Pajeon: Korean Scallion Pancake Recipe

Pajeon

 

Well it has been about two weeks since my last blog post and video. Sorry about that guys! I was down with the flu for about five days and then when I finally got better I went to visit my brother out of town for about a week. I have  not seen him in about two years so I thought it was about time we hang out and catch up on things. I had a great time. I even brought my new best friend Riley with me. Riley is my Havanese puppy! He is a Cuban water dog and he is the the bestest buddy I could ever have! He had a great time to!

So now that I am back and feeling better I feel like cooking something!  I had to decide what I was going to make this week for my video recipe and in true fashion and love of Asian foods I decided to make a great little snack  or "banchan" as they call it in Korea a dish called "Pajeon." (pa jun) Pajeon is a Korean scallion pancake recipe, a "jeon."  There are many names for different kinds of pajeon or Korean scallion pancake recipe or "jeon" out there and are called many different names like buchimgae, jimi, chijimi, kimchijeon, kimchi jeon and jijimgae. These are but a few of the different kinds of pajeon in Korea. Your basic pajeon is made with a batter and scallions and is the basic pajeon recipe. In fact scallions are the predominant ingredient in Korean pajeon. No matter what type of pajeon you make you will find scallions as a main ingredient! The "Pa" in pajeon means onion as in pa kimchi or jook pa kimchi hence the scallions in the pajeon. Many people mistake Korean pajeon pancakes and Chinese green onion pancakes to be the same thing but they are not! They may look alike but the difference is that the Chinese green onion pancake is made with a dough and the Korean pajeon is made with the batter of eggs, flour, rice flour, or cornstarch and in some cases people even use potato flakes added to some kind of flour to make pajeon gluten free!

You can make pajeon, the Korean scallion pancake recipe with just about anything you can think of and the different batter recipes are just about endless. As with any kind of cuisine there are as many recipes for the cuisine as there are people making the recipes. This is the same when it comes to making pajeon. So this week I thought I would make three pajeon recipes.

The first one that I will make is the standard vegetable pajeon, the standard Korean scallion pancake recipe which I make with scallions of course and I add some finely shredded zucchini for texture and a nutty flavor in a batter of flour, eggs, cornstarch, gochugaru(Korean coarse ground chili pepper) salt and pepper and a  touch of sesame oil to boot! This will be the batter I use for the other two pajeon varieties that I will be making in this video as well.

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The second pajeon that I will make is called "Haemul pajeon." Haemul pajeon is the standard Korean pajeon vegetable recipe with the scallions but it also has the addition of minced clams, oysters, surimi or baby shrimp. You can also add some chili pepper to this or any pajeon recipe. Haemul pajeon is a delicious seafood pancake.

[caption id="attachment_2067" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pajeon: Haemul Pajeon Korean Seafood Pancake - Click To Enlarge"][/caption]

I would have to say that my third choice is my favorite pajeon recipe. My third pajeon recipe in this video is called "buchimgae" or "kimchijeon." This pajeon is made with my standard batter and the scallions and also has the addition of finely chopped bae chu kimchi and pork sausage and sliced red and green chili peppers. It's a delicious pajeon. So let's make some pajeon. Enjoy the video!

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[caption id="attachment_2068" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pajeon: Buchimgae Or Kimchijeon Pancake - Click To Enlarge"][/caption]

Chicken Wings: My Korean Hot And Spicy Baked Chicken Wings

Chicken Wings

 

[caption id="attachment_2025" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Korean Hot And Spicy Chicken Wings - Click To Enlarge"][/caption]

Who doesn't love chicken wings? I would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't love chicken wings of some kind or another. I know that the Superbowl is over and Yippee! The Giants won! Along the way for the last two weeks or so many people have been cooking party foods and one of the favorite party foods is chicken wings!

Well, I did not fall in line with this trend on my blog or my Youtube channel this last week or so. This week however I am making one of my favorite chicken wings recipes. This week I am going to make my Korean Hot And Spicy Baked Chicken Wings.  That's right! I said baked chicken wings.

I mean when you go to a bar or a restaurant or wing shack and order chicken wings like hot wings what you get are chicken wings that have been cooked in a deep fryer and then put into a steel mixing bowl. Then they put butter into the mixing bowl and then pour some kind of Louisana hot sauce in there and mix it up and then viola! You have hot wings.

Actually what you have is chicken wings that taste like salt, vinegar and hot pepper of some sort. Not my image of chicken wings. There is not real depth of flavor with chicken wings like that! I know the old saying "fat is where the flavor is!" But I am not really a big believer in deep frying chicken wings in order to make chicken wings.

