Top Chef Does Korean Food

On this week's episode of Top Chef, Bravo TV's reality show/cooking competition, the contestants were divided into two teams that had to prepare Korean and Vietnamese dishes.  The funniest part of the whole show was when they announced that they would be doing Korean and Vietnamese, the contestants all had looks on their faces like, "What crawled into the wall and died?  Where is that odor coming from?"  To put it mildly, they were not pleased.

What they came up with on the Korean team (aside from mushy rice and a hockey-puck like gelatin dessert) was a braised pork and kimchi.  You can find the recipe here.  I'm no expert on Korean food by any stretch, but I am curious to know if anyone else thought the chef's recipes were way off base for Korean food.  I mean, the ingredients for Otto's kimchi sounded like the spices my mom uses, but he was cutting up red cabbage. Do other people use that?  When exactly did panna cotta and gelatin become Korean desserts?

While we're on the subject of westernized Korean food, I once saw a Korean woman on TV making kalbi using Coca-cola as the sweetener instead of sugar.  Anyone else do that? Inquiring minds want to know.

--Glennia

Photo from BravoTV website

Comments

[beloved]

Hmmm. . . I'm certainly no expert on Korean food but having eaten it everyday for the six years I lived in Korea (and cooking it everyday here in the U.S.), those recipes are very suspicious. My Korean husband gets upset to see bottled kimchi in the supermarket that's been made with regular western white cabbage so red cabbage? Um, I don't think so. I'm sure I have a lot to learn in regards to Korean cuisine but I'm not sure what those people were making.

[honglien123]

Trust me, the Vietnamese recipes aren't much better. Pho my ass...I'm annoyed enough to go have a real bowl with some real kim chi on the side.

[Puka]

My mom has always used Coca-Cola in bulgogi as a meat tenderizer, not necessarily to sweeten the meat.

That's blasphemy to use red cabbage for kimchi. :P His list of ingredients are too few. I can't see that being tasty. Of course I only know how to make kimchi the way the females in my family make it, and I'm often not real fond of kimchi I buy, even if it's made my ajummas at the Korean market, but I have no other alternatives. I'd rather go to the dentist that make my own kimchi. I'm just not into food prep and cooking period on top of breaking my back.

[CityMama]

I was SO hoping someone would post about this. Glad it was you!

I rolled my eyes at the Korean challenge. That pastry chef was totally talking out of her ass when she was describing that dessert as Korean.

I wanted to jump through my screen and say that kimchi doesn't always have to be fermented for weeks and weeks. Many kimchis can be made and eaten the same day, even cabbage kimchi.

[Angie in Texas]

OMG! (i love this website!!!) mom's used coke for almost as long as i can remember . . . and more as a tenderizer than for the sweetness.

i didn't see the show, but one of the things that annoys me to no end is this:

white person #1: what's "kimchee"?
me: uh, it's . . .
white person #2: (interrupting me) it's rotten cabbage!
white person #1: ewwww . . .
me: give WP#1 the "you're-a-dumbass" glare.

[OTRgirl]

My MIL also uses coke as a tenderizer. She says you can use any soda. We used ginger ale for kalbi once and it tasted great.

As a white woman of Germanic descent, I describe kimchee as the Korean version of saurkraut. Most people have tried saurkraut and never thought of it as fermented cabbage before, it gives them a bridge to the kimchee concept.

[steen]

I wonder if the Kimchi museum would approve...

Most of my friends think kimchi is rotten cabbage as well. I just tell them it's pickled, even though this technically isn't true. We don't say wine is rotten grapes so we shouldn't say kimchi is rotten cabbage.

I haven't seen the show but I've seen westernized Korean dishes. It sucks because I grew up with the "real" thing and it's disappointing to not get that when you order it.

[mamazilla]

i was curious about coca cola in kalbi and i found recipes that called for it -

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20678326-5007132,00.html

http://www.foodweb.com/virtualcookbook/meltingpot/one93.html

i am SOO hungry right now....

[mamazilla]

whups - that first link is wrong - SORRY!

here it is...

http://desertphoenix.blogspot.com/2005/08/recipe-for-kalbi.html

[CityMama]

I have never heard of soda tenderizing Korean meat dishes. I have, however, heard of Coca-Cola ham and Coca-Cola cake.

