Dalk Galbi Pie

I am not turning into a food blog.


But....above is my previously promised Dalk Galbi pie.

If you have ever had a balti pie at a football match you will know what this is about. Curry is great. Pie is great. Curry pie is great! Same premise. Dalk Galbi is great. Pie is great.....you get the picture.

I used a Delia recipe for shortcrust pastry which turned out amazing.
I used the my korean kitchen dalk galbi recipe toned down a bit in terms of spice and without the ddeock. Not because I am some kind of Southern Shandy drinking Nancy....... but because I reckon you don't want a pie to be so hot you can't taste the pastry and chewing rice cake and pastry seemed like it might be a bit odd.

I am no food photographer......

We served it with sesame cabbage and carrots glazed with ginger, honey and soy.

It was great. Worked exactly like I hoped with sweet, spicy, meat and potato and pastry.

Ace.

Not WIne Related

Please excuse me.

This is not wine related, just a post basking in the glory of my genius in the kitchen. Or just my genius perhaps.

The Korean pears are on good form at the minute and the ones that are getting passed around at work got me wondering as to why I don't eat more of them. Buying a few I realised that the whole peeling thing might be the problem, I'm lazy like that, and so what could I do with them that would make me think it was worth the effort.

Christmas is coming. Christmas means booze and chocolate and given that I am too poor to buy booze and too much of an alcoholic to waste good alcohol on fruit it seemed the perfect 'pearing' was with chocolate.

Short story shorter, I melted some good quality chocolate, dipped the pears in it and let them set. Superb. Dark chocolate with the nutty sweetness of the pear goes incredibly well and as only half the pear is covered the second half cleanses the palate ready for the next one. Genius.

The Lackey, Shiraz

The Lackey South Australian Shiraz
Hyundai Department Store,
30,000 won.

Just a quick one to try and prove to the world and, more importantly, myself that I am back on this blogging malarkey.

I am skint. Utterly. Friday is pay day and cannot come quick enough.

What better way to cope with the misery of poverty than to make a beef casserole, with real life dumplings(not mandu), and drink a big, spicy, new world Shiraz. So I did.

The beef was meant to be a goulash but we failed in finding paprika and sour cream and so we adapted and just made a bog standard beef and mushroom casserole. Little bit of smoked paprika, bit of oyster sauce, bit of this, bit of that. Pretty good, deep flavoured stew. I am not an expert on dumplings. I don't think I have eaten many in my life. Are they meant to be light and fluffy or something you could assault a policeman with in a riot? Mine were the latter but alright in a vulgar way.

Anyway, the wine. Fairly typical of an Australian Shiraz in this price range. Big nose of ripe, dark fruit and a palate that is juicy, spicy with really nice tannin. It comes in at 15% alcohol so I am a bit bleary eyed writing this. It is a nice wine that is just a little over the top for my tastes and starting to fall into cough medicine territory. A touch over priced but then what isn't round here? Keep an eye out for it in the sales.......

We also picked up a Chilean Gewurztraminer for 18,000 won. Torres, the huge Spanish producer is behind this wine and it's OK. Lacks the really exotic nose of a great Gewurz. This may have been suffering from reduction. I am not sure. It had a distinct rubber tyre smell that passed with time in the glass. It had nice acidity for a Gewurz and was kicking it in a juicy, exotic grapefruit styleee. That was me being a down with the kids wine writer.

Like I said, the Shiraz had a bit of a kick.

I am planning to make a Dalk Galbi pie this week. This is the pie that will eventually make me a rich man. I plan to pair it with beer.

New Herald and a few Cheapys

The new Herald article is on us today and deals with screwcaps. This was a genuine restaurant critique I read and the fella walked out without eating because of the horror of being sold a screwcap wine. Now, the wine could have been very poor and getting crap wine is no fun when you are spending 40,000 won but the horror he felt at the screwcap was palpable. Today a non-wine drinking friend texted me having read the Herald saying that my standards were dropping and I would soon be defending box wine. This is the battle the producers have to undertake with consumers with regards to closure choice it seems.

There are a few reasonable cheapy cheapy wines about at the moment. Homeplus have two Spanish wines at around the 9000 won range, both from the same bodega, both from the Tesco Finest range, both from Old Vines and one a Garnacha one a Tempranillo. They are good but not great, the Garnacha offering a little more depth but the Tempranillo being a cherry filled fruit glass. Worth a punt.

E-Mart are selling the Argento Cabernet Sauvignon at 9000 won as well. This is a decent bottle of wine. Nothing exciting but no complaints. They are also selling some 3000 bottles of wine that I haven't got the nerve to try. If anyone is willing to go at it for me and let me know I will be in your debt.

I must apologise for the lack of posts recently. I have been somewhat debilitated by blogger being blocked at work, a somewhat uncomfortable set-up at home, a genuine and psychologically scarring lack of money and an upcoming operation that makes me want to drink but makes me think I shouldn't.

Christmas is coming and I should be drinking well soon. With the New Year comes new ideas and my big idea is going to be increasing the quantity and quality of my drinking.

Cheers.

2009 Tasting

I am not very good at this blogging malarkey......

Yesterday I had the very good fortune to get an invite to a tasting at the WSET office in Seoul. WSET are the organisation for wine education with courses from the very beginner to the not inconsiderable step before Master of Wine.

Podo Plaza is a wonderful place for the wine lover. Wine bar, wine shop, wine education and indeed a cooking school are all ensconced in this wood bedecked building in Apgujeong.

On Saturday they had a tasting of wines for 2009 with a selection of the importers best new wines for the coming year. With 60 wines to taste it was something of an assault on the mouth especially considering the white to red ratio of 5 to 60. There was some good stuff and there was some bad stuff. Prices of the wines were, as ever, something of a kick in the stomach and the selection of wines on offer was, as ever, very traditional and lacking in risk taking.

It was, however, a wonderful chance for me to see the wine lovers of Korea together and I met some really fantastic oenophiles. Women really are going to push the industry forward in Korea going on the male/female ratio there. Perhaps, hopefully, this will see something of a move away from the very traditional Bordeaux/Italy age worthy reds so predominant here to more interesting lighter experimental wines. Or perhaps I will need to fly that particular flag. It was a very worthwhile experience for me and I urge everyone reading to hunt down Podo Plaza and investigate what it has to offer.

We have lamb in the oven for our Sunday dinner and so I will match this to a 2005 Bordeaux bought due to Jancis' glowing review of the vintage. I am sure it will be too young but these things need investigating eh?

Got budget Premier Crus Chablis, a cheapy Pinot and the aforementioned Claret to write up. I will be diligent.