Apr 07 2012
2 Comments
dessert, juche, love

Not Knowing What Else to Do, Juche Vegan Bakes a North Korean Rocket Cake

Rejoice, Dear Readers! Dear Author is back, and she made you a cake.   If you are sufficiently cynical and media-savvy,  you may have noticed that the headline was “inspired” by one of my favorite articles ever from The Onion.   With all this talk about the possible upcoming launch of the “Satellite of Love,” I said to myself  ”What can I do as a food blogger to memorialize this epic, yet controversial event?”    I half-jokingly posted a comment on the An American in North Korea blog about making a spaceship cake, but just as soon as I wrote it, I realized that it was actually a really awesome idea.   I mean, they even make cake pans shaped like spaceships, presumably for the birthday parties of little boys who want to be astronauts when they grow up.   But when I looked up pictures of actual North Korean rockets, I found this (image via AP):

So instead of a kiddie spaceship cake, I decided to go with something a little more “grown up.”  It also gives new meaning to the phrase “Satellite of Love.”  I do wish to keep this site PG-rated, so I will just say that I used a “bachelorette party cake pan.”    But unlike that horrible bridesmaid dress, you can use it again.   Really.   If you want to create your very own masterpiece, you will need to get quite a few special ingredients and kitchen toys.   I put some of them in my amazon store.  In addition to the slightly naughty cake pan, you will also need food coloring and a cake decorating bag with tips.  You can make your frosting in its “natural” color if you prefer, but it stands out more if you use opaque white coloring to make your icing a bright white.   You will also need the following colors: red, yellow, and black (for the “smoke”).    If you have never written words on a cake in hangul, or in any language ever, a little practice can’t hurt.    I did a few test runs with some ketchup before attempting it on the cake.   If you are a cake decorating geek, I will tell you I used a Wilton #5 tip.

Here are the full recipes and instructions for the cake and frosting.   Illustrations of certain steps appear at the end.

Basic “Buddercream” Frosting
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup vegan buttery spread (“budder”)
3 3/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract (preferably clear)
1/4 cup soy or rice milk
2 tablespoons white icing color
black, red, and yellow food coloring
1.In a food processor, mix the coconut oil and budder until smooth.
2. Add the confectioner’s sugar and pulse until it is blended in with the oil and budder.
3. Add the vanilla extract and soy milk and pulse until smooth.
4.  Remove about 1/3 of the frosting from the food processor and set it aside, add the white icing color to the remaining 2/3 of the mixture and pulse until the frosting is a brilliant white.
5.  Split the frosting you took out into three small batches.  Dye them red, a bright, flame-colored orange-yellow and black.
6. For the gray frosting, take the black batch then mix in a heaping spoonful of the bright white frosting.   Don’t overmix because you actually want the color to vary a little.
7.  Place the all of the colored frosting in the refrigerator overnight before applying it to the cake.
White Cake
 wet
1 cup water
2 tablespoons budder, melted
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (preferably clear)
dry
2 1/4 cups flour, sifted
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
foam
1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix the wet and dry ingredients in separate mixing bowls.
3. Mix the “foam” ingredients in a small prep bowl and stir until frothy.
4. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix with a spatula until blended (but just a little lumpy).  Pour the “foam” over the batter and gently fold it in.

5.  Lubricate your pan (pun totally intended) with canola oil or budder and pour the batter into the pan.

6. Bake in the oven at  350F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

7. Cool on a rack for a few hours or overnight before removing the cake from the pan.

8. Once your cake and frosting are ready, start by coating the top portion of the rocket with the white icing and level it until smooth.

9.  Take the remaining white icing and mix it with a heaping tablespoon of your grey icing.   Add a little soy milk if it is too thick.

10. Coat the bottom of the cake (other than immediately below the rocket, which is where the flame will go) with the light grey icing.

11.  Take the darker grey icing and apply small amounts of it over the light grey icing, then use a spoon or spatula to swirl the icing in circular motions to look like clouds of smoke.

12.  Put your yellow icing in a decorating bag fit the bag with a wider tip (I used Wilton #48).   Start at the base of the rocket and pipe yelllow lines in downward strokes.

13.  Put the red icing in decorating bag fit with a small tip (as in my practice session, I used Wilton #5),  pipe vertical lines onto the rocket and the characters for “조선” in red.

