Saturday 6th February 2010

Lunch
Chicken, Carrot & Celery Soup with Pasta Shells

Benoit and Ivy were in the neighbourhood so we decided to have dinner at my place.

A Korean style dinner.

I prepared the marinated meats with an adapted 'bulgogi' marinade. I used soy sauce, sesame oil, mirin wine, dried chilli flakes, sesame seeds, onion, garlic, brown sugar and honey. I threw in some sliced green capsicum for a dose of vegetables.

	Beef
	Chicken
	Pork

I bought a 5.5kg tub of kim chi! I love love love eating kim chi. When I worked in hospitality in Northbridge all those years ago, I used to pop into Old Shanghai (the food court on James Street) and grab some kim chi and eat that just with rice. Love it!

When Benoit and Ivy arrived, I set them to work making the dumplings. In Korean cuisine these filled dumplings are called mandu. I wanted pork mince but there was none at the shops. So, I settled for beef mince. I added some chopped shitake, onion, garlic, and seasoned with soy sauce, sesame oil and ground white pepper.

Look at the gorgeously pleated mandu Benoit and Ivy made!
We steamed the mandu first and then put them on the sandwich press.

Now, it's a bit silly to have a Korean BBQ dinner when you don't have a Korean BBQ plate to cook the food on. I was going to just throw some aluminium foil onto the Weber outside, but then I remembered that I could use my sandwich press.

Yes, the sandwich press.

It's a very versatile piece of equipment and it's non-stick so it is sooo easy to clean afterwards!