March 2024 Letter

Make cabbage soybean paste soup and stir fried sundae sausage! Plus messages and photos from my readers and viewers

Mar 01, 2024

When a big pot of oxtail soup (sokkoritang in Korean) is ready on cold winter days, you don't need many side dishes, just kimchi and rice. Then you can keep eating the soup over many meals without getting tired of it. Here’s a meal I prepared a few days ago: oxtail soup, rice, steamed shishito peppers, cubed radish kimchi, and stir-fried mustard green kimchi.

Check out the recipe for oxtail soup here. You can choose a spicy version or a non-spicy version, both are awesome and will warm you up on these remaining winter days!

Updated recipe: Cabbage soybean paste soup

There are many kinds of soybean paste soups (doenjang-guk) in Korean cuisine, but the king of them all is baechu-doenjangguk: delicious, nutritious, filling, easy to make, and very budget-friendly, all Koreans know and love it well. I updated my 2009 recipe with a refined, clearer recipe, new video, and new photos!

New recipe: Spicy stir-fried sundae

Korean blood sausage, called sundae, is made from pork or beef blood, intestines, glass noodles, vegetables, and seasonings. It's a popular snack sold on the streets of Korea. Sundae is soft, savory, and has a nutty flavor, and the chewy casing adds to its deliciousness.

You can also use sundae to make this sizzling dish called sundae-bokkeum. It's made by stir-frying sliced sundae with veggies and spices. It’s well-known in Korean pubs and is great for sharing with friends over drinks—it's hot, spicy, and hearty, and goes well with all kinds of alcohol.

You can find sundae in the frozen section of a Korean store!

1 minute video: Crispy Korean fried chicken!

I re-edited my dakgangjeong (sweet crunchy Korean fried chicken) video into a 1 minute clip and posted it on my social media. It got millions of views and I was amazed to see tens of thousands of people’s reactions! One comment received over 3000 likes:

I used to watch your YouTube channel YEARRRRRS ago when I started learning about Korean food. I'm so glad your reel popped up so I can start watching your cooking again.

Yes, I’m always popping up lol! The recipe for dakgangjeong is here!

Jessi’s fried chicken!

Jessi’s sweet crunchy Korean fried chicken made my mouth water! She says, “It tastes amazing and even the next day it still tastes amazing!” Yup, yup!

Cabbage doenjang soup & chicken

Bachlover1958’s homemade Baechu-doenjangguk and chicken look great! But where's the rice? : ) Well, it seems like a good diet idea. Don't you agree?

Rice cake soup for Korean lunar new year

Zephtx made rice cake soup for her family to celebrate the Lunar New Year (Feb. 10 this year). Her family said, “wow” and I want to add my own “wow” too! : )

The broth looks so savory, and the soft white rice cake and colorful garnishes look fantastic.

You can make rice cake soup all year round, not just on new years’ day. I always have sliced rice cake on hand in the freezer so that whenever I crave a simple lunch, I put some rice cake into a boiling broth and add some eggs and green onions. It tastes much better and is much healthier than instant ramyeon!

Korean sausage bread

Vara’s homemade sausage bread looks so tasty! The recipe is here!

I saw some leftover hotdogs in the fridge and suddenly I was craving for some sausage bread, like the one in the Asian bakery. Soft, fluffy, and you get every bit of everything in every bite!

Messages from readers & viewers

You always inspire me, amaze me, make me smile and make me think. Here are some of your messages that I chose to share in February!

When I lived in Columbia, Missouri in the 1990’s it was common among Korean students to have potluck parties in the park on weekends. One day, someone who was from Gyeongsang Province in Korea brought a very sweet and crispy chicken dish called dakgangjeong. It was so wonderfully delicious that I asked her for the recipe.

Since then, making dakgangjeong has become my specialty. Naturally, I shared the recipe with you all through YouTube. When I recently uploaded a 1-minute edit of the video, many people mentioned that dakgangjeong is always a popular dish they bring to potluck parties. I first had dakgangjeong at a potluck party, and then my readers are sharing it the same way I learned about it! So cool! Harperrose said:

Dakgangjeong is the most requested food when we are having potluck, my friends really love this, I’ve been cooking this for years and it’s always a winner!

I'd like to introduce one of my enthusiastic cooking students to you! : ) Her name is Lara. She followed my recipe for whole garlic pickles that I posted last year. In the recipe, I advised: “wait until well fermented, at least 8 months!” Patiently, she waited. 8 months later, she tasted it for the first time and left a message. Her excitement and joy were thrilling for me!

WOAAAH!!! HURRAY!!!!
Eight months have finally passed and today I took one of the garlic head to try. It's crunchy, juicy, fresh and super flavoring at the same time.
Really worth all the waiting!

Jamie mentioned that she and her grandmother watch my videos together all the time. She’s planning to make sujebi (hand-torn noodle soup) for her grandmother. What a thoughtful granddaughter!

Maangchi, I’ll be making this dish for my 95 year old grandmother soon as we both enjoy watching many of your videos. We thoroughly enjoyed the scallion pancakes you made earlier in the year!

I love to hear your stories about your food and recipes because I can visualize the scene and the people who were there and the food you all had. That’s one reason I tell a lot of my own stories, to pass that on to your imagination, too.

Biancamona, who left Korea a long time ago, shared her story about sulppang, which gave me a vivid picture of her first taste of makgeolli bread. Through her story, you'll see that she misses not only the food and her mom, but also the time when she was little.

I remember going to the market with my mom when I was little, and a halmoni (old lady) carrying a basket on her head would sell the most delicious sulppang! I still remember how warm and fluffy it was and how carefully the halmoni packed everything into the basket. I never knew what that yummy bread was called, but I just found your recipe for it and Im excited to try it!

I want to share a good tip with you. What do you do with some leftover kimchi paste? Nelia asked:

I love the way you make kimchi i have 1 question if there is left sauce paste can use another time

I answered:

Freeze the leftover kimchi paste. When you make next batch of kimchi, use it after thawing out in the fridge

My meju blocks say, “Hi!” to you! : ) They are hanging and fermenting, thanks to the beautiful fungi growing on them. Soon, they will be submerged in salty water, continuing the journey to become doenjang (fermented soybean paste) and ganjang (traditional soup soy sauce)!

So good to see you guys again and I hope you enjoyed this letter! I’ll see you next month on April 1st!

Keep being happy with your delicious Korean cooking!

Maangchi's letter

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