If you hadn’t guessed by now, I have a bit of a confession to make. I’m really not much for eating out. Oh sure, I am a regular at many cafes around town, but that is for rarely more than the odd breakfast, copious pots of tea and the occasional unbaked dessert. The reason for my lack of restaurant visits comes down in the end to three things:
1. A student budget doesn’t really allow for many nice dining out opportunities,
2. Most of the places within my budget that I’ve tried have let me down in one way or another
3. I love to cook, so I figure that I can use the money I’d spend out on a mediocre meal to buy some deliciously fresh ingredients and whip up something marvellous at home.
I do have to be completely honest and admit that this doesn’t exactly pan out. Sometimes I start out with the most grandiose ideas and end up burning the lot, but more often than not, after I’ve gone to the effort of tracking down my ingredients and spending a few hours grocery shopping (and this coming from a lass who actually loathes shopping - egads!), I get home and cannot manage much other than grilled cheese on toast, perhaps with a few slices of fresh tomato with freshly cracked pepper on top.
Utterly shameful.
HOWEVER - sometimes, just sometimes, it appears that the planets are aligned just right and I end up managing to create something which leaves me grinning from ear to ear…as well as my mother proudly boasting that I learnt how to cook from her, so this usually indicates a success of sorts. As reading this blog indicates, I tend to do most of the sweet cooking around the house and only act as sous-chef to my mother for her Korean dishes which make up the majority of our savoury meals at home. This has slowly been changing over the past year as I try my hand at more and more non-Korean savoury dishes, and though there have been many failures, there have also been some successes along the way, like this delicious spicy seafood noodle salad!
One thing I have to wonder is whether men ever develop cravings. Not the “Oh, I could really go a piece of chocolate cake right now” sort of craving. No no, I’m talking about the kind of craving which completely overtakes your thought processess, sitting right there in the forefront of your mind, rendering you barely able to think of anything else while images of a particular dish float in front of your eyes.
And no, I’d like to interject here and mention that I am NOT pregnant. Let’s just say I’d bloody well have to be the Virgin Mary for that to be the case, but moving on…
As it so happened, about mid last week, whilst in the middle of a late night study session, my mind suddenly decided to think about a dish that I’d tasted at the Nudel Bar (Bourke St, Melbourne) over a year ago. Believe it or not, it wasn’t even my order as I’d had a noodle soup, but my friend had ordered a cold noodle dish that I remember tasted absolutely sensational, just the kind of dish that would be perfectly refreshing on a warm day. The memory of the mouthful of this dish lingered in my mind, and I was suddenly overwhelmed with an extremely strong desire to make it for myself at home!
The problem? Well, first of all, it was 10pm on a Wednesday night, so nowhere that I could source some fresh seafood. Secondly, I was honestly just too buggered to cook anything at that moment. However it was the third problem which posed the greatest difficulty. You see, while the memory of that mouthful was powerful enough to have my mouth watering while sitting at my desk…I could not, for the life of me, remember what the hell was actually in the dish! In fact, I only remembered three components - lots of Asian mushrooms (cloud-ear, enoki and shiitake), green tea soba noodles and a distinct lemony tang in the sauce.
I knew there was more than that, but I honestly could not remember what the other components were. Possibly not much of a surprise, seeing as I have difficulty remembering the birthdays of my family members, and even my own at times (though strangely enough, never really had a problem remembering the birthday of the dog…)
Seeing as I could no longer concentrate on my studies, I decided to push my books to the side and attempt to write a shopping list for the next day so I could set out straight away, but the whole not knowing what the dish consisted of proved to be a bit of a sticking point. By this time it was close to midnight, so my tired mind scribbled out a list of foods that I felt a bit of a craving for, and left it at that.
The next day, after I had prepared all the seperate components and sat staring at them while wondering how to bring it together, I had a mild panic attack. What the hell did I think I was doing? It suddenly struck me as just a little bit stupid that I hadn’t actually just called the restaurant in the morning to ask what the dish consisted of.
Uh-huh, yeah.
(Sometimes I swear I’d forget to breathe if it weren’t an automatic function…)
Despite my in-the-moment misgivings, I took a deep breath, grabbed my huge mixing bowl and (how shall I put this eloquently) quite decidedly dumped everything in. My hands dove in after the noodles and I have no shame in admitting the fact that I was giggling like a maniac as I frantically tossed all the ingredients together to get them nice and evenly mixed up. A few prawns and calamari pieces were lost in the combat between noodles and hands, but they were immediately rescued by Mr Woofy and thus did not go to waste.
