Stuart and I have both been sick lately. We were passing the same bug back and forth for a bit, but now I’ve landed with yet another version. When I’m sick, I crave spicy food. Chicken soup, while sometimes comforting, doesn’t cut it. I want heaping bowls of pho doused with peppers and chili sauce for breakfast, green curry for lunch, and five alarm tacos for dinner. When your nose is so congested that you spend your day breathing through your mouth and running to the bathroom to use your neti pot every few hours, you want to feel alive. Spicy food allows you that. 

You’ll find this marinade to be a little bit sweet with a big kick. Although it was originally intended for steaks, it works beautifully with tofu. I think it’d also be yummy on chicken. 

You’ll need

• 1 large block of extra-firm tofu
• 1/2 Cup vinegar-based hot sauce. Stuart prefers Texas Pete. (I wish I could make a joke about how all things from Texas are superior to other alternatives, but TP is actually from North Carolina.) You can sometimes find Texas Pete at the foreign food markets in Itaewon, but you’ll have to hunt. Other kinds to try include Tabasco, Bullard’s, and Frank’s.
• 1/4 Cup Dijon mustard 
• 1/4 Cup tamari (soy sauce if you’re so inclined)
• 3 tablespoons honey The honey used in this dish came in a care package from Stuart’s parents. However, you can pick up mixed blossom honey in a number of grocery stores. It’s not as good as the real deal, but it works. You can also buy huge quantities of honey at Costco, but it’s pretty expensive. 

Add all wet ingredients to a measuring cup. Then mix it all up.

Dip your mixing spoon in and give it a taste. It should be pleasantly spicy with a hint of sweetness. 

Drain your tofu and slice into large hunks. I like triangles, but follow your bliss. Get creative. Make a squirrel-shaped tofu steak. The sky’s the limit! Oh! How about cloud tofu? Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here. But really, just cut the damn tofu. 

Toss your Mariah Carey-shaped creations into a tupperware with the marinade. Allow the two to marinate for at least 30 minutes, but no more than 24 hours. As with all marinades, the longer you let it soak, the more intense the flavor will be. 

Yum. 

Once you’re ready to cook the tofu, grab a pan and put it on medium-high heat on the stove with a glug of grapeseed or canola oil. Add the tofu steaks but not the marinade. (Don’t throw it out, you’ll need it in a minute.)

Cook on each side until the tofu is golden brown and crispy, about 5 minutes on each side. When the tofu is ready, remove it from the pan and set aside. 

Keeping the pan nice and hot, gently add the marinade from the tupperware. 

Allow the mixture to bubble and boil. It should turn from this reddish color to a deeper brown as it thickens. 

When you can push your spoon through the pan without the liquid running into the middle, you’re done. Pour into a bowl and spoon over the tofu steaks. 

Sorry we didn’t get a great photo for the final product. I was famished and needed to eat asap. We served the tofu with jasmine rice and a side salad. The rice helps cut the spiciness and sops up the extra sauce. Yum. 

Enjoy!

I grew up eating jarred pasta sauce, Prego to be specific. I have nothing against jarred sauce. When you are in a hurry or don’t have the patience to make your own, it gets the job done well. However, making your own sauce is incredibly satisfying. Especially because finding good jarred sauce in Korea is difficult (not to mention expensive), we recommend trying this at home instead. There are countless recipes for good pasta sauce. This one is simple, slightly sweet, and adapts well to a lot of dishes. Make a big batch and freeze the leftovers in individual tupperwares so you’ll have some ready every time you want a hearty bowl of pasta. 

This recipe is gluten free and vegetarian. 

Here’s what you’ll need

• 8 ripe tomatoes (and a pot large enough to hold them)
• 1 yellow onion
• Shallots (We found these in Itaewon one Saturday. If you can’t access them, it’s not a big deal.)
• Garlic — about 5 cloves
• 3-4 tablespoons butter
• 1 bay leaf
• 1.5 tablespoons vinegar (we used lemon vinegar)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons tomato paste
• Fresh parsley and whatever other Italian-y herbs you can find (oregano, thyme). Fresh basil (hahaha, what a pipe dream—I’ve NEVER seen it here) would be great, of course. If you have dried Italian seasoning you can add about a teaspoon of it to the sauce.

