my wife has been watching korean series for years now and raves about them...I finally got around to watching this one and when they got to episode 3 it hooked me....first two didn't hook me...great acting...their film industry is really putting out good quality films. This one is set up for a sequel ...the masked leader of the games is an A list star in Korea.
It's not just Korea's film industry, their music and food are taking off also, I even just walked by a Korean fried chicken and beer restaurant. Kias and Hyundai s are respectible rides now also. Culturally they are becoming a powerhouse and it's fun to watch.
Hot damn, looks great. I've been thinking about trying my own fermentation in general and kimchi. Any tips? My wife has also got me on a daily kombucha schedule, it's great and seems to really help my gut. This brand she buys delivers and has a ton of flavors.
I can share the basic recipe I used, if you like. It turned out absolutely perfect. I would recommend getting a fermentation kit. Comes with lids that fit on wide mouth jars with a little water device on top so gas can escape, but none can enter. Makes things clean, sterile and easy. I'm currently fermenting some green jalapeño sriracha style hot sauce.
My wife started making Kimchi at home decades ago..she makes a couple gallons at a time and I eat it with everything.....Korea makes some of the best guitars in asia...
My wife has heard that this is really excellent but we didn't know what the name of it was and whether it was a movie or a series. Now we know what to look for.
Koreans are known as the Irish of the East, They drink a lot of alcohol and are very emotional. They are also very clean. They do not wear shoes in the house and scrub the dead skin off their bodies about every other day if perfect but many such as my wife only do it once a week. She scrubs dead skin off my legs, arms and back once a week and has me scrub the rest of my body at the same time. They mostly drink beer, q fermented rice beer known as Makgeolli (Korean: 막걸리, raw rice wine [mak.k͈ʌɭɭi]), sometimes anglicized to makkoli (/ˈmækəli/,[1] MAK-ə-lee), is a Korean alcoholic beverage. The milky, off-white, and lightly sparkling rice wine has a slight viscosity that tastes slightly sweet, tangy, bitter, and astringent. They also drink Soju (/ˈsoʊdʒuː/; from Korean: 소주; 燒酒 [so.dʑu]) is a clear, colourless distilled alcoholic beverage of Korean origin.[1][2][3] It is usually consumed neat, and its alcohol content varies from about 16.8% to 53% alcohol by volume (ABV). I like makgeolli although it has a distinct sour flavor. Kimchee just means Korean pickle and can be made out of many different vegetables. Koreans also eat doenjang-jjigae (or soup made with soybean paste) very similar to Japanese Miso soup but ever so slightly different. It is a main staple served with short grain sticky rice that all Asians eat. Side dishes are usually different kinds of kim chee. They also make two delicious sweet drinks. One is made from rice and is cloudy with bits of rice pieces and not sour at all. The other is equally sweet and made from cinnamon which is supposed to have medicinal properties which includes better control of diabetes. The best Korean restaurants are found in Seattle and better yet in the Lakewood district of Tacoma just North of Ft. Lewis and just off I-5 on the West side The Lakewood district abounds with Korean businesses that have Korean writing on their signs. The Southern part of the Lakewood district has the best restaurants. Korean movies are excellent, especially their science fiction movies. Be prepared for their tear jerkers which will leave you in tears. They are a very polite people and their language, just like German, has both an everyday way of speaking and an extra polite way. They have great public bath houses with separate men and women sides. Be sure to take a cleansing shower before getting into one of the soaking hot tubs. The police and the military treated me like royalty, The Koreans have what they call a gisaeng house which is nearly identical to a geisha house. They are q load of fun, very expensive, not sexual in the crude sense but don't take your wife although it is permitted. Be prepared to sing some common songs. I knot four Korean songs and after I sang them I heard people clapping their applause in neighboring rooms. They get their money from their drink so be prepared to drink a lot of alcohol. I love Korea and learned their customs and how to speak and read it albeit on an elementary level. Everywhere I went and no matter how bad If spoke it everyone told me how flawless my spoken Korean was. It was cute of them. School children love Americans and as I would pass them on a path or sidewalk just as they passed by me I would hear them say in their cute way "heh-roe" and then a giggle. I'd love to go back but dialysis makes me wonder about the logistics. I love foreign countries and even speak passable German but again, logistics.
I pretty much used this recipe: https://www.feastingathome.com/how-to-make-kimchi/ You can see some variation there. I would recommend using a very good quality fish sauce if you are going that route. Quality fish sauce makes a huge difference. I also used Korean chili flakes to make my own paste. I believe I let it ferment at room temperature for 3 to 4 days and them moved to the refrigerator, where the process slows down. It is now 3 and a half weeks old and tastes even better. The fridge slows the fermentation but doesn't stop it completely, so it is still slowly changing. I also added waaay more garlic than the recipe called for, because that is just who I am.
Maybe I got caught up in the hype but I found the show to be good, not great. It dragged in a lot of places and neither of the two big reveals were all that surprising. It's worth the watch but not sure I'd follow it to season 2.
Is fish sauce a key ingredient? I have a few people in the house who are particularly sensitive to it. Im with you on the garlic. You can not have too much in most everything. I usually start by doubling it in every recipe.
For anyone interested, Delta is starting direct flights to Seoul from PDX this fall. I saw some really cheap spring tickets awhile ago, not sure what they are up to today.
For me, fish sauce is a key ingredient, because I can't get enough of it. But, if you check out the link I sent, the author has a work around for people who prefer not to use fish sauce. Would be interested in seeing how that turns out.
My wife likes hers with a ton of garlic. She even uses a Korean version of the garlic chives to make a chive kimchee which she loves and is her favorite because the flavor is absolutely over the top in garlic flavor. If you eat authentic Korean BBQ they will frequently include raw garlic cloves to eat on the side with some Doenjang for dipping. Curiously, I love a ton of garlic in my American pickled string beans but only like a moderate amount in my Korean food. Koreans also eat their kimchee with a raw oyster sauce. I like neither of those two seafood sauces.
Also, please note that Korean cayenne pepper is not as hot as the American cayenne. Another note doenjang-jjigae is made with zucchini, jalapeno, green onion garlic and tofu, the soft kind is preferred. For meat, Koreans traditionally add clams such as little necks, manila clams and cockles. I haven't been to a restaurant in Korea in decades so I don't know what they do in Korea but American Korean restaurants are drifting toward adding beef, usually in the form of hamburger rather than the clams shell and all. I don't know if it's cheaper or what but I can't stand doenjang-jjigae made with beef and especially not hamburger. It doesn't take a lot of clams, I like plenty but if I get four or five I'm happy.
If you like Korean food then you'll love doenjang-jjigae with manila clams and sticky white rice. Koreans usually add enough rice that there is little juice that isn't soaked up. My God, that's delicious and maybe the most common main course in Korean cuisine. It's more popular among Koreans and far more healthy than the American favorite, bibimbap.