My Korean hot and spicy chicken wings has just a bit of sweet to it and it is one of my favorite chicken wing recipes. There are many chicken wing recipes out there but this is one that has many levels of flavor to it because of ingredients like chili pepper, garlic, ginger, onion, sugar, fish sauce and more. In fact these baked chicken wings are made with a variation of a traditional Korean kimchi paste for making kimchi like Bae Chu or Jook Pa kimchi.

First the wings are brined for 24hrs. Yupper! Brined! I could marinate them in some citrus juices and spices and even wine but I choose to brine these wings in a mixture of salt, sugar, crushed red chili flakes, rice vinegar and garlic granules.  The brining like the marinating is what allows the baked chicken wings to get crispy around the edges. The brine pulls excess moisture out of the chicken skin and lets all the flavors of the brine and kimchi paste come out to play with your taste buds!

These chicken wings can be made as hot or as sweet as you would like. As I state in the video the problem with the Korean coarse ground chili powder is that it really isn't that hot when you buy them and that is why I add Sambal sauce to the kimchi paste that I make for the chicken wings. You can use Sambal or crushed red chili flakes or even one of my favorites the Thai bird chili. Anything to add some more heat to the Gochugaru(Korean coarse ground chili flakes) So kick back and watch the video and I hope you make these chicken wings, My Korean hot and spicy baked chicken wings! Enjoy!

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Vietnamese Food: Pho Bo A Traditional Pho Recipe

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Hi everyone this week I am back to cooking because I really missed it. I will be doing some more sharpening videos in the future but this week I wanted to cook. So this week I decided on Vietnamese food! As anyone who knows me knows I love Vietnamese food. I love the flavors of Southeast Asian cooking whether it is Thai food or Vietnamese food or Laosian food.

This week I decided to make Pho Bo which is the favorite soup of Vietnam. The Pho Bo recipe I am making this week is a traditional pho recipe made of beef and noodles. Pho Bo is the national soup of Vietnam a place that used to be called "Tonkin" when the French occupied the country under something called the "French Protectorate." When I was a kid during the time of Nixon Tonkin was called Indochina.

Pho soup whether it is Pho Bo(beef pho) or Pho Ga(chicken pho) is the mainstay staple of street side stalls and eateries throughout Vietnam! Vietnamese food is very popular in the United States these days and Pho soup is on top of the list. Most Americans pronounce pho as "foe" and this is not the correct way to say it.  The Vietnamese people pronounce it someplace between "few" and "fuh". I myself am guilty of mispronunciation of this word for years.

In Vietnamese food culture Pho soup even more Pho Bo is a kind of early fusion cuisine that is influenced most notable by French and Chinese. Pho Bo is a soup that has over a 100yrs history that began in the city of Hanoi. As far as Vietnamese Food is concerned Pho is considered to be the "meal of the people." The traditional Pho recipe of Pho Bo is highly influenced by the French. The French Protectorate had occupied Vietnam from 1858 to 1954.

The French cooked a dish cooked a dish known as "Pot Au Feu". This dish was the humble predecessor today's traditional pho recipe and was made of meat and vegetables that were cooked in a rich broth. Way back in those early days beef was just about unheard of in that part of the world and the national meat was pork. Today in this type of Vietnamese food beef is readily available but pork is still #1.

As I stated the most important part of the Pho Bo is the broth. It can take 3 or more hours to simmer a good broth for Pho Bo and you want that broth to be as pure as possible before serving the soup. In the traditional pho recipe the broth is made from beef bones. Most notably the bones to be used are shank and knuckle marrow bones. You can also add meat to the broth mixture to help enhance the flavor of the Pho Bo. Cuts of meat like sirloin, chuck or even oxtail will help make your broth delicious!


Pho Bo is a very healthy soup and it is not the kind of beef soup that you want to skim all the fat from. A large majority of the fat will come from the marrow in the bones along with other constituents which are very healthful when eaten. In order to rid your Pho Bo of impurities it is necessary to blanch the bones for between 10 and 15 minutes to get the impurities out. Then the broth is made at a simmer. You want the simmer to be as low a flame as possible. The Vietnamese call this simmering process a "smile".

So the traditional pho recipe was influenced by the French and today there are many variations in Vietnamese food especially pho in both Vietnam and America. Today a traditional pho recipe can and is made with more than just beef or chicken. Other parts of the animal are being used today to create haute pho recipes or what I call the new school traditional pho recipe in Vietnam. Parts such as kidneys, lungs, tripe, brisket, brain, udder, and yes even penis! Other ingredients such as mushrooms, tofu, sprouts, varied greens, and scallions are being used and the list goes on and on!

