Brooklyn Zine Fest 2013 Recap (+recipe)

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Sewon

Yesterday was the 2013 Brooklyn Zine Fest! There was so much great press coverage this year, the space was packed, and the line by the entrance went around the block during the peak hours. Thanks to our friends, Emily, Debra, and Michelle, we were able to coordinate brief breaks and eat some food out in the sunshine.

I had so much fun tabling with Jannese and meeting zine readers and makers. There were over 80 writers, artists, and publishers exhibiting this year. I was happy to meet a friendly food zine writer of the Runcible Spoon and connected with quite a few Korean food lovers who took home my new recipe zine.

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A mini poster zine I made for the Zine Fest.

Some outgoing mail!

As a show of thanks to you, I am sharing one of my favorite dishes that didn’t make it on the recipe zine this time: spicy Korean chicken stew. I love comforting one-pot meals, like a chicken casserole with a side of buttery mashed potatoes or a hearty soup served with some crusty bread. There are days I want cooking to be easy, with less dishes to wash.

Spicy Korean chicken stew is a traditional Korean dish with many regional variations, even non-spicy versions. Mine is mildly spicy. The trick is to boil the chicken first, which makes the chicken fall-off-the-bones tender. The fat is skimmed off while the chicken stock is saved for later. I like to add in cubed sweet potatoes or tomatoes in my stew, which adds in some natural sweetness. You can also even throw in some rice cake sticks, but remember to soak them in hot water first if they have been refrigerated!

Korean spicy chicken stew
(Dak-bokkeum Tang / Dak-dori Tang)
Serves 3-4

Ingredients:
5 cups water
3 cloves of garlic
4 pieces of bone-in chicken (legs and thighs)
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cups carrots, chopped
1 tablespoon scallions, chopped
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

**Optional: sweet potatoes, bell peppers, tomatoes, rice cake sticks, etc.

Sauce:
3 tablespoons soysauce
3 tablespoons gochujang
1 tablespoon gochugaru
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic

Directions:
1. In a wide pot, bring water to a boil. Add garlic cloves.
2. Rinse the chicken pieces in cold running water, drain, and put them in the boiling water.
3. Boil the chicken for about 30 minutes. Spoon off any grease or foam that rises to the top.
4. In a small bowl, make the sauce. Taste and adjust.
4. Once the chicken is cooked, take the pot off the heat. Save about 2 cups of broth and drain the chicken.
5. In the same pot, lightly sauté onion and carrots for 5 minutes.
6. Put the chicken back in with 1 cup of the saved broth and the sauce.
7. Stir as the sauce thickens and add the rest of the broth in accordingly. Put the lid on the pot and simmer on low-heat for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
8. Sprinkle some scallions and sesame seeds on top and serve with a bowl of rice!

Happiest Black Valentines!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Sewon

There’s something romantic about mediated melancholy, especially when you’re all alone in a big city of concrete after dusk and comfortably shrouded in silence. I know I’m a strawberry-tinted chapstick kind of a girl, but I’ve always wanted to try on black lipstick. So I decided to host a small Black Valentines dinner at my place.

I cooked Julia Child’s boeuf bourguignon, mostly because it calls for an entire bottle of dry red wine and you can let it stew until dinnertime. My roommate brought home giant bundles of black balloons, and everyone arrived dressed in monochrome.

We drank blackberry infused gin cocktails and chilled prosecco by candlelight, blasted Joy Division, and burned away our fears.

The table set-up before we put up the candles. I made strawberry cake pops! The photo of me is from Valerie’s instagram.

Here’s a serious group photo.

It’s hard to not smile!

Steph carried these bottles of Bitter Valentines Ale all the way from Williamsburg.

We ate two boxes of candy hearts.

“Melancholy were the sounds on a winter’s night.”
― Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room

Emily’s “bleeding” candles.

Chris jotting down his fears on a tiny piece of paper.

A grainy final photobooth shot of the group (Elisa and Fernan, present in spirit) before the end of the night. Here we are in action, on Vine: http://vine.co/v/brXzbEitVqm

P.S. My forever-Valentine announced his surprise visit, and Taurin will be here in just a week!

Bread baking, wine tasting, slow living (+recipe)

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Sewon

My last days in the Bay Area were nothing short of blissful. In between working on my sketchbook project and after waiting (many days) for my liquid levain to get extra bubbly, I baked several loaves of slow bread. I received Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery book as a Christmas gift, so it’s been really exciting to imagine all the new goodies I’ll learn to bake in the new year.

First sourdough boule success! It took so many days of preparation, I think I might have shed a few hot tears if it came out less than perfectly crusty.

bakingwants
Baking Wishlist: 1. Marimekko Hauki apron / 2. Hancrafted rolling pin / 3. Fog Linen Work linens

I am excited to share my Finnish pulla recipe with you, which is a soft, sweet bread, spiced with cardamom. The recipe makes three loaves of bread, which may seem like a lot. It takes quite a bit of time to prep and bake, so I figure you might as well bake enough loaves to eat, save, and share. Nothing beats fresh bread, but it was still good a few days later. We sliced up the rest of the bread, made French toast with almond milk, and spread Speculoos cookie butter on top. So good!

Finish Pulla / Scandanavian Cardamom Bread
adapted from red star
makes three loaves

Ingredients:
9 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups whole milk
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg, beaten

Directions
1. Combine 2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and 2 tsp. cardamon, and mix well in a bowl.
2. In a saucepan, heat milk, water, and butter until warm. Let cool until lukewarm, and add to flour mixture.
3. Add 4 beaten eggs to the mixture to make a batter. Gradually add about 3 cups of the flour and beat again until the dough looks glossy. Stir in the remaining flour and mix by hand until the dough is stiff. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and satiny, around 5-10 minutes.
4. Place the dough in a lightly greased mixing bowl, making sure to turn the dough to grease the top. Cover with a plastic wrap or a clean dish towel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch down, and let rise again for 30 minutes.
5. On a floured surface, divide the dough into 3 parts. Divide each third into 3 pieces again. Roll each piece into strips. On greased cookie sheet, loosely braid 3 strips into a loaf. You should get 3 large braided loaves. Let rise for 30 minutes.
6. Whisk together the remaining cardamom and egg. Brush each loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake each loaf at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 25 minutes, or until golden. Let cool before serving!

In feeble attempts to off-balance our carb consumption, Taurin and I ventured out to explore Northern California. We went wine tasting in Sonoma, scoped out some potential wedding venues, and ate lots of oysters by the coast. On my last evening, Taurin took me to see the sunset by the East Bay.