2 Tbsp sesame seed

12 segments of galchi fish*

1-2 daikon radish, cut into ½ inch half-circles*

4 green onions, minced

4 small zucchini, cut into ½ inch half-circles

4 jalepenos, cut diagonally into 1/4" thick rounds

Mix together sauce ingredients: soy sauce, garlic, water, green onion, hot pepper, honey, Korean hot pepper, and sesame seeds. In a medium pot, place radish pieces down first, fish pieces on top of that (so they don’t stick!) and pour sauce over. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer. When you start to smell the fish cooking, add green onion jalepheno pepper, zuccini, and spoon sauce on top but don’t mix. Cover and simmer until radish is no longer crunchy, 10-15 minutes.

Seaweed side dish with Korean hotsauce

Dehydrated wakame seeweed*

Hot fermented bean paste* (gochoujang)

Vinegar

Sugar

Soak seaweed in cold water. Boil more water in separate pot, add seaweed, cook just 5 seconds until pliable, but not wilted or mushy. Rinse with cold water and slice into chunks. Serve topped with Korean hot sauce. Mrs. You makes her secet family hot sauce with her grandmother's own fermented bean paste, but you can buy a similar base called gochoujang at the Korean market, and add a little vinegar and sugar to taste. It's also good I hear with just vinegar, or soy sauce.

*Where to Shop or What to Substitute!

Galchi fish: Known in English as cuttlassfish, hairtail, and beltfish, Trichiurus lepturus is found in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Mrs. You gets hers frozen at Sun Market (address below). If you fish, catch your own! See Florida Sportfishing’s post on how here: http://floridasportfishing.com/magazine/baitfish-profiles/ribbonfish-atlantic-cutlassfish.html. But here’s the thing: use any darn fish you want! I’m trying haddock tonight because it’s affordable and fresh around here. I bet bluefish would be really good because the flavor would be hold up well to all the spice. Shorten the cooking time if your fish is fresh.

Korean radish: also called Daikon raidish, it’s usually available at our major supermarket, Hannaford. I bet my local farmer’s gorgeous red radishes would work well thrown in whole (the daikon chunks were big and chunky anyway!) Asian markets will have this.

Wakame Seaweed: You can find the Wang brand that Mrs. You likes at Sun and other Asian markets. I have a call out to Maine Seaweed suppliers to see if we have a good, local substitute. Wakame is listed as one of the world's most invasive species so don't try to grow it - there's plenty in the world already! Maybe Environmental protection groups will pay for us to eat it up! The texture is slippery with a little crunch when cooked right, and the width of the leaves is about half of a lasagne noodle. The package is giant so you'll have plenty to throw in soups like miso.

Korean Hot Pepper: I’m still working on finding out what variety of pepper this is made from, and the process. It looks like the peppers are de-seeded, dried and coarsely ground. The bag I got (the kind Mrs. You used) is Wang brand from Sun Oriental Market. It's medium spice to my tongue. The point in this dish is spiciness; the color is red, and the texture is coursely ground. You could substitute any coursely ground dried red chili you have. I have Aleppo from Syria, but that’s still pretty far flung. If local is what you want, grow or get red chilis at a farmer’s market, dry them, deseed, and pulse in a coffee grinder.

Korean Hot sauce: Mrs. You called it Chou go chou jang. The owner of Sun market says Cho means vinegar, and gochoujang is fermented hot bean paste. While Mrs. You’s recipe is a family secret, you can buy the gochoujang at Sun Oriental and add vingar and sugar to taste.

My nearest Korean Market is Sun Oriental Market, (207) 772-8675, 626 Congress St, Portland, ME. To find a market near you, check this list by state: http://www.koreanfeast.com/korean_markets_in_the_us.htm

I need recipe testers! I'd love to hear from you! Please tell me how the recipe worked for you at lindsay@lindsaysterling.com

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010

See How To Do It

Korean spicy fish

galchi jo rim

First, she slices the daikon radish into thick chunks, and makes the sauce out of soy sauce, water, garlic, ground Korean hot pepper, and sesame seeds.

She prepped the rest of the veggies that will go into the dish: jalepenos and zucchini.

She layered in the pot the radish first, then the fish. She'll top this much with sauce and begin to cook, adding the other veggies once she can start smelling the fish cooking.

Here is a pic of what the package of fish looked like. She got it from the freezer at Sun Oriental Market (626 Congress St. Portland, ME, right next to Korea House restaurant). I hear you can get this at Korean markets all over the country.

In case you're a fisherman and want to catch your own. Here's what it looks like fresh. The fish common name of hairtail makes sense because it's tail gets as thin as a hair. Beltfish also makes sense because the fish is narrow and long like a belt! I don't know why others call it cutlassfish.