14.   Take lots of pictures before you cut the cake, because really, how many times in your life are you going to bake a North Korean rocket cake??

 

And now, I give you some photographic highlights from “The Making of the Satellite of Love Cake”:

Wet, dry and “foam” ingredients ready to go:

The finished batter:

Into the oven it goes:

Out of the oven and waiting to cool down:

Mixing the frosting:

The food coloring:

Yellow for the flame:

Red for the “조선” letters:

Grey for the smoke:

Ready to spend the night in the fridge:

A little “snip snip” to make sure the cake lies flat:

Turned over and mounted on a foil background:

Mixing the light smoke frosting:

After the application of the white and light grey frosting, with dark grey waiting in the wings:

Dark grey smoky swirls.  See, it’s looking less and less like a “bachelorette party cake,” right?:

Last step before hangul- the eternal flame:

And there you have it.    Now if the DPRK actually goes through with the launch, you know what to serve to your comrades for the celebratory party.

Let them eat cake!!

Dear Author

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Mar 06 2012
2 Comments
banchan, kimchi

Omija Kimchi and the Next Superberry Craze

Hello again Dear Readers! As promised, I am back bearing food. This time it’s the Korean classic kimchi with a little bit of a twist. One of the first things I learned about North Korean food before I even started this blog is that the food is less spicy in the North. I read about baek kimchi, or white kimchi, the non-spicy version made without red pepper powder. More recently, I saw a piece on Korean temple cuisine in which the white kimchi was naturally dyed pink. Since I just got a bag of omija (오미자) for the Kimjongilia jellies, I decided to use the omija water to dye a batch of white kimchi. So I didn’t get the recipe from a proper Choson cookbook, but omija are indeed grown in North Korea. I even found a website where you can buy omija products from the DPRK, but I haven’t figured out how to get them to New York, or whether the government of my beloved motherland would even let them through customs.

As I have mentioned before, omija berries are pretty hard to come by. Two months ago, I had never even heard of them.   I couldn’t even find them when I looked on 32nd Street, and I had to go all the way to New Jersey to get my first batch.   I think they could really be the next superberry, but they have a bit of a branding problem to overcome.  It’s all about the name.  What they really need to do is drop the tongue-twisting schisandra chinesis and use the stage name of “omija.”  Just the one name.  It sounds so pretty it could almost be a celebrity baby name.  Suri, get ready for your new little sister.

But still, I am mostly serious. I mean, if we can welcome words like wasabi and sriracha into our culinary lexicon, why not omija? It would not be the first health food berry to benefit from an image makeover. It’s pretty well known by now that Chilean sea bass made its humble start as Patagonian toothfish.   But did you know that goji berries are really just wolfberries?  I guess they did a focus group and realized that people won’t spend seven bucks on something called “healing wolfberry energy drink.”  Goji just sounds more mysterious.  But goji berries aren’t the only red beauties on the block. As you can already see from my very first cover girl, omija produces a gorgeous pink color without scary food coloring. There is no reason that omija products should not be gracing grocery shelves everywhere. And you heard it here first.

Omija Kimchi (오미자김치)

1 head Napa cabbage

1/2 cup coarse sea salt

1/4 cup dried omija berries

1 Asian pear

1/2 Korean dongchimi radish (동지미무) (or 1/2 pound of radish)

3 scalions

3 cloves garlic

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

2 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons fine salt

Day 0

1. To prepare the omija water, measure out the dried omija berries and soak them in 3 cups of water overnight.

2. To brine the cabbage, cut the head of cabbage in half and rinse in cold water.  In a large mixing bowl, pull the cabbage leaves apart and rub sea salt on the leaves. When you are finished, press the leaves together again and completely submerge the cabbage halves in water.   Seal in a plastic container and let it sit overnight at room temperature.

Day 1

1. Strain the omija berries out of the water and set the water aside.  If you dont want to waste the berries, you can take a small amount of the water and boil them down to make a concentrated liquid to flavor jellies or drinks.

2. As for the cabbage, it should be nice and soft by now. Take the halves out of the brine and gently rinse them. Put them aside while you work on the filling.

3. Chop the Asian pear and radish into matchstick slices (or use the shredder setting on your food processor).

4. Cut the scallions into 2-inch long pieces and then cut them in several pieces lengthwise.

5. Mince the garlic and ginger.

6.  In a large mixing bowl, mix the pear and vegetables with the sugar and salt.

7.  Get out the cabbage halves and fan out the leaves.

8. Place the stuffing in between the cabbage leaves and then fold the cabbage halves back together.   Place them in a plastic container.