First, blanche the tomatoes. Grab your biggest pot and fill it halfway with water. Let it come to a boil. Once the water is rolling, drop in your tomatoes. The idea here is to soften them enough to easily remove the skin, so don’t leave them in too long—thirty seconds should be enough. Remove the tomatoes from the water with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl. Rinse them with COLD water and remove the skins. (If you’re really well prepared, you could dump them into a bowl of ice water, but cold water from the tap works just fine.) The skins should slide right off. 

They’re naked!!

After you’ve removed the skins, chop the tomatoes in half. With a spoon, scoop out the seeds from each section. You want to get rid of the extra moisture or you’ll end up with a seedy, soggy sauce. (Hungry? You can throw a dash of salt on the detritus and have yourself a mid-cooking snack.)

Viola! Once you’ve gouged out your tomatoes’ insides, it’s time to chop them up. Give them a large dice and put them to the side. 

Since you’ve got your knife in hand, go ahead and chop up your other ingredients. Mince your garlic and shallots. Dice the onion. Try to keep your sizes consistent. It keeps food from burning and will result in a prettier end product. 

Now for the best butter part. 

Add your three to four (FOUR, go for it!) tablespoons of butter to your pot on medium heat. Begin to sautee the garlic, shallots, and onion. We all know that one of the best smells in the world is onions sauteed in butter. Enjoy it, but don’t get so wrapped up in the experience that you let it burn. 

Take a sip of your vodka martini. (You’re drinking one, right? If not, get your sous chef to make one.) When your concoction looks like the above photo, add the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and bay leaf. Mix it all up and simmer for 20 minutes. If the sauce starts to dry out, add a bit of water. 

After the 20 minutes is up, add the tomato paste and herbs. Cook a few more minutes and turn off the stove. You’re done!

We ended up using the sauce for a veggie lasagna that is suuuuper fantastic. Post forthcoming.

Enjoy!

Since moving to Korea, we’ve both had to adjust to tight living spaces. In Austin I had a 700 square-foot condo to myself, replete with dishwasher, oven, w&d, and three closets. Suffice it to say, I was spoiled. Here, however, almost all of our friends make do with small studio apartments, most of which are not equipped with the same appliances found at home.

In an effort to show you what we’re working with, here are some photos of Stuart’s kitchen. We eat most of our meals at his place since mine is usually a mess and doesn’t have a nice dining spot. He also has most of our special ingredients at his apartment. 

This is the view from Stuart’s entry. To say that this kitchen is small doesn’t cut it. Even by Korean standards, it’s pretty tiny. The sink fills up in an instant and he has to store utensils in the main living area. Still, he manages to make it work. To the right is the fridge, on top of which there’s a microwave and makeshift storage space.

Gluten free mixes from care packages—thank you! 

One of the most difficult lifestyle changes upon moving here was adjusting to life without an oven. If you’re new to Korea or will be here at least another 4-6 months, I cannot recommend strongly enough that you purchase a toaster oven. You can find one for about 40-50,000 won at Lotte Mart or E-mart. They’re small, but having the ability to bake tofu, vegetables, or meat makes cooking here so much easier. 

However, I have a confession. Stuart has an oven. I know. I know. How, you ask?! Our friend Katie lived in the apartment before Stuart. The apartment is too small for a couch, but the GEPIK contract states that employers must supply one in each employee’s residence. As an avid baker, she bargained with her school for an oven instead. So now it’s Stuart’s. Yay.

Stuart moved the oven under the portable gas range and, voila! A kitchen is born. I still marvel at his ability to cook with the range so high, but we’ve yet to have any accidents. In fact, Stuart made about eight dishes for a Thanksgiving potluck last year in this kitchen. (I made one measly cheesecake.) It gets messy in a flash, but with proper preparation and willingness to clean up your messes, you can make just about anything in his kitchen. 