This is the Korean hot pepper - the secret to the spicy sauce in the fish dish.

This is what wakame seaweed (for the seaweed side salad) looks like dry. She soaks it, boils it for five seconds, slices it and then tops it with Korean hot sauce. Delicious!

Here is what the package looked like (she likes Wang brand) -- so long and huge! (She simply used scissors to cut as much as she wanted to use). I'll be also be using this in miso soup! It's known as one of the world's most invasive species, so please don't try to grow it here. I'll be hopefully hearing from some Maine seaweed farmers about some nice, local substitutes.

Here's the main dish - chunks of daikon radish showing on top, summer squash and jalapeno.

She served four banchan, sidedishes, with the fish dish. Clockwise from top: galchi jo rim, kimchi, fish cake stir fry, sesame-dressed soy sprouts, seaweed salad.

Me in heaven, eating seaweed salad dressed with a 700-year-old family secret!

Thank you Tiffany Converse Photography. (All the beautiful photos are hers. Mine are the mundane but informational ones) Please ask permission to use. lindsay@lindsaysterling.com

The Story

Korean Hot Sauce Puts Out Nuclear Bomb

By Lindsay Sterling

Two weeks ago if someone had asked to play word association, starting with the word “Korea,” I would have said: “Nuclear bomb.” I know this isn’t fair to almost all Koreans, who don’t know squat about enriching uranium. So walking towards Korea House restaurant on Congress St. two blocks from Longfellow Square, I was glad. Cooking with people from other countries (in this case chef-owners Mr. and Mrs. You from South Korea) always rights my world. Now, you say, Korea; I say: amazing spicy fish dish with seaweed salad and secret hot sauce. Ah! Much better!

My news-induced nightmares were quickly overtaken by the image of a 109-year-old woman in Yeosu-si, South Korea, fermenting secret ingredients in 500 stoneware pots that have been producing her family’s sauces for 700 years. This woman is Mrs. You’s grandmother, and the person who taught Mrs. You how to cook. Mrs. You remembers her fist pot of rice, cooked on a wood fire, when she was about nine years old. The bottom was burned, the middle was watery, and the top not cooked. Grandma laughed and said, “You are a lady. You are supposed to know how to cook!”

“But Grandma,” the girl said, “This is my first time!”

“Step by step,” Grandma said, “you learn from me.”

For a decade, she did. Then Mrs. You came to the U.S. to go to college in San Jose, California, where she met her future husband and restaurant partner, also from South Korea. They cooked in Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants in Los Angeles, Anchorage and Seattle before getting a call from Mr. You’s sister, who was living in Portland, Maine, and running Sun Oriental Market, supplying Portland’s estimated 1000 Koreans with their favorite ingredients from home. She told Mr. You essentially: the restaurant next door’s for sale! You should buy it! In 2008, the You’s bought Happy Teriyaki and this October, re-opened it as Korea House. For the first time in their lives, their restaurant’s menu is entirely Korean.

Well, if I may send a message in a bottle to Korea.... Grandma, good job teaching Mrs. You how to cook! She just taught me how to make Galchi jo rim. The galchi fish was strong, the sauce spicy hot, the braised daikon radish just delectable, and the jalapeno rounds, really quite astonishing for their shock of spice amid the already spicy sauce. The fish had more bones in it than I was accustomed to. I know you won’t believe this, but fisherman from Boston to Texas use galchi (called beltfish here) for bait! We’re so intolerant of bones here! We eat too fast, too, so maybe this galchi fish might be just what we need to slow the heck down!

My favorite thing on the table was the slippery seaweed salad topped with Korean hot sauce, Chou Go Chou Jang. When I asked your granddaughter what’s in it, I think you will be happy to know, she said “Big Sea Quid.” I was thinking sea squid...some kind of sea creature...but no. She was saying, “Big Secret.” 700 years old. Only given to family. Usually, I think secrets are up to no good. But this one I find beautiful, like a grandmother’s ring passed down, something to be treasured, honored, and not flung into a crowd.

Korea House, 630 Congress Street, Portland, ME. 207-771-2000

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010

An Iraqi Family Meal

Cool. You can wrap dolmas with grape leaves, onion skins, and swiss chard. Get the full story, recipes and photos at the links to the right.

photo: Tiffany Converse Photography

Print the Recipes

An Iraqi Family Menu

Serves 12-15

total cooking time: 4 hours

Red Lentil Soup

Iraqi Dolmas

Fattoush salad

Eggplant in red sauce

As a woman from Baghdad, Iraq, taught Lindsay Sterling in Portland, Maine, October 2011.

