We love Korean food, but sometimes the menus are confusing. Is a kimchi-jjigae all that different from a doenjang-jjigae? Which is the hot stone version – bibimbap or dolsot bibimbap?
Luckily, the Korean Food Foundation addresses all those commonly asked quetstions in their guidebook, “Korean Restaurant Guide Singapore & Hong Kong”, which also features some of the most authentic Korean restaurants in Singapore.
Here’s a sneak preview of the book, with a nifty guide to understanding 20 of the most popular Korean foods.
The “Korean Restaurant Guide Singapore & Hong Kong” is distributed at embassies, tourist information centres and language institutes. The content is also available on their free smartphone app, KoreanRest.Guide-HK,SG (free on Android and iOS).
Julienned, tender young green onion stems folded into a flour batter with squid, clam meat, and oysters and pan-fried. Served with batter. Served with a soy vinaigrette dipping sauce.
A soup made of beef brisket and innards, radish, leek, taro stems, and fiddleheads. Seasoned with red chili pepper for a spicy flavor.
Rice topped with sautéed beef and a variety of colorful vegetables. Mixed at the table with spicy gochu-jang sauce and sesame oil.
Chilled buckwheat noodles garnished with cold slices of beef, fresh skate, and radish or cucumber. Served with a spicy gochu-jang mixing sauce.
Bulgogi is prepared with beef that has been marinated in thick soy sauce, honey, minced green onion, garlic, sesame seeds, and pepper, and then grilled. The juice of the meat and excess sauce can be mixed with rice, which tastes as good as the bulgogi itself.
Sliced rice cake bar (garae tteok) or thin rice cake sticks (tteok-bokki tteok) stir-fried in a spicy gochu- jang sauce with vegetables and fish cakes.
Steamed rice wrapped in leafy vegetables or seaweed with seasoned sauce. Lettuce, perilla leaves, napa cabbage, squash leaves, cabbage, dried laver, brown seaweed, and kelp may be served as wraps.
A savory soup made of ox head, feet, meat, bones, and innards. Hours, and sometimes days, of slow simmering produces the milky white broth and concentrated flavor.
Tender whole young chicken stuffed with ginseng, jujubes, sweet rice, and whole garlic cloves and simmered until tender. The combination of chicken and ginseng creates a complex yet harmonious flavor. A classic summertime dish that revitalizes the body and soul.
Rich tasting, tender fat-streaked pork belly grilled and dipped in salt or ssamjang (red soy paste dip). Also eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves.
Slices of well-fermented kimchi mixed into a flour batter and pan fried. Finely chopped pork, squid, and clam meat may be added to the batter as well.
A spicy stew made with sour kimchi, after removing the kimchi condiments, along with fatty pork, shellfish, and chunks of tofu and green onion. Served hot with steamed rice.
Pig’s feet glazed in a soy sauce with ginger and garlic. Served off the bone and thinly sliced. The high gelatin content of jokbal helps to maintain healthy and youthful complexion.
Glass noodles stir-fried with beef and assorted mushrooms and vegetables. A colorful classic dish that is always served at large gatherings or special occasions.
Rice seasoned with salt and sesame oil and rolled up in a sheet of roasted gim (dried laver) with spinach, carrots, and pickled white radish. The long roll is sliced and served in bite-size pieces.
Beef ribs, soaked in cold water to remove the blood, and white radish chunks simmered together until tender. The clear stock is rich and savory, and the tender meat falls off the bone easily. (glass noodles may be added.)
Beef or pork short ribs, soaked in cold water to remove the blood, trimmed of fat, seasoned in sweet soy sauce, and braised until tender with carrots, chestnuts, ginko nuts, and other vegetables.
Grilled Spareribs. Pork spareribs butterflied or accordion cut, marinated in a sweet soy sauce mixture and chargrilled. Red chili powder or gochu-jang may be added to make it spicy.
Bibimbap served in a sizzling hot stone pot. The crispy rice at the bottom, mixed with various toppings and gochu-jang sauce, remains piping hot until the end of the meal.
Doenjang-seasoned stew made with meat or anchovy broth, or clams, alongside tofu, and summer squash. The broth is thick and flavorful, and good for mixing with rice.
Chicken pieces marinated in a gochu-jang sauce, and stir-fried in a flat grill pan with cabbage, sweet potato, carrots, or tteok (rice cakes). A local dish of Chuncheon city in Gangwon Province.
A fusion dish made with ham, sausage, kimchi, pork, and tofu. Everything is combined and cooked in a spicy broth. Oftentimes, ramyeon noodles are added to the simmering stew.
Boiled pork wrapped in cabbage leaves with a spicy relish made of sliced radish. The meat may also be dipped in salted shrimp sauce and wrapped in cabbage or bossam kimchi leaves.
Similar to egg soufflé, this steamed egg dish is made with eggs well mixed with chopped mushroom, fishcake, and other ingredients, and seasoned with saeu-jeot (salted shrimp) or salt. Its soft texture and beautiful color are particularly appealing to children and elderly people.
One of the most popular Korean dishes, this dish of marinated beef or pork ribs tastes excellent when grilled. The beef ribs are marinated in soy sauce, while the pork ribs are marinated in seasoned gochu-jang.