Gom Gook - (꼬리 곰탕)

One of my readers asked me to find them this recipe (hey h!) and I’m currently working hard to move all my pictures onto Picasa. The quality of the pictures seems to be a lot crisper and cleaner than where I had them loaded previously.

Yes, it’s time consuming. I realize now that I have over 100 recipes on this blog. =O When did I cook so much?!

Anyhow, this is a really old post, but I can’t seem to make it go BACK there without deleting all the comments. =( I truly do *love* your comments and read each and every one of them. I know it’s not easy commenting on a stranger’s blog, so I’m all the more thankful for them.

So here’s my old recipe as a *new* post. =) Enjoy!

I went and bought about 2.5 lbs. of ox tails and 2.5 of sa-gul (cow bones with bone marrow). I ended up using half that bag of sa-gul and I'm going to use the remaining for PHO sometime next week.



Begin by washing and draining your bones and meat. Let it sit in cold water for about an hour (or more) and change the water out every 15 minutes or so. This is to drain all the blood out.



Add the bones to a pot of boiling water and just let all the gunk rise to the top. Boil it for about 15-30 minutes…

..remove it from the pot and rinse the bones and meat CLEAN.



Then place it back into the pot and fill it almost to the top with water and let it come to a strong boil. It took an hour for all that water to start boiling. After it's boiling, reduce the heat and let it boil softly for 2 hours.



Meanwhile I use my trusty teabags and stuff it with 2 small sprigs of ginger, 15-20 garlic cloves, and 1 spoonful of whole peppercorns.



I also washed and peeled about 1 lb. of moo (daikon radish) and 2 large onions.



After about 2 hours of boiling time, all the oil and fat from the meat starts to rise to the top...



...just skim the excess oil and discard it.



At this point, add all the vegetables pictured above. Let it boil for an additional two hours or so…



After 2 hours, remove ALL the vegetables. If you cook it any longer, it will start falling apart in the broth and you will lose all the pieces.



This step is optional. I like my broth to be WHITE, and in order to achieve that, I remove ALL the meat (after about 4-5 hours of boiling)…



I then preserve all the meat from the ox tails and all the tendons from the bones and place it into a smaller pot for easy access when serving.



I make sure the bones are clean and then add ONLY the bones back to the pot.

Once you have all the meat out and the bones back in, lower the heat just enough so that it’s *barely* boiling. Confused? You want to make sure there are little bubbles coming up, but not too strong where it’s a rolling boil.

Let it cook overnight. The longer the better. Seriously. Look at how white the broth is. It's been simmering for about 14 hours or so and I'm going to continue to do so until the broth is thick and milky. On average, I let my gom gook cook for almost 24 hours. =P I will start taking some of the broth out the next morning to make dduk gook and moo gook or whatever else gook, but I will leave the rest to keep boiling.



When you’re ready to serve, add some meat and broth and top it off with green onions. Salt to taste! I actually cooked it even longer so the *real* final product was a much whiter broth.

You can let the broth cool down and then FREEZE some of it in ziplocs for later use. Tastes pretty darn good!

The gom gook was perfect for the ggak ddoogi from the other day.

Dwenjang Jjigae - Soy Bean Soup - Version 2.0 - (된장 찌개)

Cooking is such an interesting thing. Trying to cook in someone else's kitchen is quite a challenge. Trying to find Korean ingredients in a small town proved to be even a greater challenge. I didn't want to buy EVERYTHING, so I only bought the bare minimum ingredients and have been improvising in the kitchen.

Today I made dwenjang jjigae with a beef broth instead of my usual fish broth. You can go and see Version 1.0 here.

Things needed:

• Veggies: Onions, squash, mushrooms, pepper, potato
• Dwenjang
• Tofu
• 1/4 cup of beef
• small piece of daikon radish (moo)
• 1/2 TB of minced garlic
• 1/2 TB of sesame oil

I first started by chopping my veggies and draining a bit of beef.



I then added 1/2 TB of sesame oil and 1/2 TB of minced garlic to a pot.



Saute the beef until cooked...



Then add 4 cups of water and a small piece of moo to make the broth. Bring it to a boil.



Then add 3TB of dwenjang and bring to a boil again.



Then add your squash, potatoes, and onions...



Throw in your mushrooms and tofu...



Throw in a pepper if you have one on hand.



I didn't have gochugarui, so instead I just added a dash of cayenne pepper. =P



Top it off with some green onions and let everything boil until the potatoes are done. Enjoy!!!



I'm currently making gom tang. I'll show you how to make some yummy moo gook with the broth tomorrow! =)

Moo Gook - Daikon Radish Soup - Version 2.0 - (무우국)

Don't you just love how there are so many ways to cook the same dish? =P You can make my mom's 경상도 style mook gook or you can make the following more traditional moo gook.



I took out the moo pieces from the gom gook I'm currently making before they got too soft and chopped it up like so.



Then I got a few cup fulls of gom gook (which has only cooked for about 5 hours) and put it in another smaller pot. I didn't measure exactly, but I would say this is about 7 cups of broth.




Add your moo pieces and a few pieces of beef...