Dolmas

Active time: 2 hours

Total time: 4 hours

1 16 oz jar of grape leaves

and/or: fresh chard leaves, de-stemmed and dipped in boiling water

red onion skins, boiled for 5 minutes

white onion skins, boiled for 5 minutes

2 lbs beef or lamb minced

1 cup uncooked Basmati rice

¾ cup tomato sauce

2 Tbsp tomato paste

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp dried lemon (available in middle-eastern markets)

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp cloves

½ tsp nutmeg

½ tsp coriander

½ tsp cinnamon

½ cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

2/3 cup Canola oil

4-5 carrots, peeled

water

Drain grape leaves. Rinse in fresh water. Boil for 10 minutes in water to soften. Peel and slice carrots into planks and line bottom of the pot (prevents dolmas from sticking). Soak rice in hot water for ten minutes and drain. In a large bowl, combine rice, beef, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and all spices. Place each grape leaf vein-side up so that smooth side is on the outside of each roll. Cut off any stem. Place 1 Tbsp of the mixture on leaf near the stem end. Roll top over once, fold ends in, and continue to roll away from you. Repeat with remaining leaves. Arrange rolled grape leaves in a pot, seam side down, tightly packed. Place each layer in opposite direction of previous layer, in a criss-cross fashion. For even cooking, try to have no more than 4 layers. Combine lemon juice and oil and pour over grape leaves. Top with water until approximately 1” below top layer. Place large plate on top, and a heavy weight on plate (a foil-wrapped brick works great). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 1 hour and 15 minutes until rice is thoroughly cooked. Allow to rest for 20-30 minutes. To remove from pan, get serving platter out, drain off any remaining liquid if any, remove plate from pot, and turn over pot onto platter in one fluid motion so the packed dolmas sit like an overturned cake on the platter.

Red Lentil Soup

Active time: 1 ½ hrs

14 oz red lentils

10 cups water

1 whole onion, de-skinned

1 or 2 carrots, peeled

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 potato, peeled

juice form ½ lemon

(or citric acid)

½ cup chopped cilantro

1 Tbsp salt

4 cloves garlic

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric

Rinse lentils and soak in water. Make a quick vegetable broth by bringing to a boil and simmering for 30 minutes: 10 cups water, celery, carrot, whole onion and potato (you don’t even have to chop these if you have a blender to finish the soup) and salt. After 30 minutes is up, drain lentils and add to soup. Bring to a boil and reduce heat and cover, cooking until lentils lose their definition about 40 minutes. While you wait, in a small frying pan, saute garlic in a little olive oil with cumin, paprika and turmeric, stirring constantly until cooked by not browning. Remove from heat. Once lentils are cooked, add spice mixture, lemon juice, cilantro. Puree with hand blender, leaving some texture. Taste soup and add salt, hot pepper, and citric acid (called lemon salt or LEYmone DUZie in middle-eastern markets, all to taste.

Eggplant in tomato sauce

Tepsi Baytinijan

2 large eggplants

2 large tomatoes

1 large onion

6 cloves garlic

¾ lb ground beef

2 medium potatoes

3 tablespoons tomato paste

pepper

salt

corn oil

1. Peel eggplant in wide stripes and cut off stem. Slice eggplant in circular pieces (not lengthwise) about 1 inch thick, and put it in salty water.

2. Peel and slice the potatoes in 1 inch thick round slices, set aside. Slice the onions same way. Peel the garlic and crush it useing one o those little garlic contraptions. Slice the tomatoes.

3. Heat about ½ cup oil in a non-stick pan. Take eggplant slices out of water, drain on paper towel, then fry until each piece is light golden. In the same oil lightly fry th epotoate. They don’t have to cook all the way. Set aside. In the same pan, fry the onion and set aside. Drain the fried pieces on some paper towels.

4. Mix the ground beef, half the crushed garlic, salt and pepper to taste. Make small meatballs and fry them. Set aside.

5. Mix about 2 ½ cups of water with 3 tablespoons of tomato paste, the remainder of the crushed garlic, salt (about 3 teastpoons), and pepper (preferably white pepper) and set aside.

6. Inside the cake pan/baking dish, arrange the eggplant pieces all touching each other and layered if necessary. On top of th eeggplant, arrange the potato slices, then the onion, then the slices of tomato on top (these aren’t fried). Arrange the meatballs in between the tomato slices. Pour the tomato paste mixture on top of all this.

7. Cook this “tepsi” on stovetop for 40 minutes on medium, covering the top with a lid or steel tray and allowing it to simmer and bubble until tomato sauce thickens, or stick in the oven for about an hour – careful to not let it dry or burn.

