#8 Seoul mates in Korea

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - I have been away travelling through Poland and Germany with work, so upon my return, to help me out, our lovely mate Mrs D offered to host our Korean dinner for us.




Mrs D's husband had previously worked in Korea for about a year in 2005 and they are both big fans of Korean cuisine.




Around the table we had the usual suspects of Mr & Mrs D, Mr & Mrs W and our mutual friend Mr V who were all very excited to taste test the fabulous feast from Korea, and to wash it down with Hite and OB beers, Soju (a Korean spirit made from sweet potato) and a Korean plum liquer.





The Menu

• Chicken Ginseng soup
• Mandu
• Beef Bulgogi
• Seaweed rice balls and kimchi
• Chicken a la Chris Sutton
• Assortment of pickled radish, green beans and white bait
• Sweet pancake with green tea ice cream

Yet again Mrs D came up trumps with a starter of delicious warming chicken ginseng soup, followed by sticky dumplings (Mandu) – these are my absolute favourite thing on the menu. The Beef Bulgogi which had been marinated in soy and chillis and garlic for 24 hours was served with a smoky barbecue sauce and wrapped in a lettuce leaf which made the taste light, crunchy and just superb.  

Chicken a la Chris Sutton was a concoction that was served to Mr & Mrs D in a bar in Seoul.  The lovely, smiling barman only knew two phrases in English – 'My service' and 'Chris Sutton'. Mr D had gone to the bar and explained to the barman that he was from Glasgow – to which he replied 'Aaaaah, Chris Sutton' who was a player for Celtic at the time. 

The next thing Mr D knew, the barman was bringing spicy chicken wings to him served on a bed of mashed potatoes and was saying 'My service – Chris Sutton' and smiling a lot. So in honour of the lovely gentleman in the bar, and of course Chris Sutton himself, we had to serve the same dish!

 

The Verdict

A really beautiful menu, incredibly well executed and a very worthy 9.5 out of 10.  The 0.5 was lost only because the soju which was very bitter and made me judder after every sip! Though the Korean plum liquer tasted very nice indeed.  

All of the food that in these recipe's came from K-mart on Rue Saint Anne in the 1st arrondissement of Paris (between Palais Royal and Opera).

#7 USA! Super Bowls on Sunday!

Due to the chef being away on business this week it is her partner in crime reporting on the latest World Cup dinner. With Sunday being the NFL Superbowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos we decided to take on the United States. In theory this should have been one of the easiest to achieve as practically every supermarket has plenty of US imported goods and there are hundreds of options to choose from for every one of the courses.

After a brainstorm that pondered Deep South dishes like gumbo and jambalaya, our San Francisco favourite clam chowder and homemade apple pie we decided on the straightforward option:

• Buffalo wings with blue cheese dip and celery
• Bacon cheeseburgers with fries
• Ice cream sundae
• Budweiser

Unfortunately, assuming that all these items would be easy to source we left the important part of getting the central ingredients until the last minute and quickly realised that perhaps not everything is as easy to pick up as we thought.

For the Buffalo wings we got a hot sauce from the Thanksgiving store in the 4th arrondissement. This shop stocks a decent variety of American sauces, beverages and sweets. There is also a second American market in Paris close to the Eiffel Tower in the 7th arrondissement called The Real McCoy – where we got our Budweiser from. However, the chicken wings that we intended to coat in the hot sauce were no so simple to get. Heading to the local supermarket on Sunday morning all I could find were small chicken drumsticks rather than wings and none of the small independent stores had anything better. A rule you can never learn to obey quickly enough in Paris – always get you shopping essentials in on Saturday!

Similarly, regular American-style burgers were not as readily available so standard steak haché had to do instead and was not quite up to standard.

Ice cream for dessert will always be a success, but we gave it a bit more of an American twist by adding slices of a Hershey bar and some Hershey chocolate sauce on top.






The Verdict

The Buffalo chicken bits were really good and given the small quantity on each stick could have been eaten twice! The blue cheese dip was made by mixing some Roquefort cheese with a ranch sauce dressing. That is definitely an appetiser that will get a second outing. The burgers, like every McDonalds dinner, was far better in anticipation. French fries will very rarely live up to the kind bought in a fast food outlet and these did not hit the target, the burger itself was fine but not as tasty as the idea of the burger beforehand.

The Hersheys ice cream sundae though was 10/10! We had a Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream base with some chocolate brownie pieces, cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate Hershey pieces.

With grand plans to stay up and watch the Superbowl there was a spare burger for later in the evening during the game, but, like every other year before, I got too tired waiting for the game to start and decided to go to bed instead – so the leftover burger was a handy first dinner for the week I have been left to fend for myself in the kitchen.

The week off from the project while the chef is away on business has given me time to ponder some upcoming dishes for the rest of our dinners and also how we can maybe fit a few salad-based dishes into the menu to help save my waistline before we get to No 32!



If you would like to you can follow the World Cup Dinners Twitter feed – here.