A blog of food and life in Silicon Valley.
I HATE SOUR KIMCHI! My favorite kimchi is Fresh Kimchi or Baechu Geotjeori. It’s quick and easy to make and requires no fermentation! Growing up Korean-American, a hot topic with my friends was whether we liked sour kimchi or fresh kimchi the best. I always …
WHAT’S UP? Hello world, it’s been a long time since I last blogged. Living in Silicon Valley is not easy. You need two incomes to survive. I have been picking up OT at work and volunteering at my daughter’s school. Blogging has been on the …
Maesil-Cheong (매실청) or Ume Plum Syrup is a Korean ingredient that was used in the past to make plum tea. However, in modern times it has been rediscovered and is a staple in Korean cuisine and used as a replacement for sugar. I didn’t know about maesil-cheong until recently because mom never used it. Mom said all the good Korean fruits grew in the far south but her mountainous hometown was only good for growing rice and sweet potato or goguma. Mom grew up poor so her family couldn’t afford these lavish ingredients.
I picked up a bottle of maesil-cheong at a Korean grocery store out of curiosity and fell in love with the way it brings out fruity Spring time notes in my dishes. It has been really really cold in the Bay Area this Winter, which can be depressing to me, but I have found that infusing dishes with ume helps to bring my mood back up by reminding me that Spring in coming soon. I find it funny that while everyone is in holiday mode full-swing, I am craving for all the fruits of Spring/Summer!
I go through at least 3 bottles of maesil-cheong a year cooking for a Korean food loving family of 4!
These are my favorite brands of commercially made ume syrup. I love the one on the left since it’s organic and made in California but inflation has made is super expensive ($28/bottle).
Why make your own syrup when you can buy it? Because when I finally opened a jar of my home made syrup, the immediate floral smell with cherry notes was very intoxicating. Whereas, the store-bought syrup smelled, older? I presume the store syrups have more sugar-to-ume ratio.
Ume (梅) is the Japanese word for green Asian plum (Prunus mume) but it is actually an apricot. It is native to China and Korea where it is held in high regard because it’s beautiful magenta flowers bloom in the dead on winter (Jan/Feb). It has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for hundreds of years. The most common believed health benefits are that it aids in digestion, cure fatigue, and poor appetite. In Taiwan, I was given chilled smoked ume tea or suan mei tang (酸梅汤) to cool down my body’s inner temperature after a spicy mala hot pot meal.
During the spring, the ume fruits are ready and in Silicon Valley I see the Korean and Japanese supermarkets start to sell ume in early-May. They only sell it for two weeks during this time so I get my hands on at least 4 pounds to make maesil-cheong and ume plum wine. They are expensive and usually $9/pound so it’s best if you can pick out your own fruits since damaged fruits need to be thrown out. I love that the Japanese market will have a big display of fresh ume fruits and all the tools/ingredients to make ume syrup and wine.
Don’t eat the ume “raw” because the skin contains a small amount of chemical compound called amygdalin which is cynaogenic. Although, you would need to eat like 30 lbs of ume to die from it you’ll get a stomach ache eating raw ume. The magic is letting the ume ferment in sugar or alcohol. The fruits release it’s beautiful flavor into the concoction. As a general rule, don’t eat the seeds of any of the stone fruits since they contain a higher level of amygdalin.
I love the taste of ume so much that I found a nursery that sells ume trees! I planted one in my backyard in 2020.
I bought the tree at Yamagami’s Nursery in Cupertino for ~$80. It seems expensive for a tree but with the price of ume fruits, it will pay itself off fast. The trunk has doubled and now there’s a ton of branches. I can’t wait to see the flowers bloom in February. It hasn’t produced any fruits yets but I’m hoping that 2023 will be my lucky year!
Growing and giving away fruits to family and friends has been rewarding since produce prices have skyrocketed with inflation.