9.  Pour the omija water over the cabbage halves until they are completely submerged.   Close the container and let sit at room temperature for 1-2 days.

The resulting kimchi should be refreshing and come out a subtle, light pink.  I suppose you could also make the color more intense by boiling down the berries and pouring the concentrate over the kimchi.   Next time….  But until then, enjoy!

Dear Author

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Feb 28 2012
2 Comments
Choson-mal, Hangul

Basic Choson-mal for Food Bloggers

Greetings Dear Readers!  I don’t have a new recipe yet but my first North Korean language book arrived and I just had to write about it.   It turns out that tracking down North Korean language materials is even harder than finding recipes.    There is obviously  not a whole lot out there about North Korean food in English, but there is a fair amount of information available in Korean.   Not long after I decided to start this blog, I went on the Aladin USA website and immediately found two books with North Korean recipes.   One of them (북한사찰음식, the one on the left side of the cover photo) is even vegan!   The other side of the cover photo is a story on naengmyeon from the food magazine ESSEN (the inspiration for my own naengmyeon photo shoot).   So far most of my materials on North Korean food have actually come from South Korea.   Which is not surprising, given that it is much easier to find things on their websites and buy books online.  Getting North Korean recipes from the DPRK has been a little harder, but I did find a decent starter collection at  ryugyongclip.com.  But at that point it became apparent that I would have to learn a little more about the North Korean language.   I don’t necessarily need a perfect Pyongyang accent, but to the extent that the food-related words are not the same, I kind of need to know those things.

For example, the Korean language as used in North Korea has different spelling rules from the South.   We encountered this in the last post with  naengmyeon and raengmyon.   But the word for cooking is also different- the South Korean yori (요리)  is ryori (료리)  in the North.   That means if you want to do a search for cooking, you should probably run both versions to get the maximum amount of results.   It may sound like a pain but I actually kind of like the difference in spelling because it makes it easier to find recipes that are really from the DPRK.   Let me explain- do you oldsters out there remember the episode of “Friends” where Joey tells Rachel “Go to China, eat Chinese food” and Chandler points out that “Of course there, they just call it food.”  Well, the North Koreans use different expressions to refer to their own food than the South Koreans.    My South korean cookbooks call it bukhanyori (북한요리) but in the DPRK it’s called Choson ryori (조선료리).

But there is kind of a cool trick you can do with search engines.    The word uri (우리) means “our” in both North and South Korea.    But if you do a search for uri ryori (우리료리) you know you are only getting results from North Korea because if it were South Korean it would be uri yori (우리요리).  Pretty neat, huh?  You might have realized by now that I’d be lost without search engines.   Especially the image search function.   Usually what I do when I don’t recognize an ingredient is type it in Google or Naver and then click on the image results.    This gets me further then relying on English translations, which are sometimes of absolutely no use at all:

The exotic “Ethnic Vegetable” in the photo above is chwi-namul (취나물), more commonly translated as aster scaber, which sounds kind of like a skin disease.   So I can almost understand why they chose a euphemism for the packaging.    As far as I know, the word chwi-namul is used in both the North and the South.  But finding out what foods are called in  the DPRK can be tricky without knowing the North Korean language, which they call Choson-mal (조선말).  It turns out, however, that it is virtually impossible for an English-speaking private citizen to learn Choson-mal from the ground up without using another language as a gateway.    The only person I found on the Internets who managed to do so is the teen blogger Brian on language.   Brian was nice enough to chat with me but graciously declined my offer to buy his materials (so much for capitalism).    I also found the website of a really cool Canadian program called the Pyongyang Project, which is running a summer program in Yanbian to teach students Choson-mal as spoken in Pyongyang.   And they  don’t require prior knowledge of standard Korean!    I wrote to them and asked if they would sell me their teaching materials, but they are not ready yet because this summer is the first session.  I am totally jealous of the kids who get to go.   But alas, my school days are over and there are mouths to feed, so I still needed to figure out a way to learn Choson-mal at home.