As far as fancy equipment goes, Stuart does have a few special items like a mandolin and a salad spinner. If we ever use those in a post, we’ll be sure to let you know alternative methods. 

This is so quick and easy, you won’t believe it.

“Ricotta” literally translates as “recooked”, and is usually made from the liquid leftover from making another cheese, like mozzarella.  However, you don’t need to bust your ass making mozzarella to make ricotta.  Here’s what you’ll need:

Half of a cup of heavy cream. Again, you can find this at a number of big grocery stores in Korea. Try Lotte Mart, Costco, and foreign food markets in Itaewon.

One quart (four cups) of whole milk, double what’s pictured.

Two tablespoons of vinegar.  As a matter of fact, any acid will do.  Lemon juice is pretty typical, but I’m partial to this lemon vinegar.  However, if you’re planning on using your ricotta for a dessert, lemon juice would be a better choice as it would probably pair better with sugar.

Put your milk and cream in a pot, add some salt, and put it on medium-high heat.

Make sure you’re there to stir it once it starts to heat up.  If you leave it alone and it starts to boil, it will bubble up and spill over the edges (like blowing bubbles in your milk!).  A slotted spoon or whisk will work really well for breaking up the bubbles.

When it comes to a rolling boil, stir in your vinegar.  You’ll notice it start to curdle and separate immediately.  Turn it down to a simmer and stir it for another couple of minutes, then turn off the heat.

Next, you’ll need to drain it.  Usually, a sieve or colander lined with cheesecloth that’s been folded-over several times is what you’ll need.  However, cheesecloth is REALLY hard to find in Korea.

Luckily, I found this at Lotte Mart.  It’s cheap, disposable and really thick, so you won’t need to fold it.  It’s sort of like a really thick, strong paper towel.

Once your sieve/colander is lined, pour in the curdled milk/cream.

At this point, there’s nothing to do but let it drain.  It’ll take at least an hour.

After about fifteen or twenty minutes, I like to grab the cloth by the corners, lift it all up and resituate the mix.  It’s not necessary, but I think it helps the draining process a bit.  However, resist the urge to press on the cheese or wring it out.

After an hour or so, it’s ready!  This stuff is so tasty.  We ate it on some fried polenta and a salad with balsamic vinegar (I know I know, always with the salads – we’re like rabbits).  However, it’s mild enough that you can put it on anything, even if it’s not Italian.

This is a really quick method for making ricotta.  I think it’s usually a much slower process, giving the milk/cream ample time to curdle and possibly ferment with the vinegar before draining, but whatever.  It works and you can have it in an hour or two.

Well, not really.  Lardons are lardons because they’re…lardons.  They’re small cubes/strips of real fatty cured pork, if not just straight-up fat.  Fried until they’re crispy, they’re used to flavor a plethora of dishes.

These, however, are made with tofu.  So, they aren’t really lardons.  Tofudons? Anyhow, they’re really tasty and really easy.

You’ll need a block of firm tofu. (Remember that the more calorie-dense the package, the firmer the tofu.) Drain it and dice it up into really small pieces (try to keep them under a centimeter cubed).  After they’re cut, make sure you let them drain on some paper towels for a bit (maybe 5 minutes or so).  It’s crucial that they’re dry so they can get good and crispy.

Put a good amount of oil in a pan, maybe three or four tablespoons, and put it on medium-high heat.  Use an oil with a high smoking-point like grape seed or canola. Olive oil is real tasty, but it burns easily.

Now, throw in your tofu!

Don’t move them around too much, you want each side to get nice and brown.  Every two to three minutes, give them a toss.  Make sure they’re all spread out and not on top of one another, like in the hastily-taken photo above.

After about ten minutes (depending on how big your dice was), they should be done.  Have some paper towels ready.  Take the tofu out of the pan and let it drain on the paper towels.  Add a bit of salt to them.  Whenever you fry something, salting it afterwards will help it crisp up because it removes some of the moisture from whatever it is you just fried.

