Ah, so its been a while since i've updated - and actually a while since I made this.  Oops.  I've been on a kimchi kick for a while now, so the logical next step was to make my own.  I just googled a recipe and looked for one that seemed the most simple, this is the one I used:

http://www.kimchibulgogi.com/mahg-easy-cut-kimchi-recipe/

It all seemed pretty straight forward, cut the cabbage, wash it, sprinkle it with salt.  Except I don't think I did it as well as I could have.  First up I should have drained the cabbage a lot more before salting it.  Secondly I used sea-salt and it probably wasn't fine enough, thus it didn't sprinkle so well and I didn't get quite the coverage necessary.

 Still, I think you can just tell from the difference between these first two photos how much the cabbage wilts under the load of salt.  This was just under 2 hours, but I think it really needed twice as long to be truly effective.  I'd also decided that the 1/2 cup of ground chilli flakes I had wasn't hot enough so added a couple of tablespoons of cayenne - I think in hindsight that was probably a bit unnecessary!

Its quite strange when you first start mixing it, as you don't think its going to mix evenly, but all of a sudden it goes from powdery to gloopy to saucy as these 3 images hopefully show.  The longer you leave it the more sauce seems to develop, which is especially noticeable between the last picture in the bowl & when its finally jarred.  I decided to wear gloves as my skin is a bit wimpy and can't handle large amounts of salt or acid, so I figured lots of chilli would do the same thing.

In next to no time at all it was ready to chuck in jars, it turns out that one head of cabbage makes a whole hell of a lot of kimchi!  I think I finished making this a week and a half ago and i've still only used two thirds of that smaller plastic container, I might have to find someone else who likes kimchi who can have one of the jars!  

To date its been a pretty tasty - but very spicy snack, a reasonably good chicken kimchi jjigae and I managed to make a reasonable stir fry using it too.  But either I made it poorly, or its not a very good recipe.  I'd like to try one with more than just cabbage as the vegetables, and I think it needs to sit out longer to start fermenting as this doesn't really have a vinegary taste at all yet.  But, not a bad first attempt I reckon!

Since my first foray into making Kimchi Jjigae i've been keen to try to cook it again.  I'd done such a good job of making a passable version first up that I decided I should test to see if this was a fluke or not.  I've also been doing some reading, and it seems that Kimchi Jjigae doesn't have to be made with pork every time.  I had some prawns in the freezer, and often have a bag of fish balls around too - yes, I realise these are not the best of ingredients - so figured i'd make a couple of modifications to the No Recipe's version and have a go at a Seafood Kimchi Jjigae.

Here's what I started with, though I almost forgot the Mirin & Soy so they're not pictured.  The wine isn't part of the recipe, but at the end of a long day its a fairly important component to cooking any meal.  I know not everyone shares the same sentiment, but for me, cooking is a great way to unwind.  Drinking is also helpful, so I figure it's twice as effective if you combine the two.

Five minutes after retrieving all the ingredients I needed from the fridge, freezer & pantry the wok was hot, everything was peeled and chopped, measured and I was basically ready to go.  This is just one of the reasons I'll be cooking this dish again throughout the winter.  Often stews can take a long time to get underway, this took next to no time at all.  

I decided to cut the vegetables quite chunky, but actually that would only matter if you were using pork shoulder or a protein that needed a lengthy cook.  The seafood & tofu here basically only need 5 minutes in the liquid to cook so I had to hold them back while the carrots softened cooked.  If i'd cut them thinner, I think I could have had this served within 15 minutes from start to finish.

Other than prepping the veges - which you could even skip if you wanted to go really quick - all I had to do was slice up the Tofu, halve the fish balls and measure everything else.  And when I say measure even that was a bit haphazard, so I could probably have dropped everything straight in the wok instead of posing for this photo.

I haven't yet found a way to take good photos of things cooking on my stove, but its all self explanatory.  Sweat off the carrots & shallots, chuck everything else in along with a cup or so of water.  Cook until the seafood is done & the liquid has reduced and thickened slightly.  Serve, and enjoy!  As you can see below I got a bit distracted - probably getting a second glass of wine - and reduced the sauce a little too much.

I'll try a few different proteins yet - Chicken, maybe even Lamb - but I'm already certain that Kimchi Jjigae is destined to be part of my winter stable of recipes.  Its so quick, really versatile and as a hot & spicy stew its perfect to warm from the inside out at the end of a cold day.

Yes, this is a bit Julie & Julia, but i'm not putting a time limit on when this will be done, and I certainly have no intention of writing a book about it, or being immortalised on film.  Its just an excuse to try recipes out, and to ensure i've always got something coming along to write about.

