Breakfast in Korea

No, not literally; I'm still in London. Until midday yesterday I had been in Cornwall which is technically even further away from Korea than London is.

Okay, so what I'm referring to here is the fact that apparently I've been (completely unconsciously) craving Korean food since I last had it. After stepping down to the platform at Paddington, after a five-and-a-half hour train ride from Penzance and carrying two rather heavy bags, and battling the (admittedly not busy) underground, I still had the sheer will to traipse into Tesco and pick up what I needed.

So, as the title suggests, I not only had Korean (ahem... "Korean Style") food at half-nine in the evening while carrying the weight of my journey still, I had it this morning for breakfast also. I'm going to talk some more about the morning segment, and illustrate to you an incredibly convenient dish that is worth enduring many, many inconveniences (if strictly necessary).

I'm not going to label this bibimbap, but I had bibimbap firmly in my mind when I made this, so I think it's worth talking about. Bibimbap (which translates somewhat prosaically as mixed rice) is one of Korea's most famous exports, up there with Samsung phones and BTS, and I think this is at least in part to it's approachable nature.

There are a couple of origin stories for bibimbap. One of which involves it being served for official government functions, the other positing the dish as a time-saving measure employed by the wives of farmers who were too busy to put together a traditional dish featuring multiple components and stages. This culminated in a mixed bowl of whatever was available to use. The latter tale fits much more soundly into the no-waste ethos we're all trying to strive towards, and I'm pretty enamoured with the image of a harried farmer's wife throwing whatever she has around her into a bowl, unceremoniously presenting it to the provincial governmental official and bustling off to tend to her business.

In my (hopefully) charmingly confusing way, I am going to contradict the above slightly by stating that I'm not calling my recipe bibimbap, because my own vision of the dish usually includes kimchi and is topped by some form of egg. Sadly, I had neither of those things to hand, but if you do then please do add as you please! Additionally, if you go to a Korean restaurant (something I have never yet done...), you may be served bibimbap in a hot-stone dish, making the bottom layer of rice crispy and golden. Tragically, my kitchen is not so well-equipped (I have only very recently acquired a rice-cooker), but if you do happen to have a hot-stone pot just laying around in your cupboards, now may be the perfect time to put it into use!

Korean-Style Aubergine

Prep time: 40 minutes (including marinating time)

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side dish.

Ingredients

1 large aubergine

1 stalk of celery

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 a spring onion (white end)

1 tbsp of vegetable oil

Marinade

1 tbsp of gochujang paste

1 tbsp of red wine

1 tsp of soy sauce

1 tsp of sesame oil

1/2 tsp of honey

1/4 tsp of MSG (optional)

Topping

1/2 a spring onion (green end)

Furikake, or sesame seeds

Slice your aubergine horizontally into circles, before then cutting these into chunky matchstick shapes. Don't worry about evenness as some pieces will naturally be smaller than others. Once you have finished slicing, add the aubergine to a bowl.

Add the marinade ingredients into a bowl and stir until combined completely. Taste at this point to see if it needs any adjustments. When the marinade is to your liking, add it to the bowl of aubergine.

Mix the marinade into the aubergine slices until consistently covered. The most effective (and fun!) way to do this is with your hands, as this will allow you to fold the sauce in and prevent the aubergine from breaking up. If, for whatever reason, you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can wear protective gloves to do this part.

Now, leave the marinade to settle for 30 minutes and wash your hands thoroughly (or discard your hand-coverings).

Meanwhile, slice up the other vegetables. Dice the celery finely, and crush each garlic clove with the flat end of the knife before mincing. Slice the spring onion finely, and separate the white parts from the green (again, no need to be too zealous).

Now, wait for the aubergine to finish marinating. This would be a good time to put some rice on if you will be having it as an accompaniment (admittedly, I took this time to have a shower).

Once the 30 minutes has elapsed, heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil on a high heat in a frying pan. Once the oil has come to temperature, add the garlic, celery and the white parts of the spring onion and fry on a high heat for two minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning.

Add the marinated aubergine slices to the frying pan and fold into the oil, before frying on a high heat for 5 minutes. Fold the slices occasionally with a (ideally) silicone spatula, or whatever you have available carefully to avoid them breaking up.

