#요리

How I ended up making chocolate for White Day I made it for myself, but if you want to try some, come over. If I eat it all, I don’t think I’ll sleep until the semester ends. ⋮ It all started with cacao nibs. I bought some because I was curious what they tasted like, but they tasted nothing like chocolate. They were just bitter as hell, so they sat in my cupboard, a nuisance I didn’t know what to do with. While pondering how to use them up, I came up with the grand plan of making chocolate. Originally, I was going to buy cream or just make it with milk. But then I remembered the electric whisk at my parents’ house and had the terrible thought: couldn’t I make the cream myself? I brought the whisk back with me when I visited last weekend. And so my journey toward chocolate began with the following ingredients. Ingredients: cream (to be made from butter, milk, eggs, and sugar), butter, cacao nibs, sugar, sunflower seeds (also in need of using up), and an electric whisk that doubles as a hand blender In the background, you can see the vodka I bought on a trip in my freshman year—rather awkward, given the times. First, let’s make the cream. Separate the egg yolks. If you gently pour the leftover whites into something you’re cooking later, they’ll turn into delicious poached eggs. Pour milk into a pot, add butter, and heat gently until it melts. Then whisk in the egg yolks. Huh... It looks a little yellow. I should have let the pot cool more before adding the yolks... I’m starting to worry that they cooked while I was whisking them in. There’s no going back now, so I let it cool and leave it in the fridge overnight. Add sugar to the chilled mixture as you whisk it. The internet said it would only take 10 minutes, but even after 30 minutes, only some of mine had thickened. Maybe I added too much milk, or maybe the yolks had cooked... Still, it seems to have thickened somewhat, so now I grind the cacao nibs with a mortar and pestle. Daiso sells the mortar and bowl together for 5,000 won. ⋮ I stopped grinding for a bit to go to a dinner appointment. When I took the ingredients back out of the fridge and looked at them from a distance, a thought struck me: What am I doing? I’d spent at least 30 minutes grinding cacao nibs earlier that day, and had less than 10 ml of fine cacao powder to show for it after sifting. After some deep reflection, I decided to enlist the help of a machine. The electric blender turned the cacao nibs into powder in no time. It wasn’t as fine as what I’d ground by hand, but it looked usable. I set the fine powder aside to sprinkle over the chocolate bars at the end. After chilling, the cream(?) had at least started to hold its shape. Combine the cream, ground cacao nibs, and sugar over a double boiler. Blend the whole mixture, stir it again, and repeat a few times. Now to prepare the molds for freezing the mixture. I used an ice-cube tray and brushed it with a little cooking oil to make the chocolates easier to remove later. I’m going to make one-third plain chocolate bars, one-third with sunflower seeds mixed in, and the rest topped with sunflower seeds. Carefully fill the molds with the mixture. There was more than I expected, so I filled another mold above it too. But I can already see how that one’s going to turn out... Now I freeze them overnight, then take them out of the molds. ⋮ ⋮ Hahahahaha It was a disaster. For one thing, the mixture was too thick to settle against the sides of the mold, and the exposed tops—which would become the bottoms of the bars—hardened all lumpy. Even with oil on the sides and warm water underneath, they wouldn’t come out easily. I ended up prying them out with chopsticks and mangling them in the process. I also broke the ice-cube tray by tapping it with the mortar and pestle. Heh... Next time, I’d be better off spreading the mixture on a plastic bag, letting it set, and cutting it with a knife. If there is a next time. As I write this, I haven’t even dared to take the other mold out yet. I tried arranging them nicely on a plate and sprinkling cacao powder over them, but they’re beyond saving. There’s butter and sugar in them, so they taste okay... Um... If you don’t care at all what food looks like and only care about the taste, come try some. Chocolate... please just buy it.