That’s it!  These guys are ready for whatever.  Throw them on some rice, on a salad, anything.  They’re real tasty.  I think they taste kind of like popcorn, but tofu-y.  We made a salad and threw some on along with a poached egg and a dressing made out of a little mayo, a little sesame oil, a little honey, tamari (soy sauce) and a lot of sriracha.  Good stuff.

In a gesture so romantic I mentally awarded him the Boyfriend of the Year Award, Stuart cleaned my apartment Monday afternoon. At home, sick, and presumably even more disgusted by my apartment’s state than I, he went to town on my kitchen. He scrubbed counters, organized cabinets, washed dishes, and cleaned out my fridge. Through this last harrowing task (guys, it was bad) he discovered a huge chunk of Parmesan cheese we both thought had been lost or eaten. If you’re living in Korea, you know that losing cheese, especially one as coveted as Parmesan, is criminal. He knew we needed to incorporate it into dinner. 

By the time I came home from the gym I was capital H Hungry. When that’s the case, I have to eat immediately or become a total asshole. Knowing this about me, Stuart suggested a quick meal: shells and shrimp.

This post won’t be perfect. Stuart cut himself while deveining the shrimp. Garlic got a little burned. We didn’t have white wine for the sauce. Stuart insists the shrimp was the tiniest bit overcooked. However, despite these problems, we still ended up with a great meal. One of the hardest things for many novice cooks to accept is that they will fuck up meals. Yes. I said fuck up. You will burn chicken. You’ll chop vegetables so poorly that it will look like someone with a blindfold and gloves did the job. At some point, though, you’ll realize that one or two messed up meals doesn’t mean you’ll always be bad at it. And once you get really good at cooking like Stuart, you’ll be more forgiving when you occasionally burn garlic. 

This meal isn’t vegetarian, but it is gluten free. If you are vegetarian you could easily sub vegetables or even tofu for the shrimp. 

This meal can be made in 20-30 minutes. When you have a hungry tyrant on your hands, you can’t go wrong with cream, parmesan, and seafood. 

You’ll need:

• 1 pound (about a half a kilo) of shrimp. If you’re in the states, go with the cleaned variety. If in Korea, buy fresh and get ready to make a hot mess in your kitchen. You’ll need a paring knife and nimble fingers.
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 medium-sized onion
• 1 lemon
• White pepper. Easily found in most grocery stores. 
• Parmesan cheese. You can find it in large quantities at Costco. Buy it. If you don’t have a membership, get one. If you don’t want a membership, befriend someone who will take you with them. 
• A few glugs of olive oil
• 1 box of pasta. We used quinoa pasta shells. I don’t remember how we got these, but they’re from the States. I either brought them back with me or they came in a package from my mom. 
• 1/3 cup cream (LOTTE MART! THANK YOU!)
• 1/4 cup white wine (we didn’t have this, but it would be delicious) 
• Chopped parsley for garnish (Parsley is common and cheap. You can buy a ton for about 500 won, or 50 cents for our American readers.) 

Quinoa pasta is one of the best gluten free alternatives on the market. Higher in protein than even whole wheat, quinoa is a South American grain that has become popular recently. The pasta doesn’t fall apart and has a great but malleable flavor. Add pasta to boiling water, bring to a boil again, and cook uncovered for 4-8 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Here is Stuart’s bloodied finger. If you think your food is never exposed to bodily matter when you eat at a restaurant you’re living in a dream world. Still, be careful with your knife! You’ll need to dig your knife .5cm deep into the shell, crack open the peel, and pull out the main vein. If you have access to uncooked but peeled/deveined shrimp, by all means, buy them. It’s a bit tedious to peel and devein them, but don’t be afraid. It’s not too bad. 

This is what burning garlic looks like. Don’t let yours do this. Ours burned since we decided at the last minute to throw in onions as well. Instead, throw your garlic, onions, and glug or two of olive oil into the pan at a medium-low heat. The garlic should “sweat” and be a little on the translucent side.

(Confession: I didn’t realize that browned garlic was such a no-no until I met Stuart. I have burned the hell out of garlic and still eaten it. Oops.) 