Once all the colours looked fairly evenly distributed, I stopped molesting the noodles and carefully grabbed a little between to fingers and popped it into my mouth. “Hmmm…” I thought, “methinks this needs a little extra something…perhaps in the way of a sauce?”
It tasted good, but the fresh lemony tang which had stuck in my memory was lacking, so I quickly grabbed a few ingredients and did a little haphazard pouring and mixing till I got something which sat just about right with me. And after seeing my mother devour two bowls, and my brother three, I think its safe to say that this dish is definitely one for the ’successes’ pile.
Oh, and by the way - I still can’t remember what was in the original dish. Hah!
Spicy Seafood Noodle Salad
(Serves 5 - 6)
Ingredients
2 squid hoods - cleaned, cut open and lightly scored
200g fresh raw prawns, shells removed and deveined
1 salmon fillet (about 200-300g), skin on
12 dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated, stems removed and sliced into about 5mm thick strips
100g fresh shiitake mushrooms, cleaned
100g fresh enoki mushrooms, cleaned and broken into small clumps
100g fresh oyster mushrooms, cleaned and broken into small clumps
150g bean shoots
1 Lebanese cucumber (or similar sweet, thin-skinned cuke), cut lengthways in half then sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, deseeded and finely diced
1 carrot, grated
2 spring onions, washed and finely chopped
200g green tea soba noodles (cha soba), snapped in half
Marinade
1/4 cup light soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp dried chilli flakes
2 tsp caster sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp freshly cracked pepper
Salad Dressing
2 tsp toasted sesame seeds
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1. Mix up the marinade, then put the squid, prawns, salmon and sliced rehydrated shiitake mushrooms and massage in well. Leave to marinate for at least an hour in the fridge.
2. Heat a cast iron grill over medium heat, then drain the marinated ingredients, reserving 2 tbsp of the marinade liquid. Toss the calamari on first and grill for no more than 1-2 mins per side, do not overcook! Then remove to rest on a plate and grill the salmon fillet, skin side down first - once again, do not overcook, the centre should still be translucent and the salmon should be silky in texture and melt in your mouth. Finally, add the prawns and shiitake mushrooms and grill till cooked, then set aside to rest.
3. Add the reserved marinade liquid to the grill, then add the fresh mushrooms (enoki, shiitake and oyster) and the bean shoot. Rapidly move the ingredients about so they do not overcook (pretend you’re using a wok…or you can just use a wok at this stage if its easier and you don’t mind the washing up). Only cook for a minute or two, or till the mushrooms and bean shoots have slightly wilted, then remove to a plate to allow them to cool.
4. Bring a pot of water to the boil, then boil the green tea noodles till they are just done. Immediately drain them and give them a good rinse under cold running water to wash off any excess starch, then drain them well in a colander and set aside. Break up the salmon into small chunks with your fingers.
5. Mix together the salad dressing, then dump all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and lightly begin to toss them together with your hands, trying to get everything evenly mixed together. Once well combined, pour the salad dressing over the top and toss once again to lightly and evenly coat the salad.
