Cooking in Korea

This weekend I decided I was going to cook some real food from scratch, and it's been a real adventure.

I decided I really wanted some good old fashioned Chicken N' Dumplings, not Korean dumpling, but American ones...the noodle type.  The way I learned to make dumplings was to use Bisquick batter, but this time I had to make them from scratch...I thought if I am going to do that I might as well make everything from scratch.

Here in Korea you have to buy special trash bags for different parts of your garbage so anytime I have food waste I just keep a bag in the freezer and throw it in there until its full, and I can take it out.  (Don't tell anyone, but I never buy the correct kind of bag...my korean is terrible so I don't even know how to ask for the right colored bag...people are just going to sort through it anyway)  Any who...I have started buying whole chickens and dismembering them at home then throwing the parts in the freezer because 1. its cheaper, and 2. its not that hard. 

So...I already had all the bones and skin needed to make my own stock or broth, I had chicken in the freezer, all I needed was some flour for the dumplings.

It took about 8 hours to make the whole thing, but considering I made it all from scratch I had to say I think it turned out amazingly well.  It's not as good as my Grandma's, but hey she has been making it for 50 years.  I took some small bowls to Roy, and Sugar at Kokomo and asked them to take it home, try it, and tell me what they think.  I don't think they have ever had anything quite the same before so my fingers are crossed that it was good.  I liked it when I ate it, but for me it's good home comfort food. 

The jury is still out on whether Sugar and Roy liked it because I haven't been there since I took them the food on Saturday, but I will let you know as soon as I do.

I also made some snickers chip cookies this weekend, and took them to a dinner party Sunday evening.  I used my friends convection oven/microwave (yes, its one machine) to make them.  The first batch turned out pretty crisp, and funky looking because we had never used it before, and weren't sure what we were doing.  The 2nd batch turned out a little better, at least we could get the cookies off the bottom of the pan.  The 3rd batch was the best, we figured out the machine, and I was able to keep the cookies from sticking by buttering the pan then covering it with flour.  The cookies tasted amazing, but could have used more of the rising agent because they turned out pretty flat, and gooey.

I guess now I know what to do for next time, and this experimentation process isn't too bad when you get lots of good cookies out of the deal!