When the onions have softened a bit, throw in your shrimp. They’ll immediately turn that gorgeous pink color and shrivel up. Add salt and white pepper. Don’t be shy with either. Now add your lemon. Squeeze the hell out of both halves. You’ll want the citrus to balance the cream when it comes into play. Stir the pan and smell the goodness. 

Now for the big guns…

CREAM! You can find cream at Lotte Mart as well as foreign food markets. Since finding it a few months ago, Stuart and I have been incorporating cream into a lot of our meals. I didn’t use cream much at home, but with limited access to dairy in Korea I am embracing this special find. 

Add the 1/3 cup of cream to the pan. If you’re using white wine (I’d recommend something dry like Sauvignon Blanc), add it shortly thereafter. When the cream is integrated into the mix (within a minute), stick your spatula in the pan and taste the sauce. You should produce an eye-rolling “oh my godddd” and have to restrain yourself from eating it all out of the pan. 

Stuart demonstrates proper tasting technique. If cooking for people who might not want your germs all over the cooking utensils, use a clean spoon. 

When the cream has calmed down a bit and the sauce tastes like the flavors have blended properly, turn off the heat.

Drain your pasta.  Throw it in the pot with the sauce, add about 1/2 cup of grated parmesan (you’ll need a cheese grater, which can be easily found at any decent-sized grocery store in Korea.), and give it a toss.  Now, into the bowls! 

Finally, add some more parmesan and some chopped parsley on top for garnish. 

Finished product! 

Enjoy!

Sometimes it’s hard to satisfy brunch cravings over here.  There are a few really good spots in Seoul (namely Suji’s and Flying Pan, both in Itaewon), but we’re not always up for a ninety-minute commute on a Saturday morning.  Luckily, supplies for a good brunch are readily available over here.

Saturday morning found us craving eggs benedict, though slightly modified: roasted potatoes, poached eggs and grapefruit hollandaise.

The potatoes are easy enough, as long as you have an oven (even a small toaster-oven will do).  All you need are about three or four potatoes, an onion, 1/3 cup olive oil, salt/pepper (this is where your fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary would come in really handy, neither of which are easy to come by in Korea).  You want to cut up your potato into pieces that are pretty consistent in size so that they all cook well.  I usually try to make them about an inch cubed, give or take.  Also, go for a large (but consistent!) chop for the onion.  Its going to cook faster than the potato, so you want to avoid anything too thin or small.

Throw everything, salt pepper and oil included, in a bowl and give it a good toss.  Make sure all the pieces are well-coated in the oil.  Don’t be shy with the oil; if it looks too dry, add some more!

Spread them out on a baking sheet and make sure they’re evenly spaced/not on top of one another.  These took about twenty minutes at about 350 degrees, but keep an eye on them.  You want them to cook enough for a fork to go into them easily, but not so much that they turn all mushy and fall apart.

Next, the hollandaise.  I’ve read so many different takes on recipes and ingredients, but this one always turns out incredibly well for me.  I learned it from a French guy, so I’m going to stick with it.  Traditionally, all you’ll need is three egg yolks, half of a lemon’s juice (about two tablespoons), eight tablespoons of butter, salt/pepper.  As far as the lemon juice goes, do it to taste.  Two tablespoons or so is how I like it, but it’s really easy to go overboard with the stuff and have a super-lemony sauce. (Don’t worry about tasting your raw egg yolks.  First of all, the acid cooks them.  Second, the yolk is so full of nutrients/proteins and such that there isn’t much room for anything bad to grow.  If you get sick from raw egg, it’s most likely the white that had it in for you.)

Here’s where I did something different.  I used a grapefruit instead of a lemon.  The grapefruit’s flavor doesn’t cut through the sauce like the lemon does, so I used a good four, possibly six tablespoons of the stuff.  Again, it was to taste.  In retrospect, a good pinch of sugar may have really helped the grapefruit’s flavor come through, but I didn’t think of it at the time.  Also, adding a couple teaspoons to a tablespoon of zest would have really made it pop, but I’m zester-less over here.

Whisk together the yolks, juice, salt and pepper in a metal bowl.  It’s vital that your bowl be metal for the next step.