Once the aubergines have finished cooking, serve with rice or whatever accompaniment you feel like, and garnish with the green spring onion slices and furikake/sesame seeds.

Notes & Adjustments

• This recipe is vegan-friendly! It's one of those fantastic recipes that requires no adjustment in order to be vegan; it just is.

• Gochujang is a fiery Korean red-chili paste that, if you are sensitive to heat, you may want to add to the marinade gradually. You can get this in some branches of Sainsbury's or Korean grocery stores (if you live in London, I recommend finding an Oseyo). You can also get this in Waitrose, but I don't particularly like their blend and it's in a much smaller tub. If you really can't find it, Tesco does a Korean stir fry sachet that I think would probably work in it's place (I say, very tentatively).

• As mentioned above, this recipe would be absolutely sensational with the addition of kimchi and a fried egg! Of course, this would make it non-vegan and, depending on the kimchi you buy, possibly non-vegetarian.

• The marinade can be applied to pretty much anything. I know a lot of people don't really like aubergine so much, so I think it would be great too with a mix of mushrooms, or even with a Chinese leaf cabbage.

Christmas (Part I)

A lot has been written about the relationship between ageing and Christmas, mostly along

the lines of disenchantment and cynicism regarding the holiday period. Now (much to my displeasure), I work on what is probably the busiest retail street in London, so it can be very hard not to feel swamped by festive commercialisation, no matter how beautiful the light displays might be.

However, what I want to talk about is plurality! During childhood, Christmas tends to be one solid event that takes place at the same time every year. What I'm beginning to realise as I get older, is that Christmas isn't just the single central event that you spend with family, but a host of other, sometimes-smaller-but-not-always, gatherings and goings-on.

This year for me was the first time this definitively happened, and I had a "Christmas Day" and a "Boxing Day" with both of my housemates. What I noticed is that we were very intent on only including as part of the day the things that personally brought us happiness. Everything in the picture of our Christmas table is there because we wanted it. Yes, sprouts too; we expressly desired their presence in particular. Speaking of happiness, I did want to resist when my housemates suggested that we watch the live-action Scooby Doo movie, but I realise now that it was a very good idea.

Covertly taken while the "glitter artist" was distracted.

Boxing Day, once again, was defined by it's lack of structure of formality. In fact, housemate-of-the-blog Rebecca was at work for most of the day and I found myself against my will, in the store below my office, behind a make-up counter having glitter applied to my eyes (it looked wonderful and I got several free gifts without buying anything).

What we did for dinner on the evening of Boxing Day was a mixture of leftovers from the previous night, and a couple of other things that we had quickly cooked to go with them. Housemate-of-the-blog Owen cooked a broccoli and cauliflower cheese (as well as nobly putting a Camembert in the oven to bake) and I braised some red cabbage in mulled. Thinking about this in retrospect, this seems like a rethinking of a cheese and wine night in meal-form. I don't know about you, but this to me just seems like the superior configuration!

Stay tuned for Christmas (Part II) sometime after I spend Christmas with my family. There will likely be a post in between too, though there are no concrete plans in place for this!

Red Cabbage with Mulled Wine

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Serves: 4-6 as a side dish

Ingredients

• 1/2 a large red cabbage, roughly chopped

• 1 stalk of celery, sliced

• 1 red onion, finely chopped

• 200 ml of mulled wine

• 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar

• 1 tsp of soy sauce

• 1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce

• 1 bay leaf

• 1/2 tbsp of vegetable or sunflower oil

• 1/2 tsp of salt

• 1/4 tsp of MSG (optional)

Method

Roughly chop the red cabbage and set aside in a bowl. Meanwhile, prepare the red onion and the celery.

Add the oil to a large saucepan or wok with a lid (I used a chopping board as a lid to my wok, so really anything that can cover it will do) and warm over a medium-high heat. Once the oil has come to temperature, add the celery and onion, turn down a medium heat and fry for 5 minutes until the ingredients have softened.

Add the red cabbage and the salt and stir until coated with oil. Fry for 2 minutes, while stirring occasionally.