8. Serve with Basmati or ‘Ammbar’ rice.

Fattoush Salad

Cooking time: 15 min

2 cups romaine lettuce, torn

2 tomato

2 small cucumbers, peeled

1 green pepper, or combo of green, orange, and yellow

3 green onions, minced

15 mint leaves chopped roughly

¼ cup parsley chopped roughly

1-2 cups pita bread, toasted until crispy and broken in pieces

Classic Lemon Vinaigrette:

¼ cup lemon juice

¼ cup olive oil

salt to taste

1-2 Tbsp sumac

pinch Aleppo pepper

Cut vegetables into bite size pieces and put into large bowl. Toast or dry pita in oven. Prepare dressing and toss all together. Decorate edge of serving plate with lettuce leaves and lemon slices.

Recipes courtesy of the Iraqi woman and Catholic Charities Maine Refugee & Immigration Services. Thank you!

Where to get spices

Lemon salt (Citric Acid), sumac, grape leaves, dried lemon, red lentils, and if you're lucky aleppo and great handmade Iraqi bread to go with the soup can be found

In Maine: Ahram Halal Grocery 630 Forest Ave., Portland, ME 04103 207-772-9464.

In MA: Sevans, 599 Mt. Auburn St. Watertown, MA, 617-924-3243

Arax Market, 585 Mt. Auburn St., Watertown, MA, 617-924-3399

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010

See How to Do It

An Iraqi Family Meal

Thank you Tiffany Converse Photography

The Story

Sumac and Citric Acid

Cooking classes taught by refugees give the real scoop.

By Lindsay Sterling

The kitchen of St. Pius X Church at the north corner of Payson Park (429 Ocean Ave., Portland, ME) was particularly steamy on the unusually hot night of October 1st. Forty people were inaugurating a new international cooking class series taught by refugees, a project of the Catholic Charities Maine Refugee & Immigration Services. The head cook was a woman from Iraq. She’d been an architect there, working for the U.S. government in reconfiguring Saddam Hussein’s palaces for new uses, but had to flee because her colleagues and their families were being kidnapped and killed. She’d lost one baby. She had two children left. She’d barely survived losing blood for 7 hours after an explosion. It was time to leave.

The steam erupting out of large silver pots and the general hustle required in feeding forty with culinary commentary (in a second language!) had her repositioning her scarf again and again behind her shoulders. It’s hard to say, with four wonderful dishes and all the secrets behind them revealed to me throughout the night, what my favorite part was, but I think it’s that there was a Muslim woman in a Catholic church teaching a cooking lesson, and no one had any bones about it. The next day, I mentioned this to the cook and she said, “Since we are believing in the same thing, many kindness in charities and helping people, I don’t feel there is much difference: Christian, Muslim. The main thing is teaching people to help other people, each one support another people.”

In the kitchen ten students were helping her by dicing tomatoes, picking the leaves off parsley stems, and cutting bell peppers into chunks. “Like this?” one man asked pointing his pile of fresh mint leaves. They were preparing fattoush, a fresh, crunchy, incredibly colorful salad, which would also include romaine lettuce, shredded carrot, chunks of cucumber, green onion, toasted crunchy pita, a dressing of equal parts lemon juice and olive oil, and a special spice called sumac.

When the red lentil soup was being served, I sat next to a young girl from Iraq. She had black hair, dark eyes, and lashes that beauty magazines advertise. Just 9 years old, she’d been the assistant cook, helping to roll 120 dolmas. She’d used grape leaves as wrappers, but also boiled red and yellow onion skins, and chard leaves de-stemmed and dipped in hot water. As the head cook called for spices in Arabic, the young girl presented them to the audience to smell and see up close. Sumac smells like classic BBQ sauce, and adds tang, in dried spice form, that’s about half the power of cranberry. Citric acid looks like bright white course salt. It was responsible for the subtle tang in the soup.

What did the Iraqi girl miss most about Iraq? “Family,” she answered. She left behind aunts and uncles and a whole bunch of cousins who she might never see again. She missed her bigger house and flower garden of irises and roses. But she didn’t miss having to find her way home on foot after her school bus stopped behind a bomb explosion or being startled in the middle of the night by gunshots and hiding in her mother’s room. I asked her what the most amazing thing here was. “In Iraq,” she answered, “there is fighting. The breeze comes with dust. Here, the breeze is clean.”

The next cooking class, Nov. 5, 5:30-7:30pm, features a Rwandan cook. To sign up call Mary Gordon at 797-7026 ext. 211.

copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010