According to this presentation I dug up, the US government has North Korean dialect textbooks and is even making a dictionary, but they are not sharing with the masses.   Although they are nice enough to put their North Korean dialect lessons on the GLOSS and ANKDM sites.   But it seems that in my country, the only way to get quality Choson-mal instruction is to (1) learn standard Korean first and (2) become a diplomat, soldier or spy.   That’s so not happening.  I also find it kind of frustrating that the US government treats Choson-mal as a regional dialect as opposed to a distinct national language.  I mean, kids in North Korea don’t learn the Korean language spoken in Seoul and then delve into the subtle little differences.   If you wanted to teach a schoolboy the name of the vegetable that Dear Leader is looking at below, you would tell him “Dear Leader is looking at kangnengi (강냉이),”  not  ”He’s looking at oksusu (옥수수) but we call it  kangnengi (강냉이) in our dialect.”  That makes no sense, right?

So why should we be stuck learning that way when it is so inefficient? I would actually love to get my hands on some children’s books from the DPRK, especially the picture books of fruits and vegetables that they have in just about every other language.    The only thing I have been able to get so far is this book from Aladin about Pyongyang-mal.

So at the moment I am amusing myself with my new purchase and the stuff that the DoD was nice enough to put on the Interwebs.   GLOSS even has a lesson about the Okryugwan restaurant in Pyongyang.    I’ve also been playing with my new toy, the Korean keyboard stickers.   Even if you are a total beginner with hangul, it’s so much easier to type with the Korean cheat keys (with 2-set Korean as your keyboard setting).  There are also settings to type in Korean with roman characters but I confess I don’t know how to use any of them.   When I am away from my beloved Korean-stickered keyboard and want to type in hangul, I use a virtual keyboard.

Don’t worry, I am not going to be all professor all the time.   This is still an English language food blog.   But I did want to help my peeps who are with me in that awkward teenage stage of intermediate Korean, somewhere in the vast space between clueless and native speaker.  The good news is that all the toys we have these days make it easier to find what we want with less-than-perfect language skills.   If I haven’t already indicated that I am old by referencing 90′s TV, I will date myself even more by mentioning that when I studied Asian languages in college I didn’t even own a computer and my only typing lessons were a few hours in the language lab.   And I walked to class uphill in the snow, both ways.  But now we have cool stuff like blogger Chayanov in Pyongyang who has a list of  North Korean Language Resources and the DPRK Website search function at North Korea Tech.   Yay for technology!

So brush up your Choson-mal eat eat your ethnic vegetables, and I will be back soon with food.

Dear Author

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Feb 23 2012
4 Comments
naengmyeon, noodles

The Best Vegan Naengmyeon in America

Okay, so maybe I could have just called this post “Naengmyeon.”  But I am kind of liking these bold proclamations.   After all, when in Pyongyang…. Actually I really should be calling it Raengmyeon, because that is how they say it in North Korea.   But the South Korean spelling and romanization of naengmyeon (냉면) gets more web hits than raengmyeon (랭면), so naengmyeon it is.   It’s also the name of a hit song made popular by Jessica Jung of Girl’s Generation and Park Myeong-Soo (some wacky comedian).   If you watch talk shows, you have seen that  SNSD (as the Girls are called in Korea) have been making a splash in the states with Letterman and the ever-perky Kelly Ripa.    And they speak English very well.  They chose to make their U.S. debut with “The Boys,” a song in which they strut around looking all cute and sing-shouting about how much the boys want them.   Yeah, it’s catchy.    But for my money it doesn’t get any better than when Jessica sings “Naengmyeon.”   And if you watch the YouTube link ( which you just have to ) you can see the audience adorably fist-pumping and singing the words.  The fist-pump hasn’t looked that fresh to death since the very first season of Jersey Shore.

So that is why I spell 냉면 as Naengmyon in English.   If it’s good enough for SNSD, it’s good enough for our Dear Author, right?   It’s also how it’s written on this package of noodles, which came from (where else?) HMart.

Vegan Naengmyeon Broth Base

10 cups water
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 inch piece of ginger, chopped
2 scallions, coarsely chopped
1/2 pound of Korean radish (무 mu), daikon or white radish (this corresponds to half of the dongchimi-mu we saw earlier)
5 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 tablespoon vegetarian oyster mushroom sauce
2 teaspoons sweetener (rice syrup or agave nectar)
3 tablespoons rice vinegar or white vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce

1. Chop the radish into pieces about the same size as you did to make dongchimi.

2.  Put the radish, garlic, ginger, scallions, and mushrooms in a stockpot with the water.   Bring to a boil and let simmer for 30 minutes.