So, because i'm a bit of a geek, I figured i'd got with a slightly geeky series.  Good Eats was a cooking show made by Alton Brown which lasted over 9 series.  I really like his science-y approach to food, and doing things right.  He also gets into some DIY type activities as well, and at the end of the day made some pretty delicious looking food.  Having tried a couple of his recipes before I can attest they aren't just delicious looking either.  One of my favourite aspects of his shows is how he explains exactly why things work they way they do and along the way dispels a lot of myths that other cooking shows continue to spread.

But what's even better, for those that missed out on the opportunity of watching his show, is that many of the episodes have been added to youtube by LikeTheHat.  Now, I think LikeTheHat are the production company that made the show, so I hope that this means they're up there legitimately and aren't going to be taken down.

Each post in this series will be based on one of the episodes available on youtube, so you'll get to check out the show & then see if I can make food as good.  The scary part for me is that there's plenty of baking throughout, and i'm not at all good at that.  Fingers crossed I can pull it off!  Luckily, the show isn't designed for 5 star chefs, but for average joes, so a lot of the dishes are pretty simple it more about how to execute them well.

I wasn't intending on eating and talking about Kung Pao Chicken from Satay Kingdom next, as far as I understand its a Chinese dish, so it was a bit of a surprise to see it featured on the menu of one of Wellington's well known Malaysian eateries.

To be honest I usually avoid Satay Kingdom, sure its cheap and the service is fast but the food just isn't as good as other places about town.  Its not as if we are short on options when it comes to Malaysian food either, here's a rough list just off the top of my head of places that i've been to:  Kopi Tiam, Serai Heaven, KK Malaysian, Rasa, Satay Village, Satay Kingdom, Satay Heaven, Satay Kajang, Istana Malaysia, Oriental Kingdom, Pratha 2 Go, Roti Chenai, Kopi.  

For whatever reason Satay Kingdom is where I found myself for dinner, and not really wanting noodles or curry or satay for that matter, I decided what the hell, i'd give their take on Kung Pao Chicken a whirl.  But let it be said at the outset, that this isn't the Kung Pao chicken that i'm used to.

For starters, there are no peanuts!  Oddly, as a bit of a peanut hater, this is the part that I missed the most.  Then the chillis are different, there are loads of different vegetables, and the sauce isn't as dark either.  However, just because something is different, it shouldn't mean that its inferior.

Unfortunately, in this case, it actually does mean its inferior.  I think my own version of this dish surpasses it in many ways.  The chillis used were hot yes, but didn't have the deep earthy flavour of the normal dried red ones other places use.  The sauce was sweet, but it wasn't salty enough for me, I think it needed a lot more soy.

I'm in two minds about the vegetables, I guess they do help round out the dish and make it more of a meal - otherwise it would just have onions, peanuts & chicken.  But I think they were the wrong type of veges.  Carrots would work, as they have a natural sweetness to them, and perhaps bamboo shoots might be a good addition, but the green beans were just additional water & cauliflower with its delicate flavour often comes off on the bland side when competing with other more powerful tastes.

I did really like the crunchy barely cooked onions though.  I'm thinking of adding a sweeter variety, perhaps red or white rather than the usual brown, as an optional garnish the next time I make my version.  I still want a base of deep caramelised onions, but a textural difference might work well.

So, the overall verdict?  Well, i've given it 2/5 mostly because this just isn't what I think of when I read Kung Pao Chicken.  It wasn't executed poorly or anything, its just not quite right.  But let's be honest, if you're going to a place called Satay Kingdom, there's a hint in the name as to what you ought to be ordering instead.

Just a quick post today to share my relief that the weird wings I had last time I was here weren't replacing the great Cajun spiced wings that I remember. Not overly hot, but just enough of a chilli kick & decent whack of salt to make you really thirsty for beer. Its just a pity they don't brew their own here anymore.

The wings are jointed, so you can choose either the bicep part, or the fore-arm & wingtip. Because I like the crunchy bits, I skip the meatier bicep section and go for the piece with the wingtip. They come with two sauces, Thai sweet chilli & I think a BBQ sauce, but unless you are really sensitive to chilli you should skip the sauce & just enjoy the seasoning & crunchy juicy wings as they came out of the oven - or frier or whatever they were cooked in.

These might be my favourite wings in Wellington now.

Though I haven't yet got around to making my own kimchi, I didn't think that was a good reason not to try making Kimchi Jjigae myself.  I have no idea how authentic this recipe is, and it comes from the oddly named website No Recipes, so perhaps I should be dubious.  Nevertheless first impressions are that this is a really easy & really tasty dish to make.

Mostly following the recipe correctly, I think I did rather well.  I didn't have any Mirin and as I was told in clear terms that it was spicy enough I didn't add any of the (up to 2 tablespoons!) chilli powder.  Those tweaks aside, it was really good, I was surprised just how good in fact.

I think its the miso paste that brings the earthy flavours, and the kimchi mellows in a really interesting way when its cooked.  But either the choice of pork belly for the meat, or the cooking time allowed is an error I need to rectify next time around.