Here’s where it gets a little tricky. Boil a bit of water in a 6-8” diameter pot, one that’s large/small enough so your bowl can sit on top of it without touching the water.  Just a half-inch of water will do.

Once it’s boiling, turn it down to a simmer and put your bowl on top of the pot (have a potholder on hand!).  Keep whisking and don’t stop!  Figure-eight motions work really well for working air into the mix.  Every now and again, make sure you rotate the bowl in case some spots are hotter than others — you don’t want scrambled eggs!

Once the mixture becomes thick and foamy (creating “small peaks” when you lift your whisk), take it off.  This should only take a few minutes at most.

Traditionally, room-temperature clarified butter should be used for this next part.  To clarify butter, melt it on a low heat and skim all the white, clumpy milk solids off the top.  I, however, am lazy and skip this part.  My former boss would not be pleased.  Also, I melted the butter in the microwave.  You don’t want it boiling, but you want it liquified.  I put it in for 10 or so seconds at a time and take it out once it’s all melted except for a few floating pieces, which I allow the residual heat to melt.  Whisk your butter really slowly into the egg yolk mixture, pretty much drop by drop.  Add a drop or small splash, whisk it in completely, then add another.  With emulsions like hollandaise and mayonnaise, the fat (oil or butter) needs to be incorporated into the emulsifier (egg yolk) bit by bit to keep it from separating.  Once you’ve mixed-in about half of the butter you can start to add larger amounts, but you can’t just pour it all in or it’ll break the beautiful emulsion you have going.

(This part was much easier with two people, so we neglected to take a picture.  Womp womp.)

After all the butter is mixed in, you’re done!  I like mixing in fresh chopped parsley because it adds a nice texture.

Now for the poached egg.  Poaching an egg is a simple concept, but there can be issues when it comes to the execution of it.  I put about two or three cups of water to boil in a pot.  For every cup of water, you want about 1/4 cup of vinegar, so I used about 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of vinegar.  Vinegar’s an acid, so it cooks the egg on contact.  In this situation, too much vinegar is better than too little vinegar.  When the vinegar water is boiling, turn it down to a simmer.  Give the water a good stir so that it’s moving pretty quickly and drop your egg right into the middle of the swirl (you can crack them directly into the water or you can crack them individually into bowls and drop them in that way).  You’ll notice the egg will stay nicely together in the water.  If you don’t have enough vinegar, your egg will sprawl out like a spider web, like you’re making egg-drop soup or something.

I cooked these about two minutes or so, enough so that the whites were cooked but the yolks were still good and runny.  Lift them out and give them a touch to see how far along they are for your taste.

When they’re done, lift them out with a slotted spoon and plate it all up!

It’s a bit of work, but totally worth it.

Thanks for reading!

In an effort to be a Nice Girlfriend on White Day (think Valentine’s Day part 2), I offered to make Stuart tomato basil soup on Monday. Yet, as many such offers go, I ended up bringing over take out instead because I’m lazy. By Wednesday I was feeling a bit more motivated to cook, albeit not something as time intensive as soup since I started cooking at 9:00. I found this recipe on Serious Eats and adapted it a bit. It’s a stir fry that you can make with ingredients easily found at Korean grocery stores. 

Here’s what you need:

• 3+ TBSP oil. I use olive oil almost exclusively but Stuart is gung ho about grapeseed as well. PRO TIP: Do not EVER use the term “evoo” (TM Rachael Ray) around Stuart. I’ve never seen him as disappointed in me as when I jokingly threw out the word.
• 1-2 TBSP garlic
• 1 cup sliced onions. 
• 1 package of extra firm tofu. PRO TIP 2: If, like me, you are inept at Korean you can gauge the firmness of the tofu by the number of calories/gram. The more calorie dense, the firmer the tofu. The difference won’t be huge, but it helps!
• 1 TBSP oyster sauce or alternative (ex. soy sauce or tamari + 1 tsp sugar)
• 1-2 TBSP Thai chili sauce. Chili sauce can be found at E-mart and Lotte Mart
• 1/4 cup vegetable broth. Stuart prefers Knorr brand vegetable bouillon. You could also make your own broth or buy cans at a store like Home Plus or a foreign food mart
• Hearty green veggies. The original recipe called for green beans but I subbed in broccoli and zucchini. 
• Handful of tomatoes
• 1 cup of rice. I used brown rice that we picked up in Itaewon recently. I prefer its nuttiness and flavor to white rice, but any old rice will do. 