Today I will be making a simple beef pho(Pho Bo) using beef shank and knuckle bones, chuck roast and eye of round raw meat slices with a simple combination of herbs and spices in my bouquet garni. I know if you make this recipe you will love it. Enjoy the video and thanks for stopping by!
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Knife Sharpening - Knife Sharpening Part 2

Knife Sharpening

 

OK guys here it is! The second part of my series on Knife Sharpening Part 2. Whew! I am sorry that it is late but I caught some kind of bug a few days ago and it stopped me from getting this Knife Sharpening video done.  In this second part video I go a bit deeper into the Knife sharpening process and I go over my patented method of how to find the angle of your knifes blade so that you can perform the chore of Knife Sharpening correctly!

In this second part of Knife Sharpening I was going to continue using Japanese water stones but, I didn't. Why? Because one of my subscribers on my Youtube channel sent me an email and asked me a very pointed question. "How do I sharpen my knives?" This person was not interested in me showing my readers and subs  how to use Japanese water stones, he was interested in how I do my sharpening and thought that it would be in my best interest and the interest of my readers and subs to see how I myself do Knife Sharpening.

I gave this request a lot of thought and in the end I decided to forgo the Japanese water stones and show you how I do Knife Sharpening in my home. Yes! I own many Japanese water stones but in truth I try to avoid using them. I do this basically because when it comes to Knife Sharpening I am lazy! Yes! I am lazy! I do like to do Knife Sharpening with Japanese water stones but, I don't like to do the maintenance necessary to keep those water stones in peak performance! The fact of the matter is that Japanese water stones are most often very messy to work with as many of them create a slurry that you have to contend with. Also the issue of "lapping" the Japanese water stones to keep them as flat and level as possible can be quite a time consuming chore at best.


I am a bit more modern in my Knife Sharpening when I use sharpening stones. For about 98% of all my Knife Sharpening chores I use DMT Diamond Whetstones in various mesh/grits. I do this because DMT whetstones don't need to be "lapped" in order to keep them flat or level for use as the diamonds are impregnated into steel plates. This means very low maintenance! I use the DMT Duosharp Benchstones in various mesh/grit ratings. I have in succession a DMT Duosharp coarse/extra coarse 220/325 mesh/grit benchstone. I use this whetstone for quick metal removal for a blade that is really deformed and in need of reshaping. Then I use a DMT Duosharp fine/extra fine 600/1200 mesh/grit benchstone. This whetstone helps me with micro beveling and reducing the scratch patterns from the coarser grits used to sharpe the edge and helps to refine the edge to a finer degree.

After I use the full gamut of diamond plates for my Knife Sharpening I then move on to my polishing steps and I use synthetic ceramic stones to do this for me. I rarely ever go beyond 3000 grit for my polishing needs whether I am sharpening Japanese knives or western knives. Some people want to sharpen their knives upwards of like 8000 grit or more and my answer to that is how sharp is sharp? How sharp do you need your knives to be! There are times that I will take a particular knife like a Japanese Yanagiba that is ground at 100/0 degrees and I will put a final polish on it from a  King Japanese water stone 6000 grit but that is a rare occasion. So usually when I am done Knife Sharpening using my diamond plates I will finish my polishing on a Spyderco 302f ceramic bench stone. This ceramic is a synthetic ceramic rated at 1800 grit. It will not gully or dish like other clay based or resin based ceramic stones so they will last for years and years and this is a true value. I have been using mine for at least 8yrs and they are still level. Then I will finish my polishing on a Spyderco 302uf ultra fine ceramic benchstone rated at 2200 grit. This stone puts the final razors edge on my blade on the primary cutting edge when I am done with the knifes back bevel and then lookout my blades are wicked sharp!


There are other things that you can do when performing the chore of Knife Sharpening in order to refine your edge ever further if that is something that you want to do. One of the things I do is make my famous "poor man's strop." This is done by rubbing some form of metal polish onto a piece of cardboard and making a nice thin layer to cover the surface of the cardboard and then letting the compound dry and then lightly stropping your knife on it to get an even higher mirror polish on your knifes edge. Most metal polishes are at a minimum 6000 grit and up. Don't quote me on this however as I am not an expert on metal polish. I do know however that if you have a good quality leather strop you can get liquid green compound rated at up to 60,000 grit if that is what you want. So please watch this video and enjoy it! If there are any questions please contact me and I will get back to you ASAP!


