Last week of summer vacation folks! I haven't posted recipes for a while, so here's a little twist! Last Sunday was Singapore National Day, and as a result, I ended up cooking up a storm! Usually on National Day, my family and I eat Laksa, and we make some sort of red and white cake because, y'know, patriotism. This year, we changed things up a bit, because the Twice World In A Day concert was on the same day, so we made more finger foods instead! I love trying recipes online, and some of my favorite food blogs are Maangchi, GoodFood, Brown Eyed Baker, Eat What Tonight, The Scran Line, Steamy Kitchen and Sugar Spun Run. This week, I tried Brown Eyed Baker's strawberry cupcakes and Maangchi's sundubu jjigae and tteokguk! Apparently, tteokguk is traditionally eaten during Korean new year because the tteok is shaped to resemble coins, and the milky white soup resembles a pure and fresh beginning! Except, I accidentally added soy sauce in my tteokguk, so it was more of a caramel latte brown. Whoops!
I love Korean food almost as much as I love Vietnamese, Japanese and Singaporean food! From the hearty stews to my favorite cleansing ginseng chicken soup (samgye-tang), Korean food is very satisfying and filling, almost like a comfort food (and yes, ramyun especially!). After visiting a Korean food store, we bought a lot of Korean ingredients such as soft tofu, tteok and gochujang paste, so what better to cook than Korean food! After watching Itaewon Class, my mom was craving sundubu jjigae, so I tried to make it! I made strawberry cupcakes too, and some delicious tteokguk!
(Recipe and photo credit to Maangchi)
Nikkipotato tips:
If you don't have all the ingredients for the anchovy stock and chili paste, you can substitute it for Sundubu soup base!
Add kimchi juice to the soup. It makes it a lot more fragrant and tasty!
I also prefer adding diced soft tofu compared to the tubed soft tofu, because it's easier to split between many portions, and also looks nicer!
(Recipe and photo credit to Brown Eyed Baker)
Nikkipotato tips:
I like boiling a handful of strawberries in some water (enough to just about cover the strawberries), simple sugar syrup and a tiny squeeze of lemon juice, to make a strawberry syrup! It helps amp up the strawberry taste in the frosting and in the cupcakes, and you can freeze the leftover syrup and make popsicles!
Add some jam to the cake batter, if you want it to taste more like strawberry! For me, the strawberry taste was too mild for my liking, so I added some jam and syrup to jazz it up!
(recipe credit to Maangchi, photo belongs to me)
Nikkipotato tip:
If you'd like, replace the beef with homemade dumplings! It will taste equally good!
Add extra fish sauce and sesame oil compared to the recipe. I found it too mild for my liking, so I added more!
Add more tteok! I put a lot of tteok in mine and it could be eaten as a full meal, even without rice!
Last but not least, wash everything down with a refreshing glass of blackcurrant cordial!
(I reused my HeyTea cup, because a) the design is cute! and b) it's very sturdy and can be used more than once!)