3.  Add the oyster mushroom sauce, rice syrup, vinegar, and soy sauce and let simmer for another 10 minutes.

4.  Strain out the vegetables and refrigerate overnight to cool.   If you aren’t going to use all of the broth in the next few days, put the rest in the freezer.

Vegan Naengmyeon 

(serves 2)

300 grams buckwheat noodles
1 1/3 cup broth (see above)
2/3 cup dongchimi brine
cucumber
asian pear
toasted sesame seeds

1.  Cook the buckwheat noodles according to the instructions on the package.   If you can’t find the Korean kind (which are thinner and softer), use Japanese soba.   Soba noodles take about 5 minutes to cook but the Korean ones only need to cook for 2 minutes.  When the cooking time is up, drain the noodles immediately and run them under cold water.   I also put ice cubes in the strainer.

2.  Measure out the dongchimi brine and broth base and mix them together.

3.  Our covergirl naengmyeon is garnished with Asian pear, cucumber and roasted sesame seeds.   To prepare the cucumber, slice it diagonally then cut the slices into small strips.   To prepare the Asian pear, peel it and slice it into slivers (you will see what that looks like in the next photo).

4.  Transfer the noodles to two bowls and pour over about a cup of broth, until the noodles are almost completely submerged.   Mount the pear slices on top of the noodles, put the cucumber strips on top of the pears and sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.

I got my inspiration for the cover photo from a story about naengmyeon in the February issue of the South Korean food magazine ESSEN.   They even have an iPad app where you can download recent issues for free.   The interface is in Korean but all you have to do is click next to the magnifying glass, then click next to the downward arrow on the left in order to download the issue.    The pictures are so pretty that you can enjoy them even if you don’t read Korean.  So now all that’s left to do is slurp and enjoy!

Dear Author

Tagged , , , , , , ,
Feb 19 2012
2 Comments
banchan

The Dongchimi Chronicles

Greetings Dear Readers!  I hope you enjoyed snacking on Kimjongila flower jellies and catching the performance of North Korea’s first girl band.   No word on when they will debut the first boy band.  UriminzoKISS, anyone?  Until that day comes, I will just have to amuse myself with South Korean idol pop.   If you’ve never heard it before, you are totally missing out.  Bubblegum doesn’t even begin to describe it- it’s more like a combination of sugar and crack.   Even North Korean teenagers love the stuff, albeit secretly.

However, since I live in Glorious Nation of US and A, I can freely chop radishes in my kitchen while shaking my hips to “Abracadabra” by the Brown Eyed Girls.   I really wanted our first savory dish to be Pyongyang Naengmyon (평양냉면), the North Korean dish that is most famous outside the DPRK.  But it turns out that one of the key ingredients in naengmyon broth is dongchimi brine.   One common recipe for naengmyon broth involves combining beef and chicken broth with dongchimi brine.   For our version, we will use a vegetable-based broth to replace the beef and chicken broth.

But before we get there we have to make the dongchimi (동치미).   The key ingredient in dongchimi is mu (무), or Korean radish.  They come in various sizes, up to a totally ginormous watermelon size, but the ones I got were medium-sized ones labeled as dongchimi-mu.   I used one of these to make our dongchimi and I used the other one for the soup broth and a non-spicy kimchi (coming attractions).   One of the radishes in the picture weighs almost exactly one pound, so that’s how much radish the recipe calls for.   If you can’t find dongchimi mu, use one pound of a larger mu, or the equivalent amount of daikon radish or white radish.

Like many dishes here at Juche Vegan, dongchimi is a test of patience and perseverance.  It will take about 3-4 days before it is ready to eat.   Here is what you need to do:

Dongchimi (동치미)

1 pound of white radish (preferably Korean mu or Japanese daikon, otherwise any mild, white radish)

2 sprigs of bitter greens, chopped (preferably Korean crown daisy (쑥갓/ssukgat), or substitute watercress/arugula)

6 cloves of garlic, thin sliced

1 asian pear, sliced

3 scallions, cut into thin strips

3 tablespoons salt and 2 tablespoons sugar (for brining radishes)

additional 3 tablespoons salt and 2 tablespoons sugar (for making the liquid)

2 cups warm water

1. Peel the radish and cut it into small triangular pieces about 1/2 inch thick.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, cover the radishes with the first 3 tablespoons of salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar and let it sit for at least 6 hours or overnight.