 

Knife Sharpening - Knife Sharpening Part 1

Knife Sharpening

 

In my last blog post I covered a sub subject of knife sharpening which was how to maintain the sharpening stones you are using especially if the knife sharpening stones you are using are Japanese water stones. Lapping water stones prior to knife sharpening is a subject that I found was not discussed very often or even very correctly on the internet or anyplace else for that matter.

So I did a video last week on how to maintain the water stones that you use for knife sharpening chores and this weeks video I am starting a two video module demonstrating knife sharpening. I am going to cover some basic information on the difference between symetrical and asymetrical blade styles and how to find the angle of the blade you are sharpening.

As well for those of us out there that don't have a lot of experience with knife sharpening I am going to show you in the video how to find the angle of any knife that you are going to sharpen and this method works every time. It will get you close enough to the manufacturers blade angle without having to call the manufacturer to ask what angle the blade was ground at.

There are many types of strokes that can be used for knife sharpening and in this video I will be using a reverse Japanese stroke on the stones to get the edge I want. I consider this stroke to be the most efficient stroke in knife sharpening but, on the other hand it is also the most difficult stroke to learn because of issues of correct pressure to apply to the stones, wrist flexing against the stone, proper grind technique in the proper direction against the stone.  All of these aspects are covered in this video.

As I have said before knife sharpening is easier than you think and there really is no mystery to it. All you need to learn proper knife sharpening is some basic information and some practice and that is what I ma offering with this video series on knife sharpening. I have also stated in past videos and blog posts that not all knife sharpening mediums will work well with all types of cutlery steels. Some stones work great with carbon steel blades and yet will not work well with stainless blades and vice/verse!

Now in part 2 of this module I am going to finish sharpening the Japanese Petty knife that I showed in this part 1.  So go ahead and watch this knife sharpening video and enjoy it!

Waterstones: How To Maintain Japanese Waterstones With Lapping

Waterstones

 



Waterstones from Japan are the rage in the sharpening world today. In the store that I manage I sell waterstones from Japan by the truck load. I sell many different types of Japanese waterstones. Some of the waterstones are single stones and many of the waterstones are consumer based double sided waterstones that come at a value price.

Japanese waterstones come in many varieties. Some waterstones are clay bases ceramic and some are resin based ceramic. There are some waterstones made domestically by Shapton and they are some of the best waterstones on the market and even though Shapton says  the waterstones they produce are resin based they actually rubber based stones and they work very well.


If you are one of those people that are into using Japanese waterstones or you are one of those people that want to get into Japanese waterstones then you will need to do some research on waterstones to decide which one's will work best for you. The other thing you have to look forward to is the fact that if you get into using Japanese waterstones or domestic made waterstones you will need to be prepared to spend some money on good quality waterstones and you will need to explore the kinds of grits that you will need to perform the sharpening chore. Remember: Some waterstones work well with carbon blades but maybe not stainless blades and then there are the waterstones that work well with stainless blade but maybe not so well with carbon blades.

If you have decided to buy Japanese waterstones for your sharpening arsenal then you will also need to be prepared to learn how to properly sharpen your knives on them AND you will also need to learn how to properly maintain your waterstones in order to keep the surface of the waterstones flat and as level as possible. This is done through a process call "lapping."

Oh yes! Japanese waterstones need to have a maintenance schedule just as your knives need to have a maintenance schedule. So even though there is a learning curve when it comes to learning how to sharpen your knives to keep them at peak performance there is also a learning curve when it comes to keeping your waterstones at peak performance as well. Lapping waterstones in a labor of love to say the least.

So first thing is first: Lapping a waterstone is a relatively easy thing to do. I generally suggest that the sharpener lap their waterstones after each use. This prevents the waterstones from getting gullied or dished. When you see that your waterstones have a lot of black buildup on the surface of the waterstone that buildup is called "glazing." This glazing is the buildup of steel from knives that have been sharpened over and over again on a stone that has not been lapped. This glazing will prevent proper contact of your knife blade to the waterstone and therefore you will not get your knives sharpened correctly because the abrasive is not making contact with the blade, the glazing is.

Lapping your waterstones is the process of removing the glazing and truing or leveling your waterstone so that your knife makes proper contact with the abrasive nature of the waterstone and therefore has even metal removal taking place so that your blade is consistent and contiguous.

There are a couple of ways of removing glazing from your waterstones. In the bad old days I used a piece of wet/dry sandpaper at 220 grit and wrapped it around a piece of 2x4 and stapled it into the wood and I would lay my waterstone on a flat surface and do my scrubbing back and forth until the glazing was all gone. This worked for a while until I found that the surface of the 2x4 that I was using was not exactly flat enough so in turn my waterstone was not getting leveled to a high degree of satisfaction.