6. Serve alongside some iced green tea for a super refreshing meal 
Oh, and any leftovers? Just as good the next day 
Technorati Tags: recipes, Asian, soba noodles, green tea, seafood, healthy
(P.S. Yes, I’m still alive. Still in the last throes of study-hell)
…but not necessarily any wiser! Today marks the beginning of my 25th year of life. And how does a food blogger usher in the first few hours of their birthday? Why, by cooking a mountain of food till 5am this morning! So, uhhh…anyone feel like coming over for a feed? |
 Now, I wasn’t planning on adding any more to the point-and-shoot photography series, but after a few enquiries from readers, I’ve decided to do a summary post covering a number of thingsWhat’s your gear?I’ve had a few questions regarding the equipment that I use, even one email accusing me of shooting with an SLR! Now, the difference in quality between point-and-shoot cameras and SLRs is extremely clear, and trust me when I say that if I were shooting with that kind of high-end equipment, I’d be laughing at the shots that I’m currently putting up on this blog. So, to clear the air, I’ll take you through my gear and set-up. My equipment? Just a point-and-shoot camera, no additional lights, flashes or lenses. The camera currently in my hand is the Canon G7. When I dropped and destroyed my previous camera, I spent a few months having a long, hard think about how I’d replace my equipment. I had been lusting after a dSLR for awhile, but the costs involved with those cameras are huge, particularly when I took into account the 3 different lenses that I’d need to get to have the same range as a high-end point-and-shoot, and the possibility of having to get a compact camera on top of that for taking out for casual shots…well, I just couldn’t justify spending almost AU$3000 on photo equipment in my current situation. So, swallowing my desire, I decided that I’d remain in the world of point-and-shoot cameras for now…but which camera to get? With so many different cameras on the market, its easy to be swayed by salespeople and prices, and neither of these should be the determining factor to buying a camera. Sure, of course price is going to be a factor, but don’t let a catalogue sale price sway your judgement…after all, the reason that a model has gone on sale might be because its a crap performer, and that’s not what you want! So, here’s my step-by-step guide to buying a point-and-shoot camera: 1. Set a price range Think hard about your budget. Sure, you’re not a professional and essentially this will just be for your food blog and the occasional happy snaps with friends and family, so you really don’t want to spend a fortune. But also consider this - despite how quickly technology updates and goes out of date, investing a little more into a quality piece of equipment will serve you far better in the long run! So, set a realistic price range, then go into a camera store to check out all the cameras in your range. Take a pen and paper and write down as many camera models that fit into that price range as possible, then bring it home to start your research! 2. The internet is a great resource - use it! When researching what camera I should buy, there were two websites in particular that many people recommended that I look at: Both these sites have extremely detailed reviews of camera models, covering everything from focus and colour to usability. Use both sites to whittle down your list to a shortlist of cameras that look particularly promising, then stay logged on for the next part… 3. Flickr is your friend Like most social networking sites, there is a multitude of photo-sharing communities on the internet, but Flickr is by far the best for this particular part of this exercise. Most digital cameras will save something known as EXIF data as part of the photo files - this saves a great deal of information about the settings a camera was using when a photo was taken, but most important for you right now is that it saves what camera was used to take this shot. By looking through the Flickr Camera Finder, you can browse photos that people have taken using a variety of different camera models, as well as seeing how popular that particular model of camera is with Flickr users. Bear in mind though, the stats aren’t 100% correct as the exif data can easily be stripped from an image (e.g. using Photoshops ’save for web’ function), but it will still give you an idea of the kinds of images people are producing using particular makes and models: Spend a bit of time browsing the images here, and look at the overall image quality of photos produced - not by those who know the equipment, but of people who are just using it to take happy snaps. This will give you a fairly good indication of actual user results. 4. Speak to people in the know Salespeople in stores are ultimately there to make money. Sure, some of them may know quite a bit about cameras and be able to give you good, unbiased information, but are you willing to take that chance? Instead, track down people who aren’t going to make any money from your purchase. You’d be surprised at the number of photography/camera fiends there are out there, so try asking around your friends or work colleagues. If you come up bare there, then try any of the various photography forums on the internet to ask the opinions of others. Digital Photography Review has quite a good forum with quite a few avid participants, so that could be a good starting point. Just be aware that there IS likely to be some disagreement between participants, so view everyone’s advice with balance and try to remain unbiased. 5. Buying the camera By this stage, you should have your list of ideal cameras down to no more than about 2-3 models at most, so this is where price comes into play. Visit the store websites and write down prices, then make sure to call or visit as many of the stores as possible, the more sure and knowledgeable that you sound, the more seriously the salesperson will probably take you. Get quotes on prices, and write them down, along with the date/time you visited the store and the name of the salesperson that you spoke to. Some camera stores in Melbourne (I am not endorsing any of them, its just a list to start you off):
Hint - if at all possible, pay in cold hard cash. Vendors get charged bank fees when dealing with credit or eftpos, so if you can pay cash, they’ll be more inclined to offer a discount or bonuses to get your sale. Do not let the salesperson sway you - you’ve done your research and know what you want, let all the persuasion be done in the numbers. As you go about collecting prices, do not be afraid to play one vendor against another - have all your information there and make sure they can see it - and if the price is similiar or equal to a quote from another store, tell them so, and ask them if they can offer anything to sweeten the deal so you’d be more inclined to spend your money there. If they say there is no possible discount, ask about accessories such as tripods, hard cases or memory cards - after all, you’ll most likely need to buy these things anyway, so if they can give you one for free, then its a discount of sorts. This is where my advice ends - at this point you’ll be able to decide on a camera that you should buy, and will be able to make a purchase that you won’t regret. Whatever you do, do not rush the purchase, the time taken to do your research could ultimately be the difference between an okay camera and a fantastic one! And if it makes you feel any better…I took 2 months of research to decide on a camera, so I doubt you’ll do any worse than me |
 What’s your set-up?My shooting set-up is probably about as low-tech as you can get. Since the house is extremely dark and doesn’t receive direct natural light, it means that I do all of my shooting outside.