Contents Tomato Spaghetti Kimchi and Pork Dumplings Aglio e Olio Hayashi Rice Tomato Beef Stew Chocolate Check this box to see just the recipes, without the photos. Tomato Spaghetti Ingredients: rosé pasta sauce, spaghetti, frozen shrimp (optional: greens, Parmesan cheese) 1. Cook the spaghetti for the time indicated on the package. 2. Drain the pasta in a colander, then briefly sauté it with the sauce and shrimp. (The shrimp took a while to cook, so next time I think I'll sauté them in olive oil first, then add the pasta and sauce.) 3. Plate it, then sprinkle the greens that just arrived from SSG Delivery and some Parmesan cheese on top. Done! Kimchi and Pork Dumplings See the dumpling recipe here . Aglio e Olio Ingredients: garlic (I didn't have any, so I used minced garlic), olive oil, peperoncino (I didn't have any, so I used Cheongyang chili peppers), salt, frozen shrimp (optional: peppercorns, Parmesan cheese, greens, parsley) 1. Cook and drain the pasta (save about half a cup of pasta water). In five tablespoons of olive oil, sauté the (minced) garlic, sliced Cheongyang chili peppers, and shrimp, taking care not to burn them. 2. Add the cooked pasta and keep sautéing, adding a little salted pasta water at a time. Taste the pasta as you go and season with salt. 3. Transfer to a plate and top with greens, whole or ground pepper, parsley, and, if you like, Parmesan cheese. Done! Hayashi Rice Ingredients: beef for stew, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, hayashi rice roux blocks, butter, cooking oil 1. Roughly chop the onions and tomatoes. Looks like a lot of onion? I think so too. 2. Add the cooking oil and butter to a pressure cooker. Once the butter melts, sauté the beef. 3. In go the onions and tomatoes! 4. Lock the pressure cooker lid and heat for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and wait for the pressure to release. 5. Surprisingly, there's liquid in the pot as though you'd added water. Add the hayashi rice roux blocks and stir gently. (I didn't add water because I used so many onions, but you may need to add some.) 6. Pour it over rice and top with a fried egg. Done! Tomato Beef Stew Ingredients: 300 g beef for stew, 3 tomatoes, 1–2 onions, 2 carrots, olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper, maesil-cheong (I didn't have any, so I used honey), soy sauce (optional: parsley, potatoes) 1. Cut the carrots, onions, tomatoes (and potatoes, if using) into large chunks. First, remove the tomato stems, score an X on the bottoms, briefly blanch them in boiling water, and peel off the loosened skins. 2. Season the beef with one tablespoon of minced garlic and a little salt and pepper. Make a sauce by mixing half a cup of water with two tablespoons each of soy sauce and honey. 3. Add olive oil to a pressure cooker and sauté the seasoned beef. 4. In go the carrots, onions, potatoes, and sauce! Stir a little longer, until the sauce boils. 5. In go the tomatoes! <img src="https://files.gunh.ee/p/42/IMG_2361.jpeg"

Revealing a family recipe passed down through generations If you eat these and get fat, don’t blame me Ingredients Kimchi 1 2 : ground pork 2 : firm tofu 1 : glass noodles 1 Dumpling wrappers Eggs Seasoned salt, pepper, sesame oil Recipe Take the dumpling wrappers out of the refrigerator. Cook the glass noodles, drain them in a sieve, and let them cool 2 . Put the kimchi in a bowl, chop it finely, then pour off the liquid. Cut the glass noodles into small pieces and add them to the kimchi. Squeeze the water out of the tofu, then add it and the ground pork to the kimchi and noodles. Add the eggs, sesame oil, pepper, and seasoned salt, and mix everything thoroughly 3 . (If refrigerating the filling, wrap the bowl in a plastic bag to seal it.) Shape the wrappers and filling into dumplings 4 . Boil them in boiling water for 7–8 minutes, then scoop them out. Slurp them up. 1 — The kimchi must be well fermented. Dumplings made with kimchi that isn’t fully fermented really don’t taste good. 2 — The noodles will cook again when you boil the finished dumplings, so don’t cook them all the way through. Never rinse them in cold water to cool them down! You want as little moisture as possible in the filling. Be just as thorough about draining the kimchi and squeezing the water out of the tofu. 3 — One egg per 300 g of ground pork is about right. The kimchi is already seasoned, and you’ll be dipping the dumplings in soy sauce, so season lightly. 4 — Egg white works better than water for sealing the edges of the dumplings. How to eat them Pour some brewed soy sauce into a small dipping dish. Hold one side of a dumpling with your hand, dip the other side in the soy sauce, and bite off half. Spoon a little soy sauce onto the exposed filling of the remaining half, then eat it. DEMO (On another day) (On another day)