My mom uses grated Asian pear, pear, or apple to tenderize her kalbi, along with soy sauce-sesame seed-garlic-green onion-honey. (Strangely, my family didn't grow up eating bul go gi, my mom prefers kalbi instead. I didn't have bul go gi until I was in my 20s and could order it/cook it for myself without my mom present)

[Mama Nabi]

Citymama, my mom also used fruit to tenderize meat... mmmm so hungry right now.
Aaargh, bugs me when people totally botch Korean food - or when they try to tell ME what's considered Korean food... like when grocery stores have shishkabobs marinated in bulgogi sauce and sell them as bulgogi - not exactly.

[Nina]

ergh, bothered by people screwing up our precious food. =P

Seriously though...I don't watch this show, but do they have access to any kind of help if they've never had any experiences with a certain kind of food? If they just had to pull it out of their butts, well, maybe they didn't do so bad. Still, rotten cabbage?? Don't you guys know the word fermented?

My halmoni makes a great cabbage salad that has a lot of the same ingrediants as kimchi, but it only takes a couple hours to make (most of it soaking the cabbage in salt water) and it's much better (I don't really like real kimchi anyway)

I've heard of using coke as a tenderizer. I've used kiwi - found it in a Korean cook book - and it worked so well. It made the kalbi so tender, but also helped sweeten it. Yum. So hungry now.

[Glennia]

I don't think they have help or can consult with cookbooks on this show. I think they just wing it. The Vietnamese Team had someone on their team who had worked for a Vietnamese chef before, and they didn't fare much better.

My mom makes cucumber kimchi which is very quick and my husband loves it. It's more like a spicy salad. Personally, I like the mool kimchi (the blandest kind!).

OK, I am totally going to the take out kalbi joint near my office for lunch today!

[Linda B]

I am also glad someone posted about this. When I saw the episode, I rolled my eyes so hard I got a headache. The dessert just confused me and their menu in general did not seem to have a Korean feel to it. Also, I know they didn't use the lychee, but is that really an ingredient Koreans used often? The only time I've had it is as a dessert in a CHINESE restaurant.

[Laura]

thank god for this site. i was going out of mind watching this episode. red cabbage - balk. jasmine - balk. lychee - how was it going to be used, we eat it as is. love ming tsai's cooking show but come on. they can get a famous japanese sushi chef but there is no professional korean or vietnamese chef to judge?!!! i was pretty much steaming by the time the show was finished. so completely misrepresented korean food to a whole nation. ugh. i got so many IMs during the show from friends asking me if i was surviving. they knew i would drop dead on the floor before the show was up.

my aunts use 7Up and Coke in kalbi but i prefer not to use it as it gets to the state of over-tenderized really quickly. i grew up using asian pear or kiwi in kalbi and bulgogi. though, kiwi tends to make things go to mush quite quickly as well.

aside, i made bulgogi and mi-ok gook at my son's request yesterday. he asked a couple of days ago and i had already ordered pizza. he started to cry when i told him pizza was coming. how cool is that?!!!!

[Laura]

sorry for the misspelling. i just reread my post. that would be mi-yuhk gook not mi-ok gook. oops. better go to bed, the flu is costing me grammar and spelling points.

[Nina]

Wow that is so cute Laura (that your son loves Korean food so much!)

I think the kiwi is too much for bulgogi, but it works well for kalbi. I tried using it for bulgogi once and it ended being like big meat patty - way too mushy!

[JYS]

It seems that there're many people who are interested in Korean food as I see the comments. As the writer said, some cook use coca-cola or cider instead of sugar (more cider than cola) but it's up to a cook as I saw on TV. But not everyone use that. And about the method of making kimchi..there're many kinds of kimchi in Korea and it's also different how to make kimchi every places and provinces. I haven't heard about the red cabbage for making kimchi..but it maybe a kind of a province's method?!

[Jo I Yeon]

I like to this site. Because This site is explained about Korean Kimchi very well.
I'm happy that there is a Kimchi's site.

[TaeUk]

Thank you for your kimchi's aticle. Picture looks very delicious.

[watch friends online]

i just love korean food but its so hard to make. This is some great work.

watch friends online