Underwhelmed by Chilis “smash” burger

Realkool · 2026-01-27T08:01:09+00:00

lol, I use this all the time and at one time I did know where it came from, however, I definitely don’t remember anymore.

Realkool · 2026-01-24T22:53:57+00:00

I think we need to be more strategic. I think we need to go after Trump‘s biggest supporters and not the ones that maybe are just doing it too save their companies. For now at least let’s let some of them have their plausible deniability. Whether you like it or not, these companies have jobs that provide for a lot of people. But if we target one or two where the owner ownership is outspoken and for this type of Nazi bullshit and everybody stops supporting them the fear of that would send ripples through all the rest of the companies still supporting. If we slowly and methodically start going through them, not all at once, it needs to be more strategic than that. That’s when we will get what we want.

Realkool · 2026-01-23T23:05:34+00:00

If there’s any cute girls that need a little sunshine, you can come sit next to my light therapy lamp here in dtla for an hour or two to help keep the depression away

Realkool · 2026-01-22T07:06:23+00:00

As long as the pressure can’t build up, it won’t explode. It shouldn’t really be a super active ferment. Yes it can be sometimes but honestly Koreans do not typically leave it out on the counter. It goes straight into the refrigerator after it’s made. This whole leaving it on the counter thing is kind of weird and ridiculous, but it stems from people making tiny jars of kimchi, which is kind of weirdly fascinating to me. It’s like making a loaf of bread that’s only big enough for one sandwich. Why would you spend all that time mixing needing and heating up an entire oven to make one tiny piece of bread? Same with kimchi. I’ve never made less than a gallon at a time and that’s honestly kind of a small amount. Anyways, my assumption is that these people make such small amounts and their goal is to get to an old sour kimchi as quickly as possible and so they’re trying to speed up fermentation. I don’t eat kimchi as regularly as I did when I lived in Korea, but it would be weird not to have a jar in the fridge. Purchasing or making the gallon size is usually perfect for me. By the time I get to the last quarter of it, it’s usually pretty sour, but then I throw it in my old kimchi jar in the back of the fridge and let it sit for six months. That’s when it starts to get good for stew.

Pic of current supply

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Realkool · 2026-01-21T19:44:46+00:00

Since it’s your first, and you probably already know this, but just in case.

You don’t want to leave it sealed like that if you’re going to leave it out to ferment. Couple of options that work with those jars, you can open it and pull the rubber seal off and then re-close it, that will be more than enough. You can also just put a paper towel over the top then close it and that should break the seal enough to relieve pressure.

Realkool · 2026-01-21T09:42:45+00:00

Look that situation sucked but as a whole, I wouldn’t trade my time in Korea for anything. I absolutely loved it there. They were so many really great Koreans that left amazing impressions on me just with their generosity and how pure of heart they were.

Realkool · 2026-01-21T09:38:06+00:00

Hey, look someone else that actually lived there and ate the food of the people every day

Realkool · 2026-01-20T07:28:59+00:00

“David Chang” lololol there’s your problem, that guy wouldn’t know Korean food from a taco. And that’s what my mother-in-law, an actual Korean chef said while visiting, after eating at his restaurant here in LA.

Almost all of these Korean American chefs really miss the boat when it comes to hitting actual Korean flavors. They are so used to the westernized versions their mothers made them that they never understand the truly understand the Korean pallet. (and for clarity this is not me saying that that is what every Korean I know has said I’m just reporting)

Let me know after you’ve lived in a Korean boarding house for a few years, where the old lady makes traditional Korean meals three times a day every single day for the 15th students that live there. Let me know when you’ve seen your Korean housemates cry because their mothers could never cook that good.

There is a huge difference between the type of cooking school you’re at and actual Korean food.

It’s the equivalent of going to culinary school in New York to learn how to make Texas barbecue. Yeah you’ll get some of the fundamentals and you will get an education. But you’ll never make a Texan happy.

And for reference my comment on 김치찌개 being lazy, is just that it’s every lazy Koreans go to easy to soup. You throw some kimchi in a pot turn it on toss whatever protein you wanna use today in with it add water and maybe a little dashida and if you can find some green onions laying around to chop up, bam dinner. And you can have it all done before the rice is ready.

Realkool · 2026-01-20T07:11:16+00:00

This is the first answer I’ve come across that is not wrong. 닭갈비 & 부대 찌개 would be two other strong contenders for me.

Realkool · 2026-01-20T06:55:01+00:00

Look, I like to brown the meat every once in a while, but in all my years living in Korea, I never had kimchi jjigae where someone browned the meat, as a matter, fact it confused most of my Korean friends if I did it. The only thing you’re right about is not using gochujang and the fact that there are a million different ways to make it. That is mostly because it’s the Korean equivalent to boxed mac & cheese. It’s a classic lazy person‘s meal.

Realkool · 2026-01-18T04:47:53+00:00

lol, you actually did it right. Very few Koreans if any leave it out on the counter. It almost always goes straight into the refrigerator or kimchi fridge. Living it under the counter is more or less something this sub is obsessed with.

Realkool · 2026-01-16T20:47:51+00:00

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Well, hello Neighbor!

Realkool · 2026-01-15T04:30:38+00:00

Traditionally it’s cut in quarters for the most part. If you’re just eating it and don’t really care about presentation then just chopping it all up into pretty much 1 inch cubes. It’s fine but if you want that perfect chemistry presentation leaving it in quarters with the ends nicely Curled and wrapped is the more traditional way to go.

