After our adventurous Wednesday in Suwon (recap: Korean Folk Village, Hwaesong Fortress,, we were a little pooped and decided to not do anything besides our afternoon cooking class. It was a good decision. We Mandy slept until forever, Dan went somewhere to explore, and Maddie and I ate leftover chicken on her bed while watching Queen Charlotte.
Overall, a good morning.
Then, at 2pm, we left to meet our cooking instructor, Jung Hee, met us at the subway station before walking through a market to buy a couple extra ingredients while she talked about some of the different things we could see in the market.
Jung Hee was really personable and fun. One of the things she showed us was this little machine that is constantly turning out toasted sesame seeds.
She picked up a roll of kimbap for us to share. It was the only kimbap I ate on the trip and I am sad. I need to learn how to make it myself... I know it's easy, but I've never done it.
We continued walking and she showed us different kinds of things to see in the market. It was really hot and she stopped and got us ice cream: MELON BARS. My favorite! I dream of melon bars...
We continued on to her house where we switched to slippers, washed our hands, and got ready to cook!
She had such a great set up for the lesson and everything was set up so well. Honestly, I was super impressed by how well organized and well timed everything was. And her entire back wall covered in little cubbies filled with snacks like chocopies and chappaghetti. So cute.
After mixing up all of the ingredients for the chicken that she was going to cook in the other room, she gave us the veggies for our bibimbap that we chopped up, seasoned, and cooked on the hot plates in front of us. Starting top left and going clockwise we have zucchini, carrot, dikon radish, blanched sprouts, blanched spinach, and enoki mushrooms (called paeng-ee beosut in Korean).
Then we made pajeon. Well, most of us made haemul pajeon (seafood pancake), but Maddie and I made veggie pajeon cuz I didn't want octopus in my pancake... no.
We did not get spatulas and I was only a little freaked out that I wouldn't be able to flip the pancake in my pan. Jung Hee assured us we could do it ("Fighting!!") and that, if we didn't, we would not be the first to throw a pancake on her floor.
But we did it! Including me... though it took me a couple tries to get it to flip.
Look at my pancake! I made it! And flipped it! (It was supposed to be round... it's round-ish... it's fine.)
While she went to cook the chicken up, she gave us each a fried egg to add to a bowl of rice and arrange our bibimbap veggies. Mandy went classic and arranged her veggies around the egg with a little extra sauce on top.
I made a little happy face on my egg with sauce and a carrot. And here is all of our food! The bibimbap is in the front and center. To it's right is doenjang jjigae (a bit like miso soup), my pajeon to the left, dakgalbi (spicy chicken) in the black pan in the back, and a small bit of assorted banchan in the white dish.
We each got a dish of makgeoli (traditional rice wine), cheered, and dug in.
It was an overall great experience and we had a really fun time. If you ever go to Seoul, we highly reccomend connecting with
Hello K Cooking!
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