3.  Drain the liquid from the brined radishes and place the radish slices in a large mixing bowl.   Add the bitter greens, scallions, garlic and pear and mix well.

4.  Transfer the vegetable mixture to an airtight container.  Dissolve the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of salt in warm water and pour the liquid over the vegetable mixture until it is covered.

5.  Seal the mixture in an airtight container and let it ferment at room temperature for 2-3 days.   While it is fermenting, the liquid should get bubbly.   When fermentation is complete, put the dongchimi in the refrigerator, where it should keep for up to three months.    When you move the dongchimi into the fridge, transfer it to a canning jar.   Fill the jar with vegetables and then pour over just enough liquid to cover the vegetables.

6.  After you do this, you should have some liquid left over.   Drain this in a fine mesh sieve and then store it separately from the dongchimi.   This is what we will use in our naengmyon broth.   This recipe should yield enough brine to fill two small jars (pictured below) or one large jar.

The best thing is, you don’t have to wait until we make naengmyon to enjoy the results.   Dongchimi on its own is an excellent appetizer or side dish.   And here’s a fun fact- the “dong” in dongchimi means “winter.”   Even though modern-day Seoulites think of dongchimi and naengmyon as refreshing dishes for hot summer days, they are both traditionally winter dishes.    So making dongchimi is the perfect activity for a long winter weekend.   Now turn on your K-Pop stream and get cracking.  I will see you in three days!

Dear Author

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Feb 15 2012
3 Comments
dessert, kimjongilia

Kimjongilia Flower Jellies- the Recipe

It’s that time of year once again.   Red.  Flowers.   Declarations of undying devotion.   Yes, it’s almost the Day of the Shining Star, the new name for the anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s birth.  Of course it’s just not the same without our Dear Leader, but the DPRK is determined to make the day special.   Today they unveiled an equestrian-themed bronze statue of the Kims, and the Kimjongilia Festival is well underway.

If you want to stage a Kimjongilia Festival in your own home, look no further.    Now that we have prepared our omija concentrate (see the previous post), it’s time to make the jellies!  Here is the recipe:

Kimjongilia Flower Jellies

1 cup omija concentrate (1/3 cup omija berries boiled in 3 cups of water and reduced to 1 cup.   See here)

1 cup water

2 tablespoons agar-agar flakes (or 2 teaspoons agar-agar powder)

1 cup confectioner’s sugar or caster sugar

1.   Take the agar-agar and mix it with the water.   Let it soak on the couter for a few hours or overnight.   Agar-agar is also called hanchon (한천) in Korean and kanten (寒天) in Japanese.   It comes in both flake and powder form.   I have worked with it a lot and strongly prefer the flakes.   If you do use powder, use 1 teaspoon of powder for every tablespoon of flakes.

2. Take the agar-agar and water and transfer it to a small saucepan.   Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until the agar-agar is completely dissolved.  The liquid should be transparent and kind of an off-beige color. 

3.  Stir in the omija liquid, then once it is blended it, add the sugar.   I know it seems like a lot of sugar but the jellies won’t turn out overly sweet.  Even with a cup of sugar they still have a unique sour/bitter taste.

4.  On low heat, keep stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved.

5.  Pour the mixture into a small baking pan (the one in the picture is 7 inches by 9 inches).

6. Put the baking pan in the fridge and cool overnight.   The next day, take it out and get out your flower cutout.   The jelly should be nice and firm.

7.  With the jelly still in the pan, stamp out the flower shapes by pressing firmly on the flower cutout.  When you are done, use a metal spatula or pie server to loosen the edges then lift out the flower jellies.

Congratulations! Now all that’s left to do is serve, enjoy and raise a glass of cognac to the memory of our Dear Leader.

You are all Shining Stars,

Dear Author

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Feb 13 2012
5 Comments
kimjongilia

Kimjongilia Flower Jellies- Inspiration and Preparation

Hello Dear Readers!   It’s only three days until Kim Jong Il’s birthday  and I am getting ready to debut my first dish.   In honor of the Day of the Shining Star (the new name for February 16th),  I will be preparing what I like to call “Kimjongilia Flower Jellies.”   I got the idea (pictured above) from a Korean vegetarian cookbook I picked up at Koryo Books on 32nd Street.  The title can be roughly translated as “Healthy Dishes from Temple Cuisine.”  Koryo Books doesn’t have it online but you can order it online from Aladin here.

