GS 25 Spring Blossom Snacks ~

Its that time of year again. When spring is in the air and .... in your food!?! 

That's right! That is especially what you will find if you frequent any GS 25 convenience store, with advertisements for their spring limited time snacks and refreshments popping out overnight.

In a seasonal sort of mood, I decided to stop into the store on my way home from school and discover what exactly spring tasted like. 

Above you can see my haul (left to right) - Grape Blossom Soda, Spring Apple Honey Twists, Blossom Popcorn, and Spring Blossom Soda

The green grape soda, definitely tastes like grape. To me it tasted exactly how a green grape popsicle would, except you could drink it. It had a smooth taste with little carbonation and a weak 'blossom' flavor which was dominated by the overpowering taste of green grapes. If you love the flavor of grapes then this drink would be the perfect choice. As for me, grape isn't my favorite, so I preferred the original blossom soda to the grape flavored one. Once you reach the bottom half of the can there is also a surprise. Grapes! Yes there are small cubes of grapes inside the can. If you have ever had aloe juice before these chunks tasted somewhat similar to that, leaving a sliver of doubt in my mind that perhaps it was aloe and not grapes after all. However,  it was a grape themed drink, so my assumption was that it probably was chunks of grapes.

The apple honey twists are actually a favorite snack of mine, but the packaging had changed and said spring. Seeing this I thought perhaps they had a limited edition flavor, but personally they didn't taste much different at all to me. So I can't really judge their 'springiness'. 

It was my first time tasting the cherry blossom popcorn and I thought it was really delicious. If spring should taste like anything, the popcorn was pretty spot on. It tastes very much like a flower. My only guess is that it's flavored with rose hip or something along those lines. It was very light and crunchy, with a natural, but not overpowering sweet taste. A good mix up from your normal butter, cheese, or caramel popcorn. 

Lastly, the other winner on my list, the original spring blossom soda.  I might as well have been tasting the breeze blowing through the blossoms. The soda was flowery and light. sweet and yet not overpowering or too carbonated. It had a freshness and citrus undertone of flavor to it, which gave it a slight tang. Overall I think that the flavors and amount of carbonation in the drink all blended perfectly to create spring in a can. Spring blossom soda is the taste of spring.

된장찌개 - Doenjang Jjigae - My next cooking attempt

I am sick of eating the same thing repeatedly for my meals. Mostly as a result of not wanting to spend lots of time cooking, I eat the same boring, quick meals nearly every day of the week. My fried rice, pasta, curry, and ramyeon dinner cycle is making me bored with food. So in an attempt to remedy my problem, on weekends when I have more time I try to choose a new recipe to tackle.

This weekend, I decided to try 된장찌개 - a staple Korean food that can be found in most restaurants throughout Korea, and my school cafeteria lunches as well. Translated 된장 (Doenjang) means soybean paste and 찌개 (Jjigae) is stew, making it soybean paste stew. Soybean paste has a strong, salty flavor, and is made by grinding and fermenting soybeans. This, mixed with some anchovy-kelp broth, spice, vegetables, and some form of a protein, makes for a satisfying and healthy stew.

Korean soybean paste comes in many varieties as well...so many that I ended up getting a kind I didn't intend to. I was aiming to get the plain original soybean paste, to practice making the stew totally from scratch and spicing it. However, upon opening the container it was clear what I had bought was not plain soybean paste ... so adding additional seasoning was unnecessary today. It was also difficult for me to find a small container of the soybean paste in the mart in my town. Since it is a common Korean cooking ingredient, it is often sold in huge bulk containers...enough to last me at least a year, and much more than I'd ever need. So when faced with buying some...I honestly had no clue which one to grab, and was limited to whatever was offered in a small sized container.

The ingredients - All of which I didn't use because this was before I realized I didn't have original doenjang

The vegetables that I used in my stew included a potato, Korean zucchini, onion, and button mushrooms. Then I added tofu and shreds of beef as well. Other proteins work in the stew also though, such as clams and shrimp. I chose beef because it was the protein I was most familiar with and most confident handling in the kitchen.

Other than the fact that there are several ingredients to prep, including the broth, the stew itself isn't too difficult to make. Mainly once everything is prepped it is just a matter of mixing the ingredients together and boiling them for the proper time period. My first try wasn't perfect. There were some steps I couldn't follow exactly due to not having the proper kitchen tools (like when I added the soybean paste to the broth), but overall I think it was a delicious first try. A bit on the salty side and could have used a little more spice, but it tasted hearty and filling and broke my cycle of boring food. The other plus is that the recipe is for 2 people, and so I have leftovers and can enjoy the meal again after work without cooking! Hooray!

The recipe I was following can be found here at the Future Dish website.

Lastly - Here is a short mini-film of my cooking process. 

Making Hotteok - 호떡

My experience with Hotteok has been rather limited, as I had only tried it once and that was several years ago during my first trip to Korea. I often see vendors selling them on the streets, but hadn't tried it since that first time. That is when I learned there are boxed mixes at the store and you can make them yourself! Maybe this is considered cheating, but it is the simpler and easier to produce way to me.

For those of you who do not know what Hotteok is, it is a common street food in Korea made with fluffy yet chewy dough, fried to a golden brown and filled with sweet brown sugar, cinnamon, and various other ingredients like sesame seeds. To a Korean, this 'pancake' is considered a dessert, but I struggle with this definition. Its taste is somewhere on the fine line between a breakfast food and an indulgence for me. 