If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you’ve also discovered that I have a penchant for shooting against white. Yes, this makes for an extremely boring scene…however, it makes my job easier in the end. If you’ve done any art, you’ll know that white reflects the most light out of all the colours, therefore it means that even when I’m shooting in dull conditions, the white will bounce the light back up and create a lighter scene. See the two photos to the left as an example - I took these shots at 6pm tonight, and to say that it was quite dim outside would be a bit of an understatement. However, as dull as the ret of the scene is, the paper and the rose are well lit. Of course, to achieve this, I’ve also set my white balance, aperture and exposure/shutter speed…as well as given the photos a bit of a touch in post processing to bring them to life So I’ll take you through my set-up step by step. 1. A large sheet of metal from a dead computer, slotted into the table. 2. A heavy clay bowl behind it to provide stability. 3. A large A2 sheet of white cardboard 4. Two clothespegs to keep the cardboard against the metal sheet Aaaaand, that’s it! Of course, it can get even simpler than this - take a large cardboard box and cut away two opposite sides so you’re left with an “L” shape. And that’s it And what happens if you want to use a coloured backdrop? Well, just buy some wrapping paper or fabric, and peg it down on top of the white cardboard, and you’re done! How easy can it get, hey? |
 Post-production, or making those photos prettyWe all wish that our shots were perfect straight off the camera, but the truth of the matter is that they’re rarely so. Even the best photographers usually drag their files into any one of the various photograph editing suites available to help correct white balance, bring colours to life and add just a little sharpness or clarity that is missing in the originals.
The most commonly used programs are fairly high end ones that must be purchased, and the cost can run into a couple of hundred dollars. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t find something to suit your needs… Personally, I use both Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom for my photo maniupulations - Lightroom for the extensive all-over changes, and Photoshop for the finer tweaking…say, removal of a shadow here, or brightening of a colour there. However, since I’ve had a bit of experience with these programs, I find this fairly easy to do, whilst a beginner may find them confusing. I’ve compiled a list of programs below that you might be interested in looking into to start tweaking your photos to help bring them alive! 1. Adobe Photoshop (Win/Mac)_-US$649.00 2. Adobe Photoshop Elements (Win/Mac) - US$99.00 3. Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 (Win/Mac) - US$99.00 4. Adobe Lightroom (Win/Mac) - US$299.00 5. Apple’s Aperture (Mac) - US$299.00 6. Google’s Picasa (Win/Mac) - FREE 7. GIMP (Win/Mac/Linux/Unix) - FREE I’ll write a basic introduction to photo editing/manipulation later this week, as I think that this is probably more than enough information to digest in one sitting |
Questions? Complaints? Found it useful? Leave a comment and let me know And if you think that any of your own readers or friends could benefit from my little guide here, help spread the word
Technorati Tags: basic photography tips, image editing, image editors, photoshop, point and shoot, cameras, guides
Yeesh, talk about an overdue post - this one is a few weeks in the making! About a week and a half ago I received an email from a reader asking if I had a recipe for a particular Korean dish called ‘soon doo boo jji gae‘ - a spicy stew that is made with soft silken tofu to create a deliciously refreshing broth. Not a difficult request, as we’d just made it the week before and I’d photographed it to have it ready to go, but having been ill these past few weeks, my good intentions to have it posted up ASAP fell by the wayside.
Kids, if you haven’t learnt by now, let me tell you again - smoking is bad for your health. Not only in the ways it directly affects your body, but in a multitude of secondary effects as well. Am trying my darndest to quit, down to 1-2 cigs a day and I’m confident that once I finish my study, I’ll be able to give the little fuckers up for good…
Anyway, back to the food!
