Preparation Tips

Koreans always have different kinds of dishes on the table during meals. If you know the drama Daejanggeum (Jewel in the Palace), or if you saw some of the pictures that i posted here, you may already have an idea about it.

I'm not good at cooking but i'm not also that bad. I consider myself lucky because my in laws usually give us some side dishes so i don't need to prepare much. Cooking and preparing Korean meals takes much time but it's fun specially when you see lots of dishes on the table.

Korean food preparation methods are quite differenet from western ones. The main jobs in preparing a Korean meal are the cutting, slicing, seasoning and careful arranging of the food. So whenever i go to my in laws house and help them, i always ask my sister or mother in law to do first and i finish it. When i cook at home, i always make my own style in slicing and cutting. hehe..

The cutting of food before cooking is very important for appearance as well as convenience in eating with chopstics. Slicing, chopping, scoring and sectioning the vegetables, fish and meat are techniques employed so that the food will cook quickly and be easier to eat. Also, each ingredient is cut or sliced into the same size or shape and the same thickness so that it cooks evenly and looks neat. Because of the quick cooking the nutritional value reamins high as well. Scoring, which is the process of cutting slits in the meat, allows the marinade to penetrate further into meats and also prevents the cooked meat from curling up during cooking. Chopping the seasonings (such as garlic, green onion and ginger) allows for better distribution of the flavor throughout the dish.

Various seasoning sauces are used on vegetables. The amounts of seasonings used may vary with ones preference and other ingredients may also be added to suit one's individual taste.

The final step in preparing most dishes is the careful arranging of the foods paying particular attention to alternatong the natural colors of the foods to make a pleasant pattern. Foods are always arranged neatly in concentric circles, radial designs or parallel linear columns and never placed in a disorderly fashion. The dish must have eye appeal when presented for eating and reipes often give directions for the exact arrangement of the foods.