Cycle 4 – Item 7

12 (Sat) January 2013

Raggmunk with Köttbullar

1.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ

Korean-Swedish Culinary Exchange (4) (see also KSCX)

BY ME

Raggmunk is a Swedish dish.  It’s a pancake made of grated potatoes + flour.

If only for the name – evoking images of hipster squirrels – I was eager to give it a go.

Unfortunately, however, the pancake turned out terrible.  Floury and pasty, not much potato flavor.  I blame the recipe, from an on-line source referred to me by GK; for the record, I don’t blame him.  I tried pairing the pancakes with köttbullar, but even that didn’t help.  Oh well.  Sorry, GK.

BY GK

[All italicized comments below are in GK’s own words.]

I made japchae the other night.  It was pretty good, although nothing spectacular, either because of a) my cooking skills (or lack thereof), b) the blandness of the recipe I used, c) the blandness of the dish itself.  

In the picture below, you can see the other dishes I made the same evening.  They are, from the upper left corner: 1. zucchini jeon, 2. kimchi jeon, 3. rice (duh), 4. japchae, 5. gyeran mari, 6. my home-made kimchi, 7. some dipping sauce.

CONCLUSIONS

On his end, GK kicked ass, as usual.  Ever the overachiever, he made jabchae and several additional dishes. Visually, my only comment would be that the vegetables in the jabchae look a bit too chunky.  Anyway, I’m hoping that he shared the meal with others, because it looks worthy of a special event, especially that HUGE gyeran mari.  I feel way way behind in this exchange.  GK is making me look bad.

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)

(See also RESTAURANTS IN KOREA)