Maesil-cheong is super easy to prepare and only 2 ingredients! All you need is a couple of pounds of ume and a bag of Japanese rock sugar or granulated sugar. Koreans seem to prefer the latter but I lused the rock sugar out of curiosity. I will use granulated sugar next time since it’s less processed and to see if it makes a difference in taste/texture.
The Japanese rock sugar I used is called “Crystal Kori Sato” and there’s a recipe on the back of the bag for making plum wine or umeshu/maeshil-ju. This bag costed $10. If you don’t finish it, you could use the rock sugar in a variety of Asian soups/broths.
Over time, the rock sugar will completely dissolve leaving you with ume infused syrup. Everyday for 1 week, I will tip my jar upside down to make sure the sugar liquid is touching all the fruits, and it helps the sugar dissolve faster. The sugar helps prevent mold from growing. I was super upset because I made a large batch in a very big jar but since the jar of lid didn’t close that tight, that batch had to be tossed out.
When researching about maesil-cheong, some people were asking if a batch can be saved if it grows white mold but unfortunately the answer is no. It seems like a waste because ume is expensive but it’s better not to risk you or your family’s health.
If you can’t get fresh ume where you live there are companies that will send you a kit with all the tools need to make maesil-cheong. But there’s no shame in buying a bottle at the Korean supermarket or online.
After 3 months of fermenting, the fruits will be slightly shriveled and need to be removed from the liquid to prevent the amygdalin from penetrating the syrup.
I forgot to take the fruits out at the 3 months mark so now I can’t enjoy my maesil-cheong until after 1 year. After 1 year, the poison becomes neutralized. Most the commercially made maesil-cheongs are fermented 1-3 years since it yields a more concentrated flavor and darker color.
I can’t wait to give an update in the Spring about my 1-year fermented maesil-cheong. It will also be time to make new batches and share another ume adventure. I hope everyone that makes Korean food at home can try maesil-cheong!
Yuzu (柚子) or yuja (유자) in Korean is the new posh ingredient these days at classy restaurants all over the Bay Area and California. All the expensive restaurants have been using it to make glazed sauces for fish, as an ingredient in salad dressings, as …
Mantou or Chinese steam buns are commonly eaten all over Asia. It is delicious by itself or with various fillings such as Peking duck, custard, pork belly (for gua bao, or Taiwanese pork belly bun),taro paste, azuki bean paste ect. I have made many different …
Most people’s knowledge of miso stops at the soup you get at a sushi restaurant. However, miso is a highly versatile that brings tons of flavor to the table. Miso has a salty earthy taste but can be sweet depending on the type.
Miso is a fermented soy bean paste that contains nutritious amino acids used to make proteins in our body. It is considered a superfood and possibly contributes to the infamous Japanese longevity. Besides walking a ton, the typical high protein Japanese breakfast of fish+miso soup combo is why the Japanese are able to stay so trim.
I keep up to three varieties in my freezer depending on what I’m making. If you just want one miso in your household, you can’t go wrong with White Miso (Shiro Miso).
Korean miso (Doenjang, 된장)- used to make Korean soy bean stew or Doenjang jiigae. This stew contains tofu, veggies, and meat and has a very pungent aroma from the miso paste. My hubby can’t take the smell and says it’s like stinky socks or like its close fermented cousin natto. Doenjang is the main ingredient for ssamjjang sauce that accompanies Korean bbq.
Red Miso or Aka Miso is the Doenjjang of Japanese misos. I use it for hearty stews with potatos, onions, and meat. Don’t worry, the red color doesn’t mean that it’s spicy but it does have a brininess to it.
White Miso or Shiro Miso is my favorite and most versatile. It’s used to make soups, salad dressings, and sauces. Our favorite recipe for Chilean seabass is to make a miso based sauce with oyster sauce, mayo, and green onion and baking in the over.
At my local Japanese store, there are multiple kinds of miso to choose from but I find Saikyo Sweet Miso to be most agreeable with my kid’s palates. Some miso pastes have dashi included so you don’t have to buy separate dashi packs to make miso soup.
