‘New’ Asian on the Block

Korean, the next emerging cuisine, shares ingredients with its southern neighbors but has a style all its own.

In the past couple of years, while virtually everyone in non-commercial foodservice has been touting the merits of Asian street foods of China, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore, a northern Asian cuisine has quietly become perhaps the hottest cuisine on the planet.

On the restaurant scene, at least, Korean is being recognized as the emerging Asian cuisine, and history has taught us that what your customers fancy from restaurants they often begin to clamor for in your operations.

At our MenuDirections conference next March, Korean will be one of the cuisines featured in our popular culinary workshops. This month, FSD provides operators with a quick primer on Korean cuisine and what you need to know to begin to work foods from this nation into your menus.

Healthy and varietal: There are two basic hallmarks of Korean food. First, it is a healthy cuisine. Second—and amazingly, given the relatively small size of the country—it is a very diverse and varied cuisine in two ways: first, because of the wide variety of dishes that can make up a meal, and second, because the country is divided into several regions, each with its own peculiarities.

This variety occurs for two main reasons. First, Korea has a spring, summer, fall and winter, so there is a seasonality to foods. Second, as an agricultural nation with a seacoast, there are fruits of the sea as well as land-based mammals to offer protein in the Korean diet.

Like most Asian cuisines, rice, or bap, is the center of Korean food. Meat, often marinated and grilled, is another important element. But the wide variety of vegetables, pickled or seasoned, are what help give Korean food its reputation as healthy. These basic ingredients are combined in a number of interesting ways to create the many dishes that make up true Korean cuisine.

The most important thing to remember about Korean food is that items are seldom eaten by themselves. Korean food gets its complexity from the marrying of several types of food into one or more dishes. Side dishes are numerous at Korean meals. Called panchan, they can include small dishes of pickled vegetables brought at the beginning of the meal or sides brought with the main dish.

The following are some of the basic dishes of Korean cuisine.

Bibimbap: Bibimbap is a meal in a bowl. As a matter of fact, the word means “mixed cooked rice.” It is made with either hot or cold rice mixed with a variety of meat, vegetables and egg, often flavored with a spoon of red pepper paste. There are many stories about why bibimbap was created. One of the stories says it was a way to serve workers a complete meal while they worked or as a way to use leftovers.

Kimchi: Of all Korean foods, kimchi is perhaps the most well known. Kimchi is a potent, fermented food in which Korean cabbage or radish is mixed with spicy vegetables and condiments such as red pepper powder or salted fish. The word kimchi comes from chimchae, which means to soak vegetables in salted water. A staple at all Korean meals, Kimchi was created to help Koreans get through the winter months when food was scarce. Fans of M-A-S-H may remember the episode in which Major Frank Burns, seeing the locals burying a pot, thought they were setting a land mine. In fact, they were placing a kimchi pot.

Bulgogi: One of the favorite foods of Koreans is bulgogi, marinated and grilled or roasted meats. Most often, bulgogi refers to beef, although there is also chicken and pork bulgogi. Bulgogi originated as a way to prepare meats quickly and economically. Marinating the meat and slicing it thinly before cooking not only allowed for faster cooking, it also gave poorer Koreans the ability to cook cheap cuts of meat in a way that made them more tender and flavorful. The marinade typically consists of some combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sugar and pepper, along with other seasonings. One way to eat bulgogi is with ssam, a lettuce or leafy vegetable wrapping. You place the meat and kimchi on the leaf, add soybean paste and wrap it up into a handheld dish.

Japchae: Rice may be a Korean staple, but cellophane or sweet potato noodles are also popular, particularly in dishes like japchae. In japchae, noodles are stir-fried with vegetables such as thinly sliced cucumber, radish, bean sprouts and balloonflowers, a type of mushroom. The name comes from jap, which means a mixture, and chae, which means vegetables. The mixture is often seasoned with soy sauce and sugar, chilies and sesame seeds.

Samgyetang: Samgyetang is a summer favorite in Korea. It is made by wrapping glutinous rice, ginseng, garlic and jujube, or red dates, in an edible cloth, placing it into the body of a chicken and then boiling it fully. It is considered an excellent food for the hot summer months, providing stamina and a variety of nutrients. Samgyetang is also believed to have medicinal benefits.

Sinseollo: Sinseollo is a kind of soup or stew made by placing a variety of ingredients into a metal pot, adding broth and then bringing the mixture to a boil. There is no one main ingredient to sinseollo; rather, it is the blend of ingredients that gives the dish its uniqueness. Sinseollo is a community food; the pot can be set on the table at a continuous boil while diners remove items from the pot as they eat. The name comes the legend of a Korean politician who fled oppression and became a recluse. He created the pot as a way to cook his daily meal; sinseollo means “fire pot used by a hermit.”

Ttuk-hangwa: Rice cakes are anoth­er popular food. There are four types of ttuk-hangwa: steamed, pounded, boiled and pan-fried. All involve grinding rice or glutinous rice into a powder and mixing it with water and other ingredients such as other grains, beans, fruits and nuts. Rice cakes will vary not only by cooking method but also by flavor and ingredients, based on the seasonality of the foods being added.

For more details on adding Korean foods to your menu, join FSD for MenuDirections 2010, March 21-23, in Miami. More information can be found at foodservicedirector.com/menudirections