Add the mulled wine, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and the bay leaf into the mixture and stir until the cabbage is coated with the liquid. Add the MSG (if using) and turn on to a high-heat, bringing the pan to the boil. Once it is boiling, turn down to a medium-low heat, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes has elapsed, taste a piece of cabbage to check the consistency. If you would like it to be a bit softer, re-cover the pot and simmer for a further 5 minutes. If you are satisfied, take the pan from the heat, remove the bay leaf and serve.

Notes & Adjustments

There are many different directions this could be taken in, and most of them crossed my mind while cooking. I wanted a simpler taste for this as it was going to be served with cheese sauce. If I were to have it with a more neutral accompaniment I might be tempted to go with some of the ideas listed below:

• Chinese-style: Add Chinese five-spice and a couple of crushed Sichuan/Szechuan peppercorns. If you have it available, replace 50ml of the mulled wine with Shaoxing or cooking sherry.

• Extra festive (AKA the Mariah Carey version): Make the spiced aspect of the mulled wine more prominent by adding small amounts of nutmeg, cloves and a cinnamon stick while simmering.

• Autumnal edition: Replace the mulled wine with mulled cider, and add 2 peeled and diced apples to the mixture. If you can't find mulled cider then add cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and a tbsp of honey.

I haven't given quantities for the spices because these are just ideas that I haven't actually made. My advice is to trust your instincts, taste as you go and to be very conservative when it comes to cloves and Sichuan peppercorns. You'll know if you know!

A tendency to tweak

Recently, the realisation came to me that I couldn't remember the last time I had made a recipe without fundamentally changing something about it. This definitely isn't a bad thing; Hell, I'm looking forward to the day that someone sends me a comment that goes "I tried this recipe, I changed this, that and so forth, and it was great!" That's how we grow and move outside of our comfort zones.

But, the other side of this debate stipulates that a recipe created by another cook captures their vision of what the finished product should be, and that you should follow it to the word at least once before making your own adjustments. This article from The Outline (click here!) even attests that "baking is not a fucking game", comparing the process the well-respected contemporary science of "alchemical transformation". Yes, you did read that correctly.

I do respect the view of following recipes exactly at least once, but I cannot fathom allowing the extremism exhibited in the piece from The Outline into my kitchen. Besides, there are numerous uncontrollable variables at play that mean that your output will be somewhat different to the original, including;

• kitchen equipment ("I can't afford a stand mixer")

• varying ability ("I'm great with flavours but spreading ganache eludes me")

• time considerations ("I'd love to make this more than once but my masters thesis is due soon!")

• money considerations ("I'd love to make this more than once but December is an expensive month!")

• Literally anything else you could think of ("the UK general election is looming and I cannot move for fear")

In spite of the above, I set myself the mission of finding myself a recipe that I would make precisely from the directions stipulated. Specifically a Smitten Kitchen recipe, because I've spent so long reading her writing thinking "this all looks great", yet failing to make anything (with the exception of the Wild Mushroom Shepherd's Pie - click here!). So, sitting in the library of a university that I never attended in the hours before going to an A Capella show (shout out to Absolute Harmony - click here!) I filed through lists, laid many-a-bookmark and finally settled on the Peanut Butter Brownies (click here!). Being a relatively recent convert to peanut butter, and a longstanding brownie devotee, surely this was a recipe I could follow to the T...?

The culprit.

Well. The illusion persisted for approximately two-to-three hours. It turns out the the A Capella show was so brilliant that the applause was vociferous and the cheering unabated, which is how it should be. However, this did give my easily-overwhelmed head a bit of a headache and my mind drifted a bit in the second half. On to what, you ask? Is it terrible if I tell you that I became distracted by the memory of a cookie I had eaten a week earlier? This is the part where you tell me that, of course, that's totally understandable and list the various great figures of history who have been similarly distracted by cookies.

A couple of weeks back, friend-of-the-blog-Bee and I had a day in London where we tried as much food as we could afford (I will talk about this after the recipe) before going to see the amazing ladies of My Favourite Murder live (yes, it was incredible). A place that FOTB Bee, quite justifiably, made us walk from Victoria to Soho for was a tiny cookie store called Crème (click here!). The cookies here might also be called baked dough mounds, and I do mean this as a compliment. I had the miso and white chocolate cookie, and my world was irrevocably altered.

