Week 2: South Korea

After the success of last week's dinner, I was really excited and looking forward to this week.  I did a bit of research trying to find a recipe for Kimchi and found many.  I was then faced with the question of do I use an authentic, traditional recipe... or do a follow a more updated one that uses ingredients that are more common to our Western culture?  I posed this question to my husband for a nice second opinion.  His input was that it depends on if I want our kids to eat it or not.  Good point... so we opted for the more updated recipe, which after reading the recipe website is still made in the traditional way.  Now here's hoping that our kids eat it, because it made a ton!

Dinner:  Tak Toritang with Kimchi
Dessert:  Maejakgwa

This dinner required a bit of preplanning as the Kimchi has to marinate/ferment for 2 days before eating.  The recipe I followed said that it should be refrigerated, whereas other recipes specifically say that fermentation needs to be done at room temperature for the first 24 hours.  Well, after 2 days, it didn't really look any different at all, and traditional kimchi should be almost soupy.  So my chance at making a traditional South Korean staple went awry.  The silver lining:  it tasted good (at least to the majority).  Did I mention that it made a TON!

Kimchi

The tak toritang is spicy chicken and potato served over rice.  Yum!  Let me add another "Yum!" for emphasis!  I think we all could have handled it being a little bit spicier, but what a treat.  This is exactly why our Around the World Tasting project will be a success.  I will definitely be making this dish again!

Tak Toritang on rice

The maejakgwa are crispy ginger cookies, or "pretzel cookies" as the littlest called them.  They were such a nice compliment to the spiciness of the dinner.

Dessert

Interesting Facts:
- 48,846,823 people live in South Korea.
- South Korea is 38,375 sq. miles, which is roughly the size of Indiana.
- The South Korean coin is the won.
- The people of South Korea speak Korean.
- Seoul is the capital of South Korea.
- Hyundai and Kia are South Korean cars.
- Tae Kwon Do is the national sport.
- The lines on the flag are trigrams and represent harmony.
- South Korea time is 13 hours ahead of the US.
- South Korea is the largest shipbuilder in the world.
- South Korea is one of the 5 most poplular automobile makers in the world.
- The emigration rate of the South Koreans is one of the highest in the world, with Koreans migrating to China, the US, Japan, and the former Soviet Union.
- South Korea has a republican form of government (representative democracy) like the US.
- The nickname of the South Korean flag is Tae-Gheuk-Ghi meaning "great extreme flag."