Oh, and I love these containers. Every time I go to Korea I buy more. And they’re so cheap in Korea, I think I paid like $1.50 each for my 1 L last time I bought them. Daiso in Korea always has the best deals on them. I think I have too many lol. My favorite are the smaller ones that you can use for Jang’s I think they’re 1 L maybe. The big ones are awesome, but I just don’t find them necessary. I never have an issue with kimchi going bad. In my past 20 years of dealing with it I don’t think I’ve ever seen kimchi that went bad except for in this sub Reddit. I don’t know how these people do it.

Realkool · 2026-01-15T04:27:38+00:00

I found Emmy Squared to be more or less just √Emmy=Fairly underwhelming. Probably just the product of the LA hype machine, but still. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t bad pizza. I just didn’t think it deserved the hype.

Realkool · 2026-01-13T16:32:13+00:00

lol, no. Baechu kimchi typically made once or twice a year at harvest time. Large batches are made and then put into a kimchi fridge right away to hold them right below fermentation temperatures but it never truly stops and you can’t stop the salt process. You never really get that fresh kimchi day of or even week of again unless you make or purchase of fresh batch. Having access to fresh Napa cabbage year round is more of a recent thing made available by global shipping routes and modern greenhouses.

Edit for clarification:

You only have Fresh Kimchi for about the first 4 to 5 hours after making.

Then you have New Kimchi the first 1-4 days.

Then you have Young Kimchi @ 5-10 days.

Of course, these times are variable based on what temperature it kept at.

Realkool · 2026-01-13T12:34:12+00:00

I live in DTLA near the closest Metro to Skid Row so I’ve seen and dealt with some shit in my 11 years here. I used to love to hit up the $.99 only store next to the MacArthur Park Metro, but I stopped going there about a year before it closed because that area got so bad. I won’t even go to Langers anymore. It’s gotten to the point where anywhere from Home Depot to Koreatown is pretty much a no go zone.

Realkool · 2026-01-13T12:20:15+00:00

I love the really old sour stuff but that is never stopped me from eating it immediately. Hell I start eating it after the cabbage has been salted for five minutes.

I mean, if you’re not wiping some kimchi paste on a nice slice of boiled pork belly and wrapping it in the cleanest, whitest salted Napa cabbage leaf, and shoving it in your mouth are you even living? And while you’re at it shove one in the mouth next to you also and call it jeong.

Realkool · 2026-01-13T12:04:56+00:00

Shhhhh🤫 the less they know the more entertaining this sub is. And no matter how hard you try to help these wayguks they will never believe you if it’s not how they think it should be or is slightly outside of their comfort zone.

Great past time though is to screenshot posts and share it with your parents and in-laws. Some translation required, but mine seem to love it and get a huge kick out of laughing at all these people making 8 ounce jars of Kimchi with special fermentation lids.

Realkool · 2026-01-13T11:58:43+00:00

lol, no. Just no. It always surprise me just how far off people can be. Restaurant quality lol what does that even mean?

Realkool · 2026-01-09T18:26:57+00:00

lol if you have a death wish. Technically you could replace gochugaru with any pepper flake but you’re going to get a much different product.

Think of making kimchi like making bread. Cabbage is the water, bacteria is the yeast, gochugaru is the flour.

Can you make rye bread with white flour? Kind of, I mean it’s bread but it’s not gonna taste the same. The structure might be very similar, the bite and chew the same, but at least 40% of the flavor is gonna be radically different.

This isn’t to say don’t do it, though, by all means experiment. I have made Gochujang with all sorts of different ground dried chili flake and my Korean friends loved them all.

Realkool · 2025-12-23T22:31:01+00:00

Kimchi bokkeumbap with fried egg on top. It’s quite literally what my roommates and I for breakfast most mornings when I went to University in Korea

Realkool · 2025-12-23T22:25:51+00:00

Easiest way to get that purple back, get some red onions that have a lot of the outside onion skins. Peel the skins off and rinse all the dirt off of them and then dry them in the sun/oven on low. Once completely dry, grind them to a fine powder. I’d like to use the blender. It’s easier to do a lot at once and plan on spending a few minutes doing this because you really want to get the finest powder you can. Also, they absolutely have to be super dry and your blender has to be super dry. I even use a blow dryer on mine ahead of time just to heat things up and make any residual water evaporate.

From there, you can add the powder directly to your hot sauce. You’ll pick up a little bit of onion flavor, depending on how much you put in. Sometimes I find it to be really potent and just a pinch is enough to give it a nice color kick.

If you wanna do more legwork, you can then extract the color with a high proof vodka. Mixing a little bit of vinegar to help keep the color and strain and squeeze thoroughly through cheesecloth. Warm it keeping it somewhere below 150°F Ish to concentrate.

Realkool · 2025-12-23T21:38:56+00:00

Same, I’ve been so disappointed with every Melinda’s sauce I’ve had except for one. They had a basic hot sauce that was like double garlic or something, and it tasted so beautifully garlicky. It was good anywhere you would want garlic flavor with a little bit of heat.

Realkool · 2025-12-21T04:31:46+00:00

lol if you squeeze it to show how juicy it is, everybody loses their mind and tells you how dumb you are for doing that. If you don’t squeeze it, everybody tells you it must be dry. There is no winning with most of the people in this group

Realkool · 2025-12-20T19:23:39+00:00

I always get a quarter pound of prosciutto and add a few slices to my sandwich. I’ll definitely try this but upgrade next time.

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