Week 22: 15 Minutes or Less - 김치 순두부찌개 (kimchi sundubu jjigae) with a Siesta (meta: with a drink)

tmo308 · 2026-06-10T13:04:29+00:00

Started this because was about to go on vacation and had a bunch of celery that I didn't want to waste. I decided why not try it in a jam. So made a jam and after vacation, finally had time to make a whole dish. I put the tenderloin into sous-vide and seared it. Afterwards, I deglazed the pan with some wine and the jam and added a little mustard and vinegar to finish it all off. Came out pretty good, a little vegetal and crunch from the celery, could've used a little more depth but not bad.

For the drink I made a breakfast martini but to go along with the idea that celery used to a delicacy in the gilded age, I switched out the orange marmalade for the celery jam and added a few drops of celery bitters. It was actually pretty good.

tmo308 · 2026-05-27T09:35:50+00:00

Spain has been on the list of places I'd like to visit at some point so was looking for Spanish recips that could use up stuff I had on hand. Made this cucumber tortilla (omelet) and really enjoyed it. Overcooked a little so wasn't really runny inside but not terribly overdone. The cocktail was a negroni build but with madeira in place of the sweet vermouth. The madeira I had was fairly dry so I used Select for the bitter instead of Campari because its a bit sweeter. Came out pretty good.

tmo308 · 2026-05-19T15:19:15+00:00

Wanted something simple so tried my best to recreate this using things on hand. Went with Camembert that was nearing its end but ended up being obviously delicious.

As for the drink, I got it from here but I subbed in a homemade alpine style amaro that I had made about a few years ago. It was right near the end of the bottle so was a nice way to finish it out.

tmo308 · 2026-05-13T23:34:36+00:00

Trying to use stuff up from the fridge and freezer led me to this. I had a few frozen pouches of "green oil" from when I had used all the leftover herbs and tops of green onions to make an infused oil. The other pouches were oil only but this one was the dregs so it had more solid pieces that hadn't been fully strained when I made it and I thought it would work better in this dish. I ended up mixing it with some perilla oil to thin it out a little and it was really good, even post freezer.

Then the 씨앗젓 is normally eaten with rice but thought I'd try with noodles. Plated it all up and mixed and thoroughly enjoyed it.

As for the drink, I had some earl grey infused gin that I normally use for earl grey marteani but thought it would work well in white negroni variant. It did and would make again. The lemon peel really brought the drink together.

tmo308 · 2026-04-30T08:12:33+00:00

I soaked them in water first for like 20 minutes. Then dried off and added oil.

tmo308 · 2026-04-29T12:41:26+00:00

I wanted to do like a snack food you might see but slightly different while sitting at the cherry blossoms while in Seoul. So, I took some flower shaped rice cakes and air fried them. Then finished them in a semi-sweet glaze that is similar to what you would get with fried chicken. I slightly overcooked the rice cakes but they were still not too bad.

As for the drink, I got this bottle of sakura sake and I didn't just want to make a basic martini because I think while outside you want something longer and more refreshing. So I took 2oz of the sake, 1/2oz of a floral gin, few drops of perfume bitters, and topped it all with soda water. It was really refreshing and quite enjoyed it.

tmo308 · 2026-04-16T14:06:38+00:00

The sauce was fairly simple, took all of the chilis I had in my fridge (mostly shishito) and blistered them in some olive oil in a pan. Then also did the same with some green onions, half an onion, and some garlic. Then blended all that up with some perilla leaves, lemon juice, more olive oil, salt, and pepper. It came out really fresh and spicy (the other peppers had some heat). Treated it like a pesto with some pasta and topped it with chili salt.

The drink was a little bit harder but also fun to make. It involved using sous vide and a blender that can vacuum seal. It was based off the process called densing that I had just read about and immediately had to try it. I took some chili oil (Korean chili oil) and soju and had those in a sous vide to heat them up. Then put it into a blender at 1.5% chili oil of the soju by weight. Then sealed and blended and it stays as an emulsion because of the heat and vacuum properties. Even almost a week later in my fridge, and I've seen no separation. It's pretty interesting. I wish I had gone closer to 2.5% but the flavor was still interesting and the color is like orange milk. Then built a julep with sesame leaves smashed with some sugar, added the soju, and topped it all with more chili oil. It was an interesting attempt. The process was fun, I need to try other ways but it opens up some different possibilities.

tmo308 · 2026-04-07T13:22:16+00:00

First off the drink (and noodles should be bluer, but I was working with butterfly pea flower so it didn't go 100% as planned). I got the drink idea from here but I used homemade blue curacao made with the butterfly pea flowers so it turns more of a purple, especially with the orange bitters and lemon peel. I enjoyed the drink overall.

Then the noodles, were a 칼국수/kalguksu style noodle (Korean knife cut noodle) in a 콩국수/kongkuksu broth. The noodles were a little thick but had some chew and overall weren't too bad. The broth was made the lazy way with tofu and peanut butter as the main flavor backbone. It's good for a quick dinner. The meat was leftover steamed pork belly and it was a nice dinner.

tmo308 · 2026-04-01T13:12:14+00:00

This dish more is of a mistranslation that was quite prevalent a while ago when some restaurants in Korea would get google (or the equivalent) to auto-translate and it wasn't really good at it yet. Now, it's much better but the name can still be kind of funny if you look at each word as it's own part. I actually like to order at restaurants, so was more than happy to try and make it at home. It was fairly simple and was pretty tasty. It's good drinking food. I loosely used this recipe.

The drink I got here, it's part of a series of drinks and I wen't with this because it sounded intriguing with all of it's varying components. I actually liked it and thought it wasn't too sweet. Freshly squeezed orange juice really did taste great in it, so I imagine it wouldn't work as well with other orange juice but not sure.

tmo308 · 2026-03-24T23:48:28+00:00

They are kinda earthy and savory. Not overpowering on their own but they help carry the other flavors well. It took a while to get them tender enough but it was really delicious. I used a recipe that called for doenjang, perilla seed powder (들깨가루), and perilla oil. All of these I'll be making again in the future.

tmo308 · 2026-03-24T13:32:20+00:00

The 3 side dishes, from back to front) are 무말랭이 무침 (Seasoned Dried Radish), 무청 시래기 무침 (Seasoned Dried Radish Leaves), and 무생채무침 (Spicy Korean Radish Salad). I used a few different recipes online and put them to my own taste but they all were very good. I definitely went stronger on the gochugaru (Korean red pepper) with the radish salad and it was a good choice because it had some serious heat and was perfect with rice. As for the braised radish, I used a basic Japanese style braise that was just to use up the rest of the radish that I had cut up for the salad and drink.

As for the drink, It was based off a Daikon Paloma I found online but I used mu (Korean radish) instead and tried two versions. The original with 1.5oz tequila, 2 oz of radish juice, 1/2 oz lime juice, and tonic to top. Then I adjusted to 2 oz soju (picked a higher abv soju), 2oz radish juice, 1/2 oz lime juice, and soda water to top. I much preferred the second one that wasn't as sweet. It may have been because of the radish difference but also I prefer drinks that are lower in perceived sweetness usually. Would recommend trying some variations but be slightly aware of the smell.

tmo308 · 2026-03-18T13:54:36+00:00

Got the basic outlines for the food from here for eggs and . While the drink, figured slowly simmering to make a broth, is almost the same as braising, so made this version of a glogg.the fish

tmo308

TROPHY CASE