What I Ate: Dahk Kalbi

Yes, I'm still in Italy, and yes, I'm still loving it. However, I've already begun to crave Korean food. This always happens. Because I was brought up on (mostly) Korean food, it is my default and I start to miss it after about a week. As much as I'd love to stay in Europe forever, I also can't wait to go home. I might make some dahk kalbi this weekend.

If you need the recipe, I have the step-by-step written out. It's an older blog post but still totally relevant and absolutely delicious.

Basically, dahk kalbi can be made with whatever add-ins you like. This time around, I went for a purple sweet potato, onion, rice cakes (Korean dduk, made super fresh that morning - store bought), udon noodles, shredded cabbage and carrot, and mung bean sprouts (not pictured). I added chopped scallions and nori cut into matchsticks (not pictured) for garnish. And of course, you need dahk, a.k.a. chicken. I used 4 boneless thighs. Breasts would also work, but I prefer dark meat; it's more tender and flavorful and retains its moisture better. If you're vegetarian, you can opt for tofu, and actually, that sounds delicious.

Is that not gorgeous?

So normally, we'll keep this on a little gas camper stove on the tabletop, mostly for showmanship, but lately we've been skipping it because 1) too lazy and 2) not really necessary. The cast iron pan really holds onto heat so the food stays warm anyway.

We like to start a dahk kalbi meal by eating the contents of the pan plain (meaning without bowls of rice). Then, once we've eaten all of the noodles and picked out the rice cakes, we bring the pan back to the heat and make kimchi fried rice with the leftovers.

This is probably my favorite part of the meal. I love a good kimchi bokkeum bahp.

xoxo.