I have actually ordered up some North Korean cookbooks, some from North Korea Books and a couple more from Aladin, but they are not here yet.   But I thought the pretty flower jellies looked kind of like Kimjongilia flowers (see below), so I decided to prepare them in honor of the February 16th celebrations.

I also learned about a new ingredient from my book.   The jellies in the cover picture get their pretty pink color from omija (오미자).  When I looked up the word in a Korean dictionary, it said omija are the berries of schisandra chinesis.   Then I had to look it up because I had no idea what that was either.   They are also called wǔ wèi zi (五味子)  in Chinese and used in herbal medicine.   Personally, I think omija sounds prettier than  wǔ wèi zi or schisandra so that’s what we will call them.   They are rather difficult to find, but I tracked them down on amazon and put them in my astore for you.   You are welcome.

Here is what they look like.   This bag came from  Super H-Mart in New Jersey.

If you want to make your jellies today and you just can’t wait for your online order to arrive, I would suggest using dried cranberries or goji berries as a substitute.   Preparing the liquid concentrate for use in the jellies has to be done a day in advance, so I am showing you now so you can be ready for when the recipe comes out.   They also sell liquid “omija extract”  in Korea but I couldn’t find any.   So we make our own.   That is kind of a theme around here.   To start, get out 30 grams (about 1/3 cup) of the dried berries and 3 cups of water.

Soak the berries in the water overnight.   The water will turn pink and the berries should get soft.

Take the water and berries in the bowl and transfer them to a saucepan.   Bring the mixture to a boil and then turn the heat down.    Let it simmer until it reduces to about 1 cup of liquid.

Set up a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl and drain out the berries.

What you have left will look like this.   You can transfer it to a jar and keep it in the fridge until we are ready to make the jellies.

So get in the kitchen and get to work.   I will be back with the recipe for our Kimjongilia jellies.    I also want to thank NK News and The North Korea Blog for linking to this site and Pyongyang Restaurant in Amsterdam and North Korea Books for writing back to us.    We love to have comrades!

Until next time,

Dear Author

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Feb 11 2012
6 Comments
juche

A vegan North Korean Food blog?

Welcome to Juche Vegan, the world’s first (and only, I think) English language vegan food blog devoted to North Korean cuisine.   I have tried to make North Korean food before, but  that was last year when I was living in rural Maine.  I got my information on North Korean dishes from Wikipedia and Chowhound and my Korean ingredients were ordered online from HMart.   Now I live in New York City and have access to three Koreatowns (32nd Street, Flushing and northern New Jersey), so I have access to a lot more resources to get authentic Korean ingredients.   The cuisine of the North is not exactly the same as the South, but there are a lot of ingredients that are unique to Korean cuisine that are hard to find outside of Korean markets.   When possible, I will try to put the ingredients I use in my Amazon Store so you can buy them.

If you are like most readers, then you probably have never had North Korean food.   Even I have never eaten at a North Korean restaurant.   There aren’t any in New York as far as I know, though I read that there is one in Northern Virginia.   And last year in California, there was a “Pyongyang Express” truck that served free tacos for a video game promotion.  The DPRK government also has state-run restaurants in various cities, and the one in Amsterdam is the first in the Western world.   If you read Japanese, there is an excellent database of North Korean restaurants outside of Korea, though it doesn’t include South Korea or the newer state-run places in Amsterdam and Dubai.   There are North Korean restaurants in Seoul, and Pyongyang noodle shops are especially popular.   But I imagine that the best place outside of the DPRK to have “authentic” North Korean cuisine would be in the parts of northern China near the border, especially the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

But being a vegan makes it even more challenging to find North Korean food.   Even if I could get to the restaurant, I wouldn’t be able to eat most of the food since even Pyongyang-style cold noodles are made with beef broth.  If I ever get to go to North Korea, I could arrange for special vegan meals to be made to suit me (the one advantage of having ultra-expensive controlled tours).   Until then, the only North Korean vegan food I will eat is the food I make myself.   Which is why this blog is called “Juche Vegan.”  The Juche Ideal is a complicated communist doctrine with its very own tower, but juche also means self-reliance, which is what we will need in order to build a vegan North Korean recipe collection from scratch.

So I hope you will enjoy our Northern feasts, and stay tuned for the first recipe.

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