Monday, December 06, 2004

Special Guest Feature:
Giff's Corner: Dakjjim Korean Seasoned Whole Chicken

I have been really lazy these days in updating. Sometimes, I just wish someone would write for me once in a while. Don't we all wish so? Ha! My dream comes true today!

Pinkcocoa has the honour to introduce to you: *taaaaa daaaaaaa* Giff, my best friend from high school. We share many wonderful memories of culinary adventures as a newie. I still remember the time when we set up a barbeque pit in her backyard using bricks and metal nets, and unknowingly burnt off all the grass underneath the pit, thus leaving a very clear rectangular bald patch on the grassy area. Boy, was her house-mum mad! That bald patch had difficulty breeding new grass.

Anyhow, Giff is a wonderful cook. She's great at beef rendang. I must get her to do another post on that sooner or later. Giff tried out a korean recipe this time and here it is:

Giff's Corner - Dakjjim (Korean seasoned whole chicken)
Dakjjim
♥ Dakjjim Recipes from Korean Home Cooking by Soon Young Chung
Ingredients
2kg whole chicken, washed, dried and chopped into 2 inch pieces
1 large potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
3 medium yellow (brown) onions, peeled, each cut into 8 wedges
½ lengthwise daepa or scallion (Spring onion), cut into 1 inch lengths
1 egg, separated
1 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil for frying

Seasoning
¾ cup /180ml light soy sauce
¼ cup /60g sugar
3 tbsp finely chopped scallions (spring onions)
3 tbsp crushed garlic
2 tbsp ginger juiced (obtained by grating fresh ginger)
3 tbsp rice wine
1 tsp sesame salt
a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
sesame oil to taste

To make:
First, prepare seasoning by combining all seasoning ingredients in a medium bowl . Set aside to allow the flavors to blend.

Meanwhile, place chicken in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, skimming off any froth from the surface. Pour in half of seasoning mixture and continue boiling for 15 minutes longer. Add potato, carrot, onions, daepa and remaining seasoning mixture. Continue boiling until vegetables are tender but not mushy, 15-20minutes. Test chicken by inserting a skewer in a piece of breast meat. Chicken is cooked when juices run clear. Remove from heat. Reserve liquid.

Fry egg white and yolk in oil to make egg gee-dan*. Remove from pan and slice into thin strips. Place segments of chicken in serving bowls, garnish with small amounts of reserved liquid, garnish with egg gee-dan and serve.

*To make egg gee-dan, soak 2 paper towels in a small amount of oil and wipe frying pan. Fry egg white and yolk separately, tilting pan to create a pancake. Remove from pan and slice thinly to make egg gee-dan (thinly fried egg used for garnish)

♥ Giff's take on this dish
I have promised Pinkcocoa to write something for her blog for quite some time. I have been procrastinating…Finally, I uploaded my photos from my digital camera. My apologies that the photo looks a bit blurry. I still need some practice taking food photos. On the LCD screen, it looked fine.

This is an easy dish. I would rate it as an easy dish as it's like a stew/casserole dish. As you can see, it's taken from a Korean cookbook.

I basically had several chicken thighs and couldn't decide what to do with it until I saw the recipe. Cleared my pantry and fridge, and found most of the stuffs needed by the recipe. I also picked some spring onions from my garden. Notice there are many terms used for spring onions. I have chosen to use the term spring onions because I am most familiar with it. I think it's an "Aussie" term. I omitted the carrots though, not because I dislike carrot. I have run out of carrots.

As always, no one recipe can be original when I cook it. I actually cooked some spaghetti and prepared some lettuces to accompany the chicken dish because I wanted a meal with some carbohydrates in it.

The spaghetti actually tasted better when it’s been soaked with the sauce from the chicken for a while.

Okay, I didn’t garnish the dish with the egg gee-dan too. I missed reading that part because it’s right at the bottom of the recipe. So my dish looks a bit different from the picture in the recipe book.