Hello August! A Letter from Maangchi

How are you staying cool this summer? The streets near Times Square, where I live in New York City, are always crowded with visitors, no matter the season. So every now and then, someone recognizes me!

A few days ago, I met Kim, who was visiting New York with her Korean husband and their baby. She told me she had been cooking from my recipes for years.

Me: What dishes are you best at making?
Kim: Kimchi-jjigae and lots of Korean side dishes.
Kim’s husband: Yes, and the gamjatang (pork bone soup) she makes from your recipe tastes even better than my mother’s!
Me: Don’t tell your mother that. You might hurt her feelings.
Kim’s husband: Oh, even she agrees!
Kim: I also make miyeokguk for my husband on his birthday.
That really touched me. For Koreans, having someone make miyeokguk (seaweed soup) for you on your birthday means so much.

As we continued talking, I was amazed by how many stories from my videos they remembered, too. It was so nice meeting them!

This delicious pan-fried eggplant takes less than 10 minutes to make!

The dish in the top photo was made with an eggplant from the Netherlands that I found at my neighborhood grocery store. The one in the bottom photo was made with Korean eggplant.

I originally planned to use Korean eggplant for my video, but I couldn’t find any fresh, good-looking ones at the Korean grocery store that day. So I filmed the video using the eggplant from my neighborhood store. Later, I found some beautiful Korean eggplants with almost no blemishes and made the dish again for the bottom photo.

One of my Korean subscribers thought this dish couldn’t be made with Korean eggplant, but it can! Both kinds work very well.

Traditional gajigui is made by salting the eggplant, squeezing out the moisture, coating it with seasoning, and then pan-frying it. For my quick version, I skip the salting and squeezing. I add the seasoning right away and let everything sizzle together in the pan. When the eggplant gets a little charred, it develops a nice smoky barbecue flavor.

It’s so delicious with rice! I also love that all the tasty juices stay in the eggplant. Nothing goes to waste!

I wish I could make each of you a glass of iced coffee in this hot weather!
I edited this little video myself, especially for you. I hope you enjoy a cool, happy moment with an iced coffee this summer. Cheers!

My reader Rachel made kimchi for the first time and packed it neatly in a large onggi (earthenware jar). What an amazing first batch! Great job, Rachel! My kimchi recipe is here!

My reader Ann from Singapore was tired of store-bought kimchi, which she said was always sour, so she finally made fresh kimchi for the first time. She set this delicious Korean table with doenjang-jjigae, stir-fried kelp and anchovies, rice, and her freshly made kimchi. But after one bite, she realized something was missing. She had forgotten the fish sauce!
“OMG, Maangchi! I jumped up so quickly that I startled my son! Hahaha! I opened the kimchi tub, mixed fish sauce into the paste, and seasoned the cabbage again.”
I laughed imagining how startled her son must have been.

Here is Joyce’s country-style Korean radish salad, still in the stainless-steel mixing bowl just before she transferred it to a serving plate! Anyone who has made this simple, easy side dish will have their mouth watering just looking at it.
I learned this recipe while visiting my relatives in the Korean countryside.
Salty, spicy, juicy, and crunchy, with a rich, nutty sesame oil flavor, mu-saengchae is a side dish I make very often. When I make it, I usually mix it into steaming hot rice along with some thick soybean paste stew, then add plenty of gochujang and sesame oil.
The recipe for radish salad is here!

You always inspire me, make me laugh, brighten my day, and sometimes even touch my heart! Here are some comments and messages I want to share with you this month:

What would you do if you were really craving naengmyeon but couldn’t find the right noodles? Azrin wanted to make my cold, spicy, chewy noodles but couldn’t find the noodles where they live! So they asked if they could use spaghetti noodles. I told them:

Yes, that sounds great! I think spaghetti noodles would work well because they’re nice and chewy when cooked properly. That’s what I’d use, too!

Rayne used to watch my videos when she was 12! Now she’s 22 and finally cooking my recipes in her own apartment! I said:

You’ve been interested in cooking since you were 12! I’m so happy that you can now make delicious Korean food for yourself.

MeEbo made chicken soup (dakgomtang) for his Korean wife. He and his wife loved the chicken soup! I said:

It warms my heart to hear that you made dakgomtang for your Korean wife!

Angshuman left a question on my kalguksu recipe (chicken noodle soup from scratch), “When I tried to make noodles at home, the extra flour thickened the broth. How can I avoid that?” My advice is:

Try shaking off the excess flour from the noodles before adding them to the boiling broth!

Sophia in Cebu is growing Korean buchu (chives) and planning to make buchu-kimchi!

How wonderful that you’re using fresh chives from your own garden!

Chichu said, “I’m not very good at grocery shopping, but I watched all of your grocery-shopping videos!”

Do you remember my four videos where I went shopping with some of you for Korean ingredients at a Korean grocery store in New Jersey? The more I thought about it, the more I realized how helpful these videos could be. So I put all four together on one page, where you can watch them one after another without having to search for them. I got the idea from Chichu’s comment!

Here is my “How to Shop at a Korean Grocery Store” page! I’ll also make this section easier to find on my website soon.

And one more thing! This is gochu-bokkeum (stir-fried green chili peppers), a side dish I’ve been making a lot lately. The peppers are savory, salty, slightly sweet, and lightly sticky from the flour coating.