I want to be a good chef
Two important factors influencing my goals are my children and my mother. Firstly, I am currently the mother of two children. My life has changed dramatically as I became a mother after I married. I started to be interested in cooking, health, and the well-being of my children. I started to identify better organic ingredients and studied cooking equipment and ingredients. Also, I now enjoy constantly collecting and analyzing healthy and nutritious recipes. Secondly, my mother is the owner-chef of a Japanese restaurant, so I often worked to help her in her restaurant. Working in there included everything from serving, plating, purchasing ingredients, simple cooking, and cashier. These are the starting points of my cooking life.
Culinary is my life
Like the photo above, I am always cooking in real life. I enjoy not only Korean food, but also Japanese cuisine. Also, I am learning baking for the first time this fall semester, which is very interesting. Finally, I want to learn a variety of dishes and expand my cooking range.
Preservation
1. Fermented Food: Cucumber Kimchi
Kimchi is a salted fermented vegetable made
by pickling vegetables such as cabbage, radish, and cucumber in salt and mixing various seasonings
such as red pepper powder, green onion, garlic, and ginger
(Wikipedia contributors, 2020). Specifically, Kimchi contains many healthy ingredients; various vegetables in kimchi are very rich in vitamins and dietary fiber, preventing colon cancer, and garlic has anticancer effects. In addition, red pepper powder and garlic are good for weight loss and constipation because they activate metabolism in the human body; also, it is rich in vitamins A, C, and E, so it strengthens immunity and prevents skin aging. Lastly, the lactic acid bacteria contained in kimchi inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria in the intestine and act as antibacterial (Seoul Restaurant, n.d.). Most of all,
in the past, Korean mothers kept kimchi in the ground in order to continuously supply food to their families during the cold winter, and stored kimchi was a valuable food for families throughout the year; this is the process of natural fermentation learned in class, and I think kimchi,
which has been aged for a long time, is the best-fermented food with many nutrients. For all these reasons,
I chose kimchi for this preservation.
2. My workstation
3. Ingredients
​Basic Materials
-
English cucumber 3 pcs, 600g
-
Yuan Korean chives 125g
-
Loose carrot 1/2 pcs, 100g
-
Saltwater (pickled): Coldwater 2/3 cup, 100ml + Grind salt 3 tsp
-
Flour paste: All-purpose flour 1/2 tsp + water 1/3 cup
Seasoning
-
Onion 1pc 107g
-
Red pepper powder 30g
-
Sugar 2tsp
-
Fish sauce 30g
-
Salted (pickled) shrimp 15g
-
Crushed garlic 16g
-
Minced ginger 5g
4. Recipe
1. Wash the cucumbers by rubbing them with coarse salt
under running water
2. Trim both ends of the cucumber and cut into quarters
*If you hold the bottom with tongs and cut it in a cross shape, you can easily cut it leaving about 1 cm
3. Add 1 tsp of grind salt to 2/3 cup of water and stir well
Set aside at room temperature for about 40 minutes for pickling
4. Flour paste: Add 1/2 tsp of flour to 1/3 cup of water,
mix well, and heat over low heat to prevent burning
5. Finely chop 125g of Yuan Korean chives and
slice 100g of carrots into 6cm long pieces
6. Cut the carrot thinly into 6cm long
7. Check that the cucumber is well pickled and drain
Seasoning
1. Put one onion, 30g of fish sauce, 15g of salted (pickled) shrimp, and 1tsp of sugar in a mixer and grind
2. Prepare 16g of crushed garlic and 5g of Minced ginger
Assembling
1. Put the pickled cucumbers, chopped chives, sliced carrots,
and seasoning in a mixing bowl and mix gradually
2. The finished cucumber kimchi is aged at room temperature
for about 10 hours and then stored in the refrigerator continuously
Plating
5. A sensory evaluation
A side dish of deliciously aged cucumber kimchi after two days
Cucumber kimchi, made with red seasoning, looks a bit
spicy visually, but when eaten it is not salty or spicy.
The texture of many chopped chives adds a deep flavor to the crispy cucumber and the finely chopped carrots give a beautiful color to the dish. In addition, salted shrimp and
fish sauce add the umami of cucumber kimchi,
and onions make this dish naturally sweet.
Surprisingly, kimchi, a fermented food, tastes deeper over time and works well for health. In fact, I ate it as a side dish as soon as I cooked it and likewise ate it the next day. Certainly, it was better when the kimchi was aged more.
Also, when I chewed cucumber kimchi, the texture was crunchy and the smell of it was spicy. Thanks to the class,
I was very happy to be able to eat
homemade cucumber kimchi with my family.
6. Reflection
After learning about various types of fermented foods in class,
I actually made cucumber kimchi myself, so it was easy to understand all the processes from preparing each ingredient to natural fermentation. Cucumber kimchi, a fermented food,
is not only good for human health, but it is very convenient and practical because once cooked it can be preserved for a long time.
I have never abandoned kimchi,
and it is a magical dish that does not spoil.
I want to cook other fermented foods
I learned in class someday.
7. References
Seoul Restaurant. (n.d.). Amazing health benefits of Kimchi. Retrieved November 24, 2020, from https://www.seoul.com.sg/amazing-health-benefits-of-kimchi/
Wikipedia contributors. (2020, November 14). Kimchi. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:53, November 24, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kimchi&oldid=988692202
