Help Me TI Food Board ....

Probably the most classic and common meal people eat while at home is rice with some kind of soup or stew (kimchi jjigae or dwenjangguk [Korean miso soup] being the most commonplace) along with various side dishes or banchan if you're nasty. If you're not eating this way regularly though it requires a lot of preparation to make the various side dishes. Usually here since people are eating this way daily they'll make one or two side dishes but make enough for a couple days so they're only making one or two things while cooking but end up with a massive spread of stuff. If you've got a Korean market in Your Town, USA they might have some prepackaged stuff that will cut down on the work.

If you're looking for stuff that's more one and done ddeokbokki is a solid choice as is dubu kimchi. With regards to the chilled noodles I don't know if you're talking about naengmyeon or japchae but either way, the one you are not talking about is another solid choice. If you're not the sort of person who will only eat a specific ingredient once a week there are a couple other chicken dishes that are good. There's jjimdak which is a braised chicken in soy sauce and dakbokkeumtang which is a spicy chicken stew.

If none of this tickles your fancy or if there's some specific ingredient you feel like using, just let me know and I can most likely give you some other Korean recipes.

Also, as an aside, what exactly does "Korean fried chicken" entail? Here in Seoul, fried chicken is more or less exactly the same as fried chicken in the States, though they will sometimes give you a little container of a red pepper based sauce to dip it in.

Yeah it's been kind of the hip foodie item for maybe the last 4-5 years or so. "Extra crispy" is definitely the common element; you batter it twice and deep fry it twice. There's a sweet gochijiang-based sauce you can dunk the chicken in out of the oil also.

Here's a description from the Food thread of when I made it. 

Well it may not be authentic, but goddamn was the Korean Fried chicken good.

I had unexpected events pop up Saturday night, meaning I had to boot that planned meal to tonight and the entire week's schedule is getting reshuffled now, so I may struggle to even hit my originally planned dishes.

All this talk of Korean food reminded me of my new favorite thing: cheese dak galbi.

I had some in Shin-Okubo, which is Tokyo's Korean area last month and man, oh man. I just want more and there are places here that have it, but this not being Koreatown I don't know how much I can count on it. I may have to learn how to make this. If anyone knows a good recipe, help me out.

this is a good post, but also considered cruel and unusual punishment when I don't have Korean food within reach. MODS

Uh, hi there. I need some advice on Thanksgiving dinner. My family are immigrants and we don't really do thanksgiving, so I've been invited to a friend's house. The problem is this: my friend is a terrible cook. True to certain stereotypes, she can't season for shit. Like, she doesn't even put salt because she says she's afraid of putting too much.

A couple years ago, she invited me for clam chowder and when I got to her house, she had opened maybe 3 clams. I ended up shucking the rest and basically cooking the rest of the dish, ensuring that it was properly seasoned (with SALT!) and delicious. This was such a hit that she decided to do it again last year and I skipped out, citing family reasons. I don't mind somebody asking me to help them learn to cook, but I kind of resent being invited to dinner that I have to cook myself. Admittedly, it also kind of gets under my skin because she's mayonnaise white and as a post-colonial brown person, I don't cook for white folks unless I've invited them over and selected the menu myself.

Her boyfriend asked me yesterday if I'm coming for chowder, and I sort of joked about how I ended up making the chowder. He said that was the point: that the host buys the ingredients and the guests pitch in by cooking. But am I bad for not agreeing to that? I will totally make food in my own kitchen and bring it to a potluck. If I invite people over, I will lovingly prepare food for them. And as I said, if my friend invited me by saying "I need help in the kitchen, could you please pitch in?" I might do it. But what if I don't feel like cooking for anybody? Or I don't want to shuck clams again? Am I being an uncharitable bad friend? Do I suck?

What Pedantic Editor Type said. You can invite a friend over to cook together (properly splitting the work) as an activity, but inviting a friend to dinner only to expect them to cook is bullshit. As a POC who grew up poor and  learned how to cook first as a survival strategy and then worked in kitchens in college, I have zero patience for people who can't cook or expect others to cook like its not actually a job that you pay someone to do if you can't do it yourself.  As a general rule, hosts should always tell guests exactly what to expect up front so they can decide whether they actually want to come or not. So, yeah, your friend and her boyfriend suck. And if they can't be adults and admit they like your cooking and want you to cook for them,  they suck even more, although you still would not be obligated even if they did that. 

No, these people are terrible. You laid out all kinds of acceptable ways they could go about it: being upfront and asking you to help them cook, having a potluck, or you having them over for dinner. But inviting you over to cook for other people? No. 







PS Potlucks suck

Update: my friend has just posted: “Getting ready for another clam chowder Thanksgiving. Perhaps a smaller crowd than last year, but still filled with love and gratitude.”

She tagged her bf and she has about a dozen likes. I want to ignore this and maybe post a thanksgiving pic of me in MY kitchen cooking for my family. Is that too passive aggressive? Isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

Totally. More than that, you should make clam chowder and post pics of you doing it. Then a postscript note that it was way too much for so few people so you tossed the leftovers.