To begin, start making the rice. (Look on the package for cooking instructions, but brown rice requires 2.5 cups of water for 1 cup of rice.)

Now it’s time to make your mise en place. If you’re working in an unbelievably small kitchen, doing all your prep work before you begin messing with stoves and sauces will make cooking easier and cleaner. I promise. Plus, you get to use a pretentious cooking term like mise en place! And italics!

Tame these wild vegetables and fermented beans!

First, drain and slice your tofu. I prefer big hunks of tofu, but size doesn’t matter much here. I take that back. Size matters because if you slice it too small, the pieces will fall apart and you’ll be left with a mess. Place the tofu in a bowl and set aside. 

Mince your garlic. PRO TIP: If you don’t have a garlic press (GET ONE!), have your chef of a boyfriend do it 10x faster than you could without cutting himself. But really, get a damn garlic press. (His was dirty and I was too lazy to clean it.)

Continue slicing and chopping your vegetables. I am a menace with a knife, so it’s probably best that I don’t demonstrate my knife skills on the blog. The most important thing is to try to make your pieces the same size so they cook at the same rate.

Finished! Now your veggies will be easily accessible when their moment arrives. 

Add 2 TBSP (or in my case, two glugs) of oil to a pan with your tofu over medium heat. You want the tofu to turn a bit crispy. Be patient. Let each side (that’s 6, for all you history majors out there) cook for about a minute. The outside layer should be yellowish and hard before you add the oyster sauce. 

A note: This oyster sauce is NOT gluten free. NOT GF. I bought it over a year ago and never used it. I checked the all-knowing internet to confirm that it was GF before using it Wednesday and found out that the Red panda sauce is not gf. Only the GREEN LABEL Panda Brand Oyster Sauce is gluten free and MSG-free! So? What did I do? Fall into despair at not having the right ingredients? Never! A decent replacement for oyster sauce is just a TBSP of tamari (gluten free soy sauce) plus a teaspoon of sugar. 

Add oyster sauce or your tamari-sugar mixture. Continue to brown the tofu. After a few minutes, grab a piece, eat it, and determine if you want to brown it more. When you’re satisfied, carefully place the tofu in a bowl away from the stove. This doesn’t look like much, but it will smell and taste really yummy. 

Now add the remaining TBSP of oil, onions, garlic, veggies, and broth. Let the sauteing begin! I think I added a bit more oil since I used more vegetables than the original recipe called for, but use your best judgment. Just don’t let anything burn. Cook the vegetables until the onions are translucent, the broccoli is bright green, and the zucchini is a tiny bit soft in the middle. Again, do a taste test. (I also recommend drinking during this process. Nothing feels more chic than sauteing vegetables with a martini or glass of wine in hand.) 

When the vegetables are close to done (not all the way!) add your tomatoes and chili sauce. Cook for an additional 2 or 3 minutes, or until the tomatoes are soft-ish and the other veggies are tender.

When your rice is ready (30-40 minutes) spoon it into a bowl and add a heaping pile of veggies. 

Confession: moments after this photo was taken I added several large squirts of Srirarcha (If you don’t know Srirarcha, don’t read this blog) to the bowl and downed it in mere minutes. 

This recipe is vegetarian (if you don’t use oyster sauce) and gluten free. The only ingredients acquired out of Korea were the vegetable bouillon (Knorr brand) and the tamari used to replace soy sauce/oyster sauce. If you are following a gluten free diet in Korea due to celiac disease or gluten intolerance, I cannot recommend bringing your own tamari strongly enough. You will not find it here. 

Don’t count on another She cooks post any time soon. I assure you, with a chef like Stuart around, it’s a waste to let anyone else in the kitchen. 

Enjoy!