We had a great experience Saturday at Chicago Food Corp. (aka Joong Boo Market) on Kimball, the store that Becky's family used to go to. We've known about it for a long time but had only been to the company's other store on Pulaski across from North Park Village. What a difference!
This place was like a visit to Seoul. It was jammed with mostly Korean shoppers, had a nice little lunch counter in the back (where we had some Bip Bim Bop), was basically unheated (we ate in our coats and hats) and had all sorts of wild foods like daikon radishes (in photo) and many, many things that we had never seen before.
What we had seen were stone bowls for making Bip Bim Bop and Korean-style soups, and even though we didn't know how to use them, we bought a couple for $5.99 each and brought them home along with our fresh veggies, fried tofu pouches and Korean deli items. Pam went to work on the internet, found various YouTube Korean chef-teachers and recipes, and tonight made us very authentic Bip Bim Bop.
Here's the surprise. Pam cooked the oyster mushrooms and spinach and rice, then we layered into the cold pots those ingredients along with raw julienned carrots and zucchini, and the cold tofu. I thought, no way, that can't be right. But then we put the covered bowls straight onto the burners, put them on medium flames, and cooked them about eight minutes, until we could hear them sizzling.Perfect! It tasted just the way it should, crispy and hot and spicy with the red sauces we stirred in, vigorously, as we've been taught by S
tern Face at the Tofu House restaurant. And because of the stone bowl, it stayed warm right to the last crusty morsels. So now we know how to make Dol Sot Bip Bim Bop.
2 comments:
How adventurous. I suppose you learned Korean while you were at it.
And I see you've embedded a slide show too. Bravo.
This reminds me that four years ago when I was doing voter education and get-out-the-vote in Milwaukee, I was also writing a blog post every night, and knowing I was going to be writing something gave everything I did that day a little extra excitement.
I imagine it must be the same with this blog. You're not just creating a meal, you're telling a story.
It's a two-fer: it keeps us on our game in terms of procuring and cooking good food, and it gives me an opportunity to practice a looser, more spontaneous writing than my workday stuff.
And the writing comes when it comes; we take photos of a dish thinking we might do something with it, and that night or a few nights later, I say to Pam, "I think I'll freshen up that food blog," and whip something off. Sometimes even while watching TV!
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