Creamy leek pasta

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Welcome to Theme 1 of Easy Korean cooking class: Korean cooking ingredients

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Welcome to Theme 1 of  Easy Korean Cooking Class !

Good cooking starts with good and well prepped ingredients.   You want to buy the right things and prep them as much as possible. I believe in making things easy and doable so that I feel like doing it again and again!  In this lesson, I will show you the essential Korean grocery items and how to make a delicious and versatile home made teriyaki sauce using the store bought soy sauce!

The following are the most common ingredients used for Korean cooking:


  • soy sauce
  • sesame oil
  • seasoned rice vinegar (please refer to the photo below)
  • spicy red pepper paste called gochujang 
  • fermented bean pasted called dyenjang


 All the above items are available at Korean grocery stores, but they can also be purchased at regular grocery stores in the Asian food aisle.  You could try similar items if they are not available. For example you could substitute sriracha for gochujang.  The flavor of the dish would be slightly different but  it would be still good!  😉

                                 
One way to make Korean cooking fast and easy is to get the soy sauce all ready to go!  Store bought soy sauce is generally too salty to use in a dish as it is, so the solution is to "season" it with sweetener and some cooking wine (white wine).  The below is how I would turn a regular soy sauce into an all versatile homemade teriyaki sauce!

Easy Homemade teriyaki sauce

Ingredients:

 soy sauce (500ml, 2cups)
sugar (suggested amount: 1/2 cup)*
white wine (1/4 cup)
water (1/2 cup)
lemon (optional, 1/4 lemon, thinly sliced)

How:

 1.  Add soy sauce and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to a boil
2.  When sugar has dissolved, add wine and water, bring it to a boil, remove from heat
3.  Add sliced lemon pieces and leave at room temp for about 12 hours, covered
4.  Store in a jar (mason jars work very well.) in the refrigerator
Now you have a home made teriyaki sauce which you can use whenever you want to infuse some Korean flavor in your dishes!!  So easy but so good!!  😀

*1.  I like to use stevia powder in lieu of sugar in order to reduce refined carbohydrate consumption.
  2.  The amount of sugar can be adjusted depending on individual taste and dietary needs.