The reasoning for why I feel this way is simple. For starters, the name itself when translated is referred to as a pancake, and at least where I grew up, the only pancakes that you ate were for breakfast. They also are sweet and made of dough, just like a breakfast pancake would be. My second reason is the fact that cinnamon and sugar is used in the filling. Biting into the sweet dough pancake fills my taste buds with a taste of familiarity. Distantly reminding me of cinnamon-sugar toast, which is something that I ritualistically ate for breakfast any time I visited my grandmothers house throughout my entire childhood.

Then of course, you have to take into account the fact that the dough is fried, not toasted. When considering this additional element the pancake reminds me of a second very American-style food: the elephant ear. The fried taste of the pancake filled with brown sugar is also very similar to this common American fair and festival treat, which is why it also could be an indulgence.

It is like the Hotteok took the best elements of all three of these foods, the pancake, cinnamon toast, and elephant ear, and combined it into a fluffy yet chewy, deliciously sweet filled pancake fried to a golden brown.

Since I am American and because I love sweet things especially for breakfast...I decided that instead of treating Hotteok like a dessert, that I'd start my day off with it. Now I will say this after the fact - it was deliciously satisfying, but I do not recommend eating solely Hotteok for your first meal of the day. It may be sweet like a pancake or cinnamon toast, but it is not a light food. It is heavy and will create a weight in your stomach that will follow you around for most of the remaining day. Granted, one single box is way too much for one single person to eat, and I was greedy...but still, I wouldn't try it. Even if you want to eat it for your breakfast, it should accompany other lighter and wholesome foods. Otherwise an upset stomach is highly possible.

In other words, Hotteok could easily be either a breakfast treat or a late night one in my opinion, and a treat you will always come back to. It joins the reign of sweet, fried doughy goodness that people everywhere love and crave. The ease of being able to make it with a boxed set also makes it something simple that you can make with friends or family (although the process of making the dough can get slightly sticky and messy). Fun, delicious, and satisfying to any sweet tooth, I would totally recommend this food to anyone and everyone.

Below is the video I took while making it!

Seeing a KIA Tigers Baseball Game

KIA Tigers Baseball Stadium - Gwangju, South Korea

This past week on Sunday night, I got a text from one of the teachers at my school, informing me that the principal had given her baseball tickets to that upcoming Wednesday's KIA Tigers baseball game in Gwangju to pass on to me. She asked me if I would be available to use them and told me I could use the second ticket for whomever I wished to attend the game with. 

It was a huge, but welcome surprise which I gladly accepted. I picked the tickets up the following day at school, graciously thanking my principal in the process. 

I went to the game with a friend of mine that lives in Gwangju. We met up, bought lots of snacks like chicken, mandu, and kimbap, and went to the stadium. 

One thing that I love about Korea is that you are allowed to bring your own food and drinks to sporting games, you don't have to always buy overpriced stadium food. You can even bring your own beer, as long as you poor it into approved cups at the entrance of the stadium. You don't even have to sneak the food in! Haha

Compared to the Twins game I went to in Seoul, the seats were certainly better this time, seated still high up in the back, but situated near third base and not the outfield. I could see the entire game much clearer than I had previously. Plus, the weather was beautiful and warm for a day in March. It's one time of year where I appreciate the climate difference between Korea and Michigan, it is only March, but the weather feels like late June/early July to me. Its like perfect summer weather right now and I plan on enjoying it before it turns devastatingly hot. 

The game started at 6:30 and lasted about three hours. It was fun, entertaining, had good saves, plays, runs, and all that, but it was slightly disappointing that the Tigers lost to the Samsung Lions by a very large margin (6-0). Especially since they are Korea's highest ranking team, with 11 national championships, including last year in 2017; I was expecting a lot more from them. That's sports though I guess, never know what team is going to have a good day that day. 

I also have to hand it to Korean people, they sure can fan chant, and unified as a force. Their coordinated cheers honestly do impress me.

Another thing about the game that I loved was the snacks. Even though we had stuffed ourselves with food, we still ended up with snacks to top it off. My friend left to get concessions and returned with fried buttery squid...yes SQUID. Only in Asia would you be able to get fried squid in a baseball stadium while you watched the game. The thing is though, it is delicious. It has like this irresistible chewy texture and doesn't taste fishy at all, just buttery and chewy. Just thinking about it makes me want to eat more. My only regret was that despite being super full, I felt like the serving wasn't enough haha. I could've eaten so much of it. My friend also said it pairs very well with beer while you are watching the game. 

Here are some videos of  the game:

In the first two videos you can hear the clearly devoted KIA Tigers fan that was sitting in front of us with whom I'm assuming is her boyfriend. Between the two of them, it was clear who the true fan was lol. It amused me to watch the two of them at the game. Alas, her cheering spirit messed up my videos more than one time, which is clearly seen by her arm shooting in and out of my shots haha. 

This was the only video I took where I managed to get a Tigers player actually hitting the ball, a home run looked promising, but unfortunately it just wasn't quite far enough. 

The game coming to a close

Outside the stadium as we were leaving

I am glad that I was able to see a second professional game during my time in Korea, especially since this was my home team so to speak. Now my students will finally be satisfied by the fact that I have at least seen their team, although I didn't get a Tigers jersey like I did for the Twins. It is just too expensive haha. 

For information on the Korean baseball schedule and teams, click here.