‘Jji-gae‘ is a word used to describe a particular kind of broth that I can’t quite find a replacement for in English. Unlike your typical soups and broths, a jji-gae is often quite intense in flavour, and not designed to be eaten solely on its own, but as an accompaniment to a bowl of rice and banchan (side dishes). Unlike ‘gook’ (soup), it is traditionally made in a small, heavy stone pot, and each portion is usually quite small and served alongside the rice, and instead of mixing the rice into the dish, is eaten by the spoonful after a mouthful of rice to help ‘wet’ the throat. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, just the most common way of eating it
Now, the main component of this dish is silken tofu, but you must be careful when purchasing the tofu to use here as it comes in a range of consistencies. Firstly, be sure that it is silken tofu that you’re purchasing, and not regular or strained/firm tofu as they are very different in texture and not used interchangeably. Silken tofu has a much softer and creamier mouthfeel than other varieties, though this will vary according to the firmness of the silken tofu which is purchased.
For use in this dish, try and buy the silken tofu in a tub from a Chinese/Korean grocery store - I’m yet to see this particular kind of tofu stocked outside of Asian grocery stores, and the firmer pressed silken tofu in vaccuum-sealed packages available at supermarkets will not work. What you want is a tofu which almost has no structural integrity of its own - the right kind will wobble like barely-set jello, and when you cut into it with a spoon, will have next to no resistance.
Once you have acquired your ‘soon doo boo‘ (Korean word for this type of silken tofu) and have your gochugaru (ground red pepper) ready, you’re pretty much ready to go
Oh, and one final note - other than the inclusion of the tofu and ground red pepper, you can do pretty much anything to this dish, so it can easily be altered according to tastes - vegetarian/vegan/seafood/meats, anything is possible here
Soon Doo Boo Jji-gae
(Spicy Silken Tofu Stew)
Ingredients
Approx 150g protein*
1/2 tsp sesame oil
500-600g soft silken tofu
1/2 - 3/4 cup water (depending on how watery you want it)
Yang Yohm Jjang
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds
2-3 cloves crushed garlic
1 spring onion, washed and sliced
1 tbsp gochugaru (ground red pepper)
Proteins:
Now, depending on what protein you’ll be using in addition to the tofu in the dish, the ingredients and preparation can vary at this point, so I’ve added this as a separate table:
| Seafood | Beef/Pork | Mushrooms |
|
Mix everything together and proceed |
Mix together the gochugaru, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil then massage well into the meat. |
Mix everything together and proceed |
1. Preheat a high-sided pot (great if you have the traditional stoneware but don’t worry if you don’t!) over medium heat and add a little (about 1/2 tsp) sesame oil and allow it to heat up. Add the prepared protein of your choice (though I’ve listed them all seperately, there’s no reason you can’t mix and match as you wish, just restrain yourself from adding too much as the main component of this dish *is* the tofu) and saute till your protein is about half-cooked.
2. Add between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of water (depending on how watery you want it) to the pot and bring it to the boil. Once it is bubbling, use a tablespoon to carefully spoon the tofu onto the top of the mixture. Lower the heat to about low-medium and slowly bring to the boil with the lid on, leaving it for about 30-45 minutes or till the tofu has cooked through.
3. At this point, you can give it a taste and add more gochugaru, salt, crushed garlic and sliced spring onion to taste, mixing it in before serving, or you can follow the traditional method of creating a mixture known as ‘yahng yomh jjang’, a flavouring mix which is served alongside the broth, allowing each eater to add more season to their own tastes.
To make the yang yohm jjang, mix together all the listed ingredients, then place in a small sauce bowl to be served next to the stew
4. Serve this while piping hot, either in the stone bowl or pot, or spooned into seperate serving bowls, alongside bowls of rice and banchan For a great hangover ‘cure’, once this has been removed from the heat, immediately crack open and add a fresh, raw egg, stirring it in!
Technorati Tags: soup, broth, Korean cuisine, recipes, traditional, Asian, silken tofu
EDIT: Also, if there are any people out there who are CSS gurus and have ample time on their hands and feel like giving me a hand with something, could you drop me a line? I’m sure we could work out some sort of edible payment for services rendered 
Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile folks, just got a few things that need my attention at the moment (namely studies, health and life)…
Bear with me, though. My lack of posts certainly doesn’t mean I haven’t been in the kitchen, and to tantalize your tastebuds, here is a sampling of just some of the posts that are to come!
Hope you’re all well,
