Capstone

Korean Cookery

Chapter 10 · Capstone: A Korean Meal at Home

Skill goal

Plan a whole meal for two, shop for it, cook the dishes so they arrive together, and set the table the way the earlier chapters described.

Shopping list for this chapter

How this chapter was checked I read no new sources for this chapter. Every dish comes from Korean Cookery 1 to 9, which took their descriptions from the Wikipedia articles named there. Every quantity and time in those recipes is my own untested starting point, and so is the timeline below; I cannot cook. The running order and the choice of menu are mine. Safety notes are general advice of mine.

The meal

Korean Cookery 1 described a meal as rice, soup, a shared stew or main dish, banchan and kimchi, with the number of banchan counted in cheop and kimchi not counted. This menu is for two people and has three banchan, so it is a three-cheop meal in the article's counting, with kimchi as well.

Part	Dish	From
Rice (bap)	Plain short-grain rice, with the crust kept for tea	Korean Cookery 2
Soup (guk)	Kongnamul-guk, soybean sprout soup	Korean Cookery 5
Main dish	Pan-cooked bulgogi, eaten as lettuce wraps with ssamjang	Korean Cookery 6 and 1
Banchan 1	Sigeumchi-namul, seasoned spinach	Korean Cookery 3
Banchan 2	Kongnamul-muchim, seasoned bean sprouts	Korean Cookery 3
Banchan 3	Gamja-jorim, potatoes simmered in soy sauce	Korean Cookery 3
Kimchi	Kkakdugi made earlier in the week, or shop-bought	Korean Cookery 4
After the meal	Rice tea from the crust	Korean Cookery 2

Two of the banchan use soybean sprouts and the soup uses them as well, so one 400 g bag does all three (150 g for the soup, 200 g for the muchim, mine). If you would rather vary it, swap the soup for the doenjang-jjigae from Korean Cookery 5 or add a steamed egg from Korean Cookery 3.

The plan

Four days before

Make the kkakdugi from Korean Cookery 4, since it needs time to ferment. The two articles gave 24 to 48 hours at room temperature and about two weeks in a cool place, and they disagree, so taste it daily and refrigerate when it is right for you. If you are not ready to ferment anything, buy a jar of kimchi; Korean Cookery 5 says the sour kind suits stews, but for the table any kind will do.

The day before

Shop from the list. Check labels for soy, wheat, fish and sesame.
Make the ssamjang (Korean Cookery 1) and the cho-ganjang-style dip if you want one; they keep in a covered pot in the fridge for a day.
Wash the lettuce and dry it well; slice the beef thinly (or freeze it for about an hour first, Korean Cookery 6).

The cooking day: a timeline (mine, untested)

Time before eating	Do this
90 minutes	Rinse the rice and leave it to soak (30 minutes). Mix the beef marinade and marinate the beef in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
60 minutes	Peel and cube the potatoes and start the jorim simmering; stir now and then.
45 minutes	Blanch the spinach, squeeze, season. Put the bean sprouts on to steam in a lidded pot (about 5 to 6 minutes), then season half for the muchim.
30 minutes	Put the rice on to cook (Korean Cookery 2 timings). Take the beef out of the fridge.
15 minutes	Make the soup: the other half of the sprouts, water, garlic, soy sauce. Finish the potato glaze with sesame oil.
5 minutes	Set the table (below). Heat the pan very hot for the beef.
0	Fry the beef in small batches and bring it, hot, straight to the table. Serve everything else already on the table.

Leave a little crust in the rice pot by keeping the low heat on a few minutes longer, as Korean Cookery 2 describes. Use it for rice tea after the meal.

Setting the table

For each person: a bowl of rice, with the soup bowl to its right (the guk article, Korean Cookery 5), a spoon and chopsticks (sujeo, Korean Cookery 2). Never stand chopsticks upright in the rice. In the middle, to share: the bulgogi, lettuce, ssamjang, the three banchan and the kimchi. Wrap a piece of meat in a lettuce leaf with a little ssamjang and eat it in one bite, as the articles described.

Safety for the whole meal

Meat and eggs: cook the beef through; keep raw-meat boards separate and wash your hands (general advice, mine).
Hot things: five dishes means several hot pots at once. Give each a lid and a spoon, keep handles turned in, and take the glaze pan off the heat when you walk away.
Leftover rice: cool it quickly, refrigerate, and reheat until steaming hot all the way through.
Kimchi jar: release gas slowly; discard if you see fuzzy mould or smell something rotten (Korean Cookery 4).
Allergens across the menu: soy, wheat (some soy sauces), sesame, fish (if you used fish sauce in the kimchi) and, if you add it, egg.

Experiments

Experiment 1 · Order

Cook the meal once with the timeline above and once in an order of your own. Note which dishes were ready too early or too late, and which you would serve warm, at room temperature or cold.

Experiment 2 · One portion or four

Scale one dish (the soup or the jorim) to one portion and to four. What changes: pot size, simmer time, seasoning? Write down your own rule.

Challenges

Challenge 1

Cook the whole meal for two (or for a guest), following the timeline, and write down the time each dish was ready and what you would change.

→ Solution

Challenge 2

Write a different menu: change the main dish and soup, keep three banchan and kimchi, and list which chapters each dish comes from. Explain what you swapped and why.

→ Solution

Challenge 3

List the five claims in this course you trust least (for example the article disagreements and the untested amounts), and say how you would check each one: a cookbook, a Korean cook, a taste test or a thermometer.

→ Solution

What the sources left open

Amounts. No article in this course gave recipe quantities. Every amount is mine and untested, so a recipe that tastes wrong is probably my guess, not your cooking.
Fermentation times. The kimchi and kkakdugi articles gave 24 to 48 hours and about two weeks (Korean Cookery 4).
The pajeon batter. One article gave two batters that disagree (Korean Cookery 8).
Kimchi origins. The articles named Goguryeo and Baekje without reconciling them (Korean Cookery 1).
Origins and health claims. Where the articles hedged ("believed", "some scholars assert", "citation needed"), this course reported the hedge and made no health claim.

What this course left out

It left out North Korean cooking, regional specialities beyond what the articles named, fermented fish, seafood-led soups, street frying (twigim), sundae, naengmyeon, jajangmyeon, bingsu, tteok making, the royal court table, vegetarian temple cooking, drinks apart from rice tea and sikhye, and buying a kimchi refrigerator. Several of these are good starts for a second course. The Korea courses on history, K-pop, literature, webtoons, taekwondo and festivals remain separate.

Quick Reference

Meal for two: rice, soup, main dish, three banchan, kimchi, rice tea
Counting: cheop counts the banchan, not kimchi
Table: soup to the right of the rice; chopsticks never upright in rice; shared dishes in the middle
Order of cooking: rice soak and marinade, potatoes, banchan, rice, soup, beef last
Mine, untested: all amounts, times and this timeline

Where next: this completes Korean Cookery. The planned Korea courses on history, K-pop, literature, webtoons, taekwondo and festivals can follow the same method, and a second cookery course could take the dishes listed above.