by jessica yoon
I’ve kind of been obsessed with cantaloupe lately. I eat it during breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday and still don’t get tired of it! I think it’s the most perfect out of all the melons. It’s sweet, but not as piercingly sweet as honeydew. It’s refreshing and juicy in a more substantial way than watermelon. And it’s just has a very calming quality to it. It’s pleasant and soothing like dawn during summertime.
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No knead bread is really fantastic because it’s easy. There aren’t very many special skills involved. As long as you know how to measure ingredients and mix them together you’re set to go. If there is one secret ingredient here it would be patience. According to the famous bible of no knead baking, you only need five minutes a day to make great bread. It’s true but also a little misguided at the same time. It’s true because it really does only takes a few minutes to work the ingredients but what about all that waiting time? First, there’s the two hour wait for the initial rise, then 40 minutes for the second rise, and then 35 minutes in the oven. Even if you make the dough ahead of time, you have to wait a few hours before breaking of a nice, warm piece of rustic bread. I mean, when you wake up in the morning or come home from a long day do you really want to wait two hours for something to eat?! Well, it was actually worth it. After all, the whole loaf was gone by the end of the day. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m not great with the patience skill.
The olive bread was perfect. It had a firm, crunchy crust and a soft, moist interior. The saltiness and texture of the olives really provided another depth to the bread. I’ve made other variations with cheese and honey, but I have to say, so far, this one with olives has been the best.
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Korean summers are excruciatingly humid and hot. Temperatures will rise above the 90s and for a few weeks monsoon season hits so it rains cats and dogs. Fortunately, throughout my life I have only spent a handful of summers there. I love being there and it’s where I call home, but summer is just not its best season.
One great thing about summer in Korea though is the cold noodle soups. They’re cool, refreshing, and very flavorful. The most common and popular cold noodle soup is probably, naengmyun, 냉면. It is made with buckwheat noodles and a cold broth garnished with julienned cucumbers, asian pear slices, half a hard boiled egg, and pieces of steamed pork belly. It’s a bit complicated to make naengmyun from scratch, which is why they sell packages of naengmyun “kits” in Korean/Asian supermarkets. Everything is included, so all you have to do is boil the noodles and pick your garnishes.
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Continuing with my love of side dishes, here is one that is good for both summer and winter. It is stir fried potatoes with onions and green peppers. Many potato dishes are heavy and unhealthy (ex. french fries, hash browns, baked potato with the works) but this one is light, nutritious, and deceptively delicious. A little salt and heat brings out the great natural flavors of this starchy vegetable. Whenever my mom set this out before dinner, my sister and I would slowly sneak a few chopsticks-ful until none of it was left when we actually sat down to eat!
I had a hankering for stir fried potatoes the other day so I went to my second best resource, this Korean cookbook, for the recipe. A red light should’ve gone off in my head when I copied down five green bell peppers, but I guess my mind was not functioning very well because I didn’t think twice about it. So, I went to the grocery store and bought two yellow potatoes and five green bell peppers. Once I started cooking, I began to feel like there were one too many green pepper slices but I just kept on cutting away. Seriously, I was like a robot, strictly following illogical directions! I blame it on the heat.
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A traditional Korean meal has a lot of side dishes. Some appear at the table all year round like kimchee, spicy fermented cabbage, while others are more seasonal. I love the site of a Korean dinner table because it is always crowded with so many plates of food. It looks like a mini food festival.
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