TIP: Freezing miso will keep it fresh indefinitely without compromising the texture.
At the beginning of Fall, I started to see a lot of miso pasta recipes on IG Reels and Tiktok but these recipes have been around in Japan for a long time. I think Japanese and Italian ingredients are a perfect marriage and making these western-Japanese dishes (known as “Wafu cuisine” in Japan) remind me of my first experiences of Wafu at the Japanese-Italian chain restaurant Saizeriya.
I think Japanese and Italians have a similar philosophy towards food in that it needs to be fresh, seasonal, and minimally prepared in order to taste the natural flavors.
Before I made this pasta, we would only eat mushrooms in hot pot but my kids never ate the s’rooms because they thought they tasted like dirt. I didn’t want them to miss out on the important nutrients that provide immune system support and strong brain development. Both miso and mushrooms are superfoods that should be incorporated in everyone’s diet.
Miso can be found in the refrigerated section in most grocery stores. My favorite miso brand is Hikari and for this recipe I used koji miso. Koji is the hot new ingredient in the US but has been used in Asia for hundreds of years. It is created by fermenting soy beans or rice with a mold to create a byproduct that gives Japanese food it’s “umami-ness.” Don’t worry, the mold is not dangerous and koji is touted to promote good gut biome.
Here is what the koji miso looks like. When I use koji miso in soup, I like the texture of the chewy bits of soy beans.
If you have ever had a sandwich from an Asian bakery or travelled to a country like Japan/Korea/Taiwan, and wondered why it tasted so sweet and different from American sandwiches, it’s the bread! Asian Milk bread/Hokkaido milk bread/Shokupan/Tangzhong bread is noticeably sweeter, delicate, and fluffier …
Japanese Curry is a Kids meal When I was a kid, it was always a good day when mom made Japanese curry and now I make it for my kids. In Korea/Japan it’s considered a children’s favorite meal since it has a mild curry flavor …
Hong Kong Chow Mein is an easy, quick, and delicious dish that I make often since my picky kids love it. I used to order this at family dim sum gatherings all the time and I never understood why my in-laws would repeatedly ask me, “are you sure you want to get that?” Now I understand it’s because Hong Kong Chow Mein is so easy to make at home, and the ingredients are cheap and readily available. From now on, I’ll order the expensive lobster noodles!
The added benefit of this recipe is that it helps us reduce our meat consumption (for health and environmental reasons) and it’s so yummy that my kids don’t miss the meat. However, if you want to add meat I highly suggest adding slices of Chinese bbq pork, or char siew. I use oyster sauce in this recipe but just substitute with vegetarian oyster sauce to make it veg-diet friendly.
HK chow mein is made of egg noodles and you can find it at your local Asian supermarket like Ranch 99, Lion Supermarket, or H-Mart. They will store the fresh noodles in the refrigerated section next to the tofu and the dried variety in the instant noodle aisle. I almost gave up looking for egg noodles because most noodle brands had preservatives or yellow dye and no egg at all, until I spotted this one located on the very top shelf of the noodle aisle. As you can see, eggs is listed as the second ingredient and there’s no sodium benzoate or weird food colorings, and it’s non-fried! This large tub has about 12 servings for $12, very economical!
Amazon carries it and thank goodness if you’re having a craving but don’t live near an Asian market (The cravings got real when I lived in a small town in Nor Cal!).
My tip for cooking Asian food it that if you’re cooking Chinese food, use a Chinese soy sauce. For Korean, use a Korean soy sauce, ect.
I’m all-up in reading labels at the super market and even though these sauces cost more, I like that they have no MSG or sodium benzoate.
Over the weekend, we went for a quick lunch date at La Pizza & La Pasta in Eataly, Valley Fair Mall (Santa Clara/San Jose). Its brand spanking new and sparkly inside! The menu boasts authentic/traditional Italian cuisine reminiscent of my honeymoon to Florence, where I …