So later in the process of me learning to do quality lapping of my waterstones I bought a DMT diamond diasharp at 220 grit  and a DMT diamond diasharp at 600 grit. I would then wrap a piece of 2x4 in thin cloth and wet it and then put a waterstone that has been soaking for 30mins minimum on top of the 2x4 and then use the diamond plate to lap my stones back to level.

Now after your waterstones have been lapped back to level there is a process you perform on your waterstones called radiusing the edges. This is where you take off the sharp edges of your waterstones to allow the blade even more consistent contact with the abrasive for a better sharpening experience. You radius the edges of the waterstones because sometimes the edges can raise the knife off of the center mass of the stone and only be lifted by the edges and this makes for poor contact with the abrasive.

All of this is covered in the video so please watch this video and leave a comment. If there are any questions please feel free to contact me and I will get back to you ASAP!

Knife Sharpening Starting From The Beginning

Knife Sharpening

 

As of late I have been bombarded with emails and private messages from readers and Youtube subs asking me to do more sharpening videos as they really like what I am teaching about the subject. I have been promising to do some more videos now for the last 3 or 4 months and finally this last week I decided to put off on cooking a nice dish and give the people what they want!

So as with the new year being new this is a new run of videos dedicated to the subject of how to sharpen your much valued kitchen knives. We are all people who love food and love being in the kitchen and therefore our most important tools in the kitchen are our knives. I get really tired of all of the bad information about knife sharpening that there is out there on the internet and in places like Youtube. Knife sharpening is a skill and that skill takes time to aquire as with any skill.

There is no mystery to knife sharpening. It is just knife sharpening. So many people out treat the subject of knives sharpening like some mystic art. The riddle of steel! The riddle of knife sharpening. I don't get it! There is no mystery to knife sharpening. Don't listen to people who tell you that "this is the only way to do knife sharpening" because that is not the case. Don't pay large sums of money for a video course on knife sharpening. Don't pay to take a 1, 2 or 3 day course in knife sharpening that costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Now there are a couple of people out there that make practice of doing this. I don't agree with the bulk of them and what they charge. If you are a person with some number of years doing knife sharpening and you want to further your career as a professional knife sharpener or knife maker then yes there are people out there that are quite reputable as teachers and worth the money they charge to teach the art of knife sharpening but, believe me these people are few and far between.

So it is with this blog post I am starting to do a series of posts and videos covering the subject of knife sharpening from the beginning. Starting at the bottom of the subject of knife sharpening and working my way up to give you the most complete and informative coverage of the subject of knife sharpening as I have learned it over the past 30yrs.


In these two videos covering part one of my knife sharpening series I am going to  cover what an edge is and how to make a proper edge when performing the knife sharpening task. The edge itself is one of the most misunderstood aspects of knife sharpening because most people are taught that there is only one edge to be sharpened on a knife and the fact of the matter is that there are two edges to be sharpened on each side for a total of for if you look at knife sharpening as a matter of planes which it is.


So here I am going to discuss knife sharpening from the angle of what is and edge? A plane? And what happens as a plane is ground during knife sharpening to create your edge. In other words how to create the "burr" that creates your edge. When performing knife sharpening you need to understand that there are many types of edges that can be created on a knife so there are some things to take into consideration when knife sharpening.

1. What kind of knife are you sharpening?

2. What is the intended chore for the knife you are sharpening?

3. What are you using the knife for that you are sharpening?

Once you have answered these questions then you will know how to proceed with your knife sharpening task. As an aside about knife sharpening let me tell you that there are a ton of rigs and jigs and guided sharpening systems out there that all work fairly well if you want to work within the guidelines of that piece of gear. Yes! you will get a workable edge and a decent cutting edge from these rigs, jigs and guided systems but, what you will lose using these types of gizmos is the shear breadth and width of knife sharpening creativity! If you really want to "feel the force" when it comes to knife sharpening then the absolute best way to learn how to do knife sharpening is freehand on stones of various types. Learning how to sharpen on a stone is an art you will never forget. I mean you can't take a sharpening rig into the woods to sharpen your knives and even if you could I don't and you shouldn't!

There is something very important to cover here when it come to knife sharpening and that is that you may have some stones or a sharpening system that work great with the knives that you have now. Then all of a sudden you get some new knives and they get dull and you find out that the stones or rig that you have is not doing such a good job on the new knives. This is because not all mediums for sharpening  will work well on ALL of your knives because there are so many different kinds of steels and world of different knife sharpening abrasives out there. So you need to know what you have and what you will need in order to  do knife sharpening correctly. So sit back and watch these two videos and enjoy and the next video is coming soon!