Having both the cookie, and the prospective brownies in my mind, somehow they became shoehorned together, not unlike the way that different strains of influenza can mutate together in animal vectors. Thus, they started on the path towards becoming Miso and Peanut Butter Blondies that resulted from this long process. So, technically a failure in my original ambition, but I can attest that these blondies are a victory in every other area.

The output of this recipe is more cakey than a usual blondie, and this may sound like a disappointment, but I think the dense texture here is interesting enough to hold it's own. The flavour is firmly within the sweet & salty camp, but with an extra savoury contrast from the miso, paired against the white chocolate. I'm ready to become a standard bearer for the sweet applications of miso!

As one last note, I'd like to disclaim that this is a Smitten Kitchen recipe, adjusted by me. As opposed to being 'my recipe'. Which might not seem like it matters too much, especially when absolutely no recipes are created entirely from the mind of the originator, however, I think it's important to give credit in a time when it seems easier and easier to pass off someone else's work as your own. Now, enjoy!

Miso & Peanut Butter Blondies

Makes 16 large or 32 mini slices.

Blondies 230g of unsalted butter

350g of light brown sugar

225g of crunchy peanut butter

2 large eggs plus 1 yolk

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

250g of plain flour

250g of white chocolate chunks

1 1/2 tbsp of white miso paste

1/2 teaspoon of salt

Ganache

200g of milk chocolate

50g of white chocolate

120ml of double cream

15 grams of unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens). Butter a large, rectangular baking pan before lining the bottom with baking parchment and spreading a thin layer of butter on that too.

Beat butter and sugar together until the mixture is fully aerated. Add peanut butter and miso and mix until fully incorporated. It might be an idea to add 1 tbsp of miso first, tasting the mixture before then adding more. You may even want to go up to 2 tbsp.

Beat in the whole eggs, egg yolk and vanilla. Add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until just-combined.

Mix in the chocolate chunks before spreading the mixture in the pan. Smooth the top, but don't be too overzealous about it.

Put the brownies in the oven, and take them out after 40 minutes to check them. If a knife/metal skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean then they're done. If not, give them another 5 minutes before checking again.

Leave the brownies for about 90 minutes in order for them to cool completely.

When the brownies are cool, make the ganache. Put the second lot of chocolate chunks in a heatproof bowl.

Bring cream to boil in a small saucepan. Once this has boiled, pour the cream over the chocolate chunks, briefly stir and let stand for 1 minute.

Whisk in the butter until the chocolate has melted and everything is incorporated.

Pour the ganache over the blondies and spread relatively evenly - again, no need for zealotry here! Leave to stand for 15 minutes before cutting into slices and distributing as you see fit! These will keep in an airtight container for three days, however make sure not to stack them. They are also freezable if, for some unfathomable reason, you are unable to eat them within that time-frame.

Notes & Adjustments

As this is a baking recipe, please do note that all of my suggested adjustments here very tentative. Picture your shyest friend who wants to be helpful but is incredibly nervous!

• If the cakey texture is not for you, perhaps try a smooth peanut butter instead of crunchy. However, I do really love the mouthfeel (sorry) of the peanut pieces in this.

• You can buy miso paste in most supermarkets; mine was from Tesco. If you can't find this, or don't want to include it then I think I'd recommend trying out the original recipe!

• A dark chocolate ganache would also work here. Just use 250g of dark chocolate in place of the specifications above.

• I had an idea that maybe I could put a caramel between the brownie and the ganache before thinking "ugh, too high maintenance". If you're up for a challenge, perhaps you'd like to give that a go?

I'm sorry that my pictures were a bit sub-par this week! I'm still getting used to using a light-box for when there is no natural light.

P.S. London Food Extravaganza

Okay, very quickly as I'm conscious that I've written a LOT for this post, I'm going to detail the food that FOTB Bee and I found in our pre-true crime show roam around London.

1. 'Tacos el Carbon' from Super Tacos London.

2. Gunpowder Smoked Squash LOADED Naan from Flank. Both of the above were situated in the Market Halls in Victoria.

3. Pick and Cheese. This is cheese, paired with an accompaniment on a conveyor belt. Yes, a total sensation. Find it in Seven Dials.