Korea Day: Eat like a champion

Bulgogi

If you want to play like a champion, you need to eat like a champion. That's why we've turned to our ever-loyal, longtime Korean ally and former intern Andy Salisbury to share his generations-old Korean cooking secrets with us. These are family recipes refined by his great-grandmother and passed down from generation to generation since then. If there's a more authentic way to learn the secrets of the food that fuels the most advanced StarCraft-playing civilization, I haven't heard of it. So read on, grab a shovel and get ready to bury some cabbage in your backyard!

Malgun Miok Kuk (Clear Seaweed Soup)

Ingredients:

- 1 cup of cut seaweed

- 4 cups of water

- 1/2 pound of beef

- 1 tablespoon of soy sauce

- 1 scallion

- 1 tablespoon of salt

- 1 clove of garlic

To prepare:

Soak the dried seaweed in warm water for 30 minutes, then rise and wash carefully. Cut the seaweed into 2-inch lengths, shred beef into 2-inch lengths and crush the garlic.

Bring the water to a boil, and add the beef. Remove any froth from the top, and add the seaweed, scallion, garlic, soy sauce and salt. Lower the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes before serving.

nappa cabbage

Image courtesy of Jon Roberts

Kim Chee (Spicy Pickled Cabbage)

Ingredients:

- 3-4 pounds of nappa cabbage, sliced into 1 1/2-inch pieces (in the summertime my great grandmother would use cucumbers)

- 1/3 cup of salt

- 1 cup of daikon, julienned

- 1/2 cup of carrots and/or green onion (optional, my great grandmother would put in for color mostly)

- 1-3 tablespoons of red pepper powder, mixed with 1-3 tablespoons of hot water (depending on how spicy you like it)

- 1 tablespoon of paprika

- 3 cloves of garlic, minced

- 2 tablespoons of ginger, minced

- 1 tablespoon of sugar

- 1 tablespoon of patis (a type of fish sauce)

To prepare:

Place the sliced nappa cabbage in a large bowl or sink and sprinkle it with the salt. Place a plate over the nappa and weigh it down with heavy rocks, bricks, or can. Then let it sit overnight. The next day rinse the salted nappa and squeeze out as much water as possible. Use your hands to mix the remaining ingredients into the salted nappa. Allow this new mixture to sit overnight while weighed down once more. Pack the seasoned nappa into jars and let it ferment in a refrigerator (or, if you're feeling authentic, bury it underground like the Koreans did before refrigerators were invented). It must be cool, and it must sit overnight at a minimum. Best if left alone for a week.

Image courtesy of John Joh

Latest in RTS
Immortal Pillars expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold
Age of Mythology Retold's new Chinese pantheon expansion takes a bold stance on updating an old game: Just make good new stuff
Earth vs Mars screenshot - Martian troopers vs Earth light tanks
Relic's new project is a 'smaller indie-style' game about a martian invasion of Earth
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition promo art
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition DLC promised last year is cancelled: 'We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature'
Tempest Dynasty faction
The first multiplayer demo for my most anticipated RTS, Tempest Rising, is out now
Former Age of Empires developer says the RTS genre's stuck in a rut: 'you're still playing the same game'
Creeper World IXE
Creeper World IXE breaks the RTS mold and adds a dash of Noita's alchemy to the gooey war
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'