Egg Drop Rice-noodle Soup

Korean Rice-cake (with Egg) Soup 

(Duk Guk with Egg/ 떡국)

Duk mandu guk is a variation of duk guk (rice cake soup), that soup includes dumplings or mandu). This soup however, just emits the mandu and uses the egg-drop instead!

ingredients:

• 2 cups of sliced rice cakes (they can be found in the international isle or maybe your local Asian Grocery store, sometimes they look like little peanuts too, that's okay they're just the shape of the rice cake)
• 1 tsp anchovy powder (myulchi garu 멸치 가루) [optional]
• 1 tsp minced garlic (when i don't have minced on hand I double or triple the amount, depending on my garlic mood, and just use powder)
• 3 cups of soup stock, your choice for taste (chicken broth/ beef broth)
• 1 bunch green onion chopped small
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs (or 3, depending on the level of eggy-ness you'd like)

the how to:

• Soak sliced rice cakes for 5-10 minutes, while they are soaking continue.
• Beat egg and add pinch of salt and pepper. Set this mixture aside and begin work on the soup.
• Boil the soup stock with anchovy powder (optional) and garlic.
• Add rice cakes when boiling for 2 min. Reduce heat to medium heat for about 15 minutes - add chopped green onion, continue the simmer for 2-3 minutes. 
• Quickly, re-whisk the eggs, salt and pepper. Then, while stirring the soup base in a circular motion drizzle your egg mixture into the broth. Turn off heat and prepare servings.
• For each serving*, get a large bowl. Scoop up some soup with enough rice cakes, garnish some more chopped green onions.

*Serve with roasted seaweed at the table for people to individually add into their bowl throughout the meal.

enjoying the egg-drop soup lunch with 

bananas, gim, kimchi and other assortments of korean side dishes

Making Paneer Cheese

Making Paneer Cheese at home

I first made my most beloved Indian dish at home in America. I could eat Palak Paneer day in and out! There are so many different ways to make this delicious (and potentially very healthy) Indian dish. 

Below is the recipe for just the Paneer cheese. I decided to show this separately from the actual main dish because there are many different form of paneer you can make depending on what you're using it for! 

*it's fantastic stuffed in to Naan bread with spices (sweet or spicy) then pan fried... like Kulcha!

ingredients:

• 8 cups (half gallon) milk (organic non-processed whole milk works best)
• 1/4 cup lemon Juice

*want more? double up, just make sure your pots and pans are big enough... though I find that this amount makes just the right amount for a double serving of Palak Paneer... mmmhhh my favorite!


how to:

1. Mix lemon juice in half cup of hot water and put aside.
2. Boil the milk in a heavy bottomed pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, making sure not to burn milk.
3. As the milk comes to a boil, add the lemon juice gradually and stir the milk gently. The curd will start separating from the whey, turn off the heat.
4. Once the milk fat has separated from the whey, drain the whey using a strainer line with cheesecloth, or muslin cloth.
5. Wrap the curds in a muslin cloth, rinse under cold water, and squeeze well. This process takes out the sourness from the lemon.
6. To take out the excess water, press the wrapped paneer under a heavy pan for about 1 hour.

 

  

The round ball of paneer (above) is what I ended up pressing for two hours under a weighted pan. I just put the cheese on my cutting board wrapped in a loose round shape using the cheese cloth, the on top of it a pan with things to weight it down. I tilted my cutting board slightly so that the excess whey and water would run down it into a catch tray (I can use it to boil rice or noodles, or even freeze it for other cheese till later)

Enjoy your Indian!!

Here are some tips I found for making different kinds of Paneer:

If paneer will be used to make any dessert dish:

1. The most important part of making paneer for dessert is how much water to take out from the paneer.
2. To check if right amount of  water is out of the paneer, take a little piece of paneer on your palm and rub with your fingers. After rubbing the paneer for about 15-20 seconds, you should be able to make a firm but smooth ball.
3. For making sweets, paneer can be refrigerated for 1 to 2 days.
4. Paneer from half-gallon milk will make about 15 to 20 rasgullas.
5. I suggest 2% milk for rasgullas, rasmalai, chamcham or any other dish in that category.
6. For sandaish, burfee or any other such dish use regular whole milk.

If paneer will be used for making main dishes:

1. Before Pressing the paneer knead it enough so paneer is not crumbly.
2. Press the paneer instead one hour, two hours making firmer.
3. Cut the paneer to desired shape. Paneer can be refrigerated for a few days or kept frozen for months.