It might not be the traditional way but i'm thinking pork shoulder simmered gently over a couple of hours might be delicious.  Plus i'll boost the amount of garlic & add more fresh ginger instead of powdered.  This is going to be a winter staple - but next time I'll try to have some home-made kimchi ready.

http://norecipes.com/blog/kimchi-jigae-recipe-kimchi-soup/

So, if you've been following my hunt for Kung Pao Chicken you'll already know that my first attempt at cooking this dish was based mostly on the recipe I found from the Mama Chinese website. It was ok, but I knew that I could make it better and closer to the best version i've had from Quanjude in Melbourne.

One of the main deficiencies was the quality of the sauce. What i'm trying to get to is a thick, slightly sweet, syrupy sauce, dark & salty from the soy and with a deep earthy heat from the dried chillis. I thought I had figured out the main issue with this recipe and it seemed like it would be an easy fix.

For my second attempt i'd decided that the source of the sweetness should be the component that makes the sauce sticky and syrupy. I wanted to try using mollasses but couldn't find it anywhere, so instead used a couple of tablespoons of treacle.

This seems to have done the trick, but the main difficulty now is timing everything correctly & whipping stuff in & out of the wok so that the sauce reduces to a thick syrup without drying out the hunks of chicken.  Oh, and also remembering to pick up cooking wine in which to marinade the chicken in advance.

I'd say i'm pretty close but there are a couple of other adjustments i'd like to make yet before i'd be totally happy with the recipe.  I feel like it might need an additional vegetable of some kind, only I don't yet know what.  I'm thinking possibly sliced onions that have been heavily caramelised might be a go, but that will have to wait until next time!

I just wanted to post a quick comment on my last encounter with Chicken Wings, which was at the bar I think has the best outdoors area in Wellington.  That's mostly because I really like the floating crane Hikitia which neatly blocks views of Wellington's container terminal across the water at the Port.

Anyway, i'd wanted to go back and get a picture of the Wings at Mac's Brewbar for a while as I had found them very delicious.  Only this time they were different - instead of the dry spiced Cajun wings, we now had a sticky something-else kind of Wings.

I wasn't sloshed, but for whatever reason I couldn't pick what these were supposed to be.  I settled on calling them either under-soyed 5-Spice & Honey Soy Wings, or under-chillied Jerk Wings.  They weren't bad, and the wings were very well cooked - moist & delicious.  But flavour wise they just didn't pack a punch at all.

I saw later that the Cajun Wings are still on the bar menu, so perhaps we accidentally got a special or something from the Restaurant menu.  Who knows, but don't go for this variety - unless you like kinda bland, yet quite sweet sauces, on your chook.

It had been a long time since I’d eaten Korean food, and having dined frequently on Thai, Malay, Chinese and Japanese of late, I thought a change would be good.  A friend of mine lived in Korea - teaching English - for a while so I figured he'd be keen on reliving some of his favourite foods, so off to Seoul House we went.

My first introduction to Kimchi jjigae was I think from the first Harold & Kumar - the one where they go to White Castle.  Though I misheard it, and thought it the character that mentioned it said Kimchi Chicken.  I know I like kimchi, and have heard that like sauerkraut and other fermented foods there are nutritional benefits to its consumption.

My buddy said Kimchi jjigae was pretty tasty - though he preferred Bibimbap - so I decided to give it a whirl.  I guess I’ve got a hankering for hot foods at the moment, because like Kung Pao this is another dish which has a reasonable kick of chilli in it.  It’s not overly hot, well actually it is.  It comes to the table bubbling away so you have to give it a moment or two so you don't burn your tongue.

Oddly, the vinegar aspect of kimchi's flavour isn't as prevalent as I thought it would be.  This is really just a wonderfully savoury, hot stew.  I can imagine, for those who work outdoors, on a really cold winter day that this is exactly the sort of food you'd want at lunch time to keep you going.  Everything in the dish just melds together with the sauce, so the flavour differences in the ingredients from the meat to the tofu or vegetables is quite subtle.  Instead the differences are mostly textural so you go from chewy meat to almost crunchy vegetables, and then soft & squishy tofu.

I really enjoyed this, and am keen to add it to my repertoire given the colder weather that's ahead.  First, however, I need to learn how to make kimchi.  This could be interesting...

Apologies for the lack of posting in recent times. I've had a cold & been very slack on cooking which gives me little to write about.

But in the coming weeks I hope to do a couple of posts, I've got an improvement to the Kung Pao Chicken recipe I'd like to try, and have an odd desire to try to cook brisket, a challenge I have never undertaken.

We are well into Autumn now, so it's time to dust off my repertoire of wintry foods too, I have a recipe for stewing beef shin I'd like to share, plus a great 3 Meat Chilli from Alton Brown.

If you have any requests for a type of food or an ingredient I should try let me know, I'm always keen on new ideas in the kitchen.