Season it accordingly with some gook ganjang and salt to taste (and I addeds 1/2 TB of minced garlic). Again, I didn't measure - just do it according to your taste buds.



Finally, throw in some green onions and you're ready to serve!



YUMMY, delicious moo gook using the broth from gom gook. The gom gook is still cooking and will cook for about another 9 hours or so. It will be our family's breakfast for tomorrow! I'm going to make dduk gook with the broth as well, so if I have time I'll post that up. There are just SO many things you can make with gom gook broth. Get creative!

Dduk Gook using Gom Gook Broth - (떡국)

I know I made dduk gook before, but I just thought I would do a quick how-to using gom gook. It's easy!



First start off with about 4-5 cups of gom gook broth. The broth was really thick, so I diluted it with a little bit of water. I then added about 1 TB of gook ganjang, some minced garlic, and some salt. Do you see a pattern here? =P



Fry some eggs. You can be lazy and fry the yolk and white together, or you can take the time to fry it separately like this. I just had a little more time this morning so I thought I would make it look pretty for you readers. =P



I had a little bit of beef leftover, so I just seasoned it lightly with soy sauce.



Cut some gim up into strips using scissors.



Do the same with everything else....



Bring the broth to a boil and do a quick taste test. Then add your dduk and let it boil again until the dduk is done.



Plate the dduk gook first...



Then arrange all your toppings and you're ready to serve! Enjoy~~~

Tomorrow, I'm going to use the remaining gom gook to make some miyuk gook. I will post a how-to of that as well just because I'm bored here FAR away from home and friends. =P Toodles!

Rice Cake and Dumpling Soup - 떡만두국

Let me preface this post by saying there are many ways to cook a dish. There is no right way and no wrong way. If it tastes great to YOU, then you did it the right way!

I realized today that it has been about a year and a half since I started this blog. I've been going through some of my old recipes and my cooking has definitely evolved from some of those older posts. In present day cooking, I might add more shrimp jut or a little less gook ganjang or I may even be more liberal with fish sauce (something I don't like).

With the Lunar New Year's coming up, I decided to make some dduk mandoo gook.

There are so many ways to make dduk gook. You can make it using just plain beef broth like this. You can make different uses of gom gook and make it using that broth instead. You can add the egg directly in, you can pan fry it and add it separately, you can separate the meat and add it on top as a pretty garnish, or you can be lazy like me and shove everything into a pot at the same time.

Do what feels right for you!

Ingredients Needed:

• 6 mandoos
• 4 cups of dduk (rice cakes)
• 1 cup of shredded beef
• 1/2 julienned carrot
• 1/2 sliced onion
• 1/2 sliced squash
• 3 sliced mushrooms
• broth: 1/2 TB minced garlic, 3 TB gook ganjang, 1/2 TB sesame oil

And onto the cooking~~~~


First, defrost some mandoo (dumplings). This mandoo was homemade by my husband's aunt. According to the MR, her family is known for their wonderfully delicious mandoos. He was right! They are absolutely divine. I *wish* I could make mandoo like this. I've made mandoo at home numerous times, but I can't quite seem to get the flavor of the older generations.



Defrost some dduk (rice cakes) and let it drain out as well. This is about half a bag. This recipe won't have EXACT measurements, so please don't kill me.



This time I used flank meat. This is the meat you would use to make yook gae jang. I've already boiled the meat once and thrown out all the guck. then added more water to make some beef broth.



Meanwhile start getting your veggies ready. I julienned carrots and squash (about a cup each). Slice up 1/2 onion very thinly and slice 1 large mushroom thinly as well.



Let the beef broth boil for about 30 minutes or so.



No *real* measurements here. I added about 1/2 TB of sesame oil, 3 TB of gook ganjang, and 1/2 TB of minced garlic. Turn up the heat...



And then dump in all the veggies and stir away!



Meanwhile, remove the meat from the broth and rinse it under cool water (so you don't burn your fingers like I did) and start ripping the meat off. It should be very easy to pull apart. This is exactly what you would do to make yook gae jang.



You want to achieve this. You can place this on top like a garnish when you're done with the dduk gook.



When your vegetables start looking like this...

Add all the beef broth and continue boiling.

Then throw in the meat (I’m lazy) and the mandoo and dduk! No, I do not know how many cups of water I used. =/ I use this Le Creuset pot (yes, it's worth the $$$) when I cook and I just eyeball it. I add just enough water so that everything won't boil over. So...4 quarts? I added MORE water after I took this picture. There wasn't enough beef broth.



Go ahead and add some green onions!



Add your dduk and mandoo -- and just as it starts boiling, SERVE IT! My dduk and mandoo was completely defrosted overnight so there was no need to cook it for a long time. I actually scooped out ALL of the dduk and mandoo and just reused the leftover broth the next day with *new* mandoo and dduk.

Cut some gim up!

And then place some on top. This is the MR’s egg-less version. My husband absolutely LOATHES eggs.



After I was sure that the MR was satisfied with his portion, I went and cracked an egg directly into the soup and let it boil some more.



This is the egg version that Munchkin and I enjoyed. =)



I later found this note stuck to the fridge. It made me smile. HAPPY *early* VALENTINE'S DAY! Go hug the one you love...even if they annoy you.