Maangchi - Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking: From Everyday Meals to Celebration Cuisine

Copyright 2019 by Maangchi

Photographs 2019 by Maangchi

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Shulman, Martha Rose, author. | Maangchi, photographer.

Title: Maangchis big book of Korean cooking : from everyday meals to celebration cuisine / with Martha Rose Shulman ; photographs by Maangchi.

Description: New York, New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, [2019] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019013139 (print) | LCCN 2019014077 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328988508 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328988126 (paper over board) | ISBN 9780358299264 (special ed)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, Korean. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX724.5.K65 (ebook) | LCC TX724.5.K65 S547 2019 (print) | DDC 641.59519dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013139

v2.1019

FOR MY CHILDREN, CHAN AND HWANHEE

You inspire me in everything I do, every day. Writing this book reminded me of all the food I used to make for you when you were young. Now you are both grown up, and I couldnt be prouder or happier. So much of this book is about you two.

We did it, Dave ! Thanks for your help, again!

Thank you, Wonhae , of Goun Temple in Korea, for all your kindness and generosity, and for giving me the experience of a lifetime. Thanks also to Ms. Youngji Suk and Mr. Kwangjin Kim at the Korean AgroTrade Corporation in New York for organizing my trip to the temple.

This book wouldnt exist without the vision of my super editor, Rux Martin , who convinced me that it needed to be written and that I was the person to write it. I couldnt have done this book without the help of Martha Rose Shulman . Thanks for hours and days and weeks and months of testing, tasting, writing, and rewriting. I also owe a lot to the guidance and help of my agent, Janis Donnaud , and a special thanks to Paul Brissman , who photographed the covers of both of my cookbooks.

And thanks to my mom , who always worries when she sees me working late at night on my website, videos, and cookbook. Shes concerned about my health even though shes much older than me and Im supposed to be concerned about hers! She tells me: Im praying for your health whenever I go to church, which warms my heart every time I hear it.

Welcome to my big, delicious book.

When I uploaded my first video to YouTube more than a decade ago, Korean food was just beginning to take hold in the United States. My early followers were those who already were familiar with it, and the recipes they requested were mostly standbys like kimchi and bulgogi. But soon, people who had never even tried this cuisine began to discover all kinds of lesser-known dishes, from chicken ginseng soup to steamed dumpling, making and garnishing them so that they looked exactly like mine.

I could never have imagined the stories my readers and viewers have shared with me over the years. Ive heard from a group of young people who regularly have kimchi-making parties, where they get together to chop and salt the vegetables, eat, and drink. Ive talked to couples who have huge Korean barbecue parties for their weddings and then give away the heavy traditional grill pans to their guests. Ive met people who started watching my videos and ended up falling in love with Korean culture, learning the language, and moving to Korea to work and live.

Koreans who were adopted as children and had never experienced their native countrys food tell me they have used my recipes to get in touch with their heritage and the essence of who they are. When they tasted the food they made, they say they felt whole for the first time in their lives. Koreans who have lost their mothers have followed my recipes and brought their families back together over meals. Some of my readers who arent Korean have started businesses or restaurants with my recipes and support their entire families with the profits. Millions more use my recipes to make Korean food for their family and friends once a month or once a week or every day, with no special story at all; they just like doing it.

It took the invention of the internet to spread our food far and wide, not just through my website and videos, but also thanks to Korean TV dramas and online videos that demonstrate and explore our cuisine, as well as the thousands of photos that people snap with their phones and share on social media. Now grocery stores all over carry Korean barbecue-flavored potato chips, and kimchi is in nearly every supermarket. No one asks me what it tastes like anymore! American cooks have started to spice up their favorite dishes with Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang), and chefs are turning to the vegan cuisine of Buddhist temples for inspiration.

For me, the biggest change has been that my love for the cooking of my homeland has become my full-time job, totally by accident! Its been wonderful to see all these changes, but I think its just the beginning of the story of my countrys food emerging into the world. Im proud to help it go forward, which is part of what this book is about.

From spicy to mild, from meat-centric to vegan, from bubbling hot to icy cold, and with textures ranging from soft to chewy to noisily crunchy, Korean cuisine offers choices for every season, time of day, taste, and mood. Some recipes take seconds to make, and a few take days. There are dishes that are older than recorded time, and others that are as contemporary as a ten-minute-old Instagram post.

Romanization of Korean Words

The anglicization of Korean words in this book follows the Revised Romanization of Korean system developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language and made official Korean policy in 2000. The system allows for the use of hyphens to be added at the authors discretion in order to clarify pronunciation. In general, this book follows the hyphenation patterns set by the Korean Food Guide, published by the Korea Foundation.

There is no accurate way to show the exact pronunciation of Korean using the English alphabet, but pronouncing the syllables as they sound can usually get you close.

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER , food was one of the most important things to me. Before I was old enough to wield a knife, I pretended to cook. When I was about eleven, I began cooking for real for my siblings, and then for my own family after I got married. I never read a single cookbook. Instead, I learned from the people around memy mom, my aunts and grandmother, women in the market and vendors on the street, fishermen and farmers, friendsmore people and places than I can count or remember. This has never stopped; I continue to learn new dishes and techniques, anywhere and everywhere.