Do you have a person in your life who asks what you want for Christmas, and no matter how obscure the item, goes out and ruthlessly discovers it, no matter how long it takes or what it costs? Well, that is the perfect description of my sister-in-law, Ann. I think she really enjoys the hunt and has given me in recent years a beautiful irregularly shaped soup bowl and a square serving platter, perfect as photo props. Also the Golden Door cookbook, which has inspired my photography and recipe writing. This past year she gave me the OXO Mandoline, a beautiful tool I have been dreaming about for years.

This mandoline has a really cool feature: a waffle cut setting. I was really excited to try it and see if I could make some interesting looking gaufrette potato crisps. I didn’t want to deep fry them because of the fat factor, so I decided on the oven method. The slicing part is fun and I tried various thicknesses and blade options until I got evenly cut specimens. After slicing I tossed them with a little olive oil and salt, and put them in one layer on a parchment lined baking sheet. They roasted at 425 degrees about 12 minutes, turning over half way through. Sprinkle with a little more salt and enjoy.

The main reason I made gaufrette potato crisps with my new mandoline is because I had this bottle of Traina Sun-Dried Tomato Ketchup I wanted to try out. Our family only uses Heinz ketchup on French fries; any other brand would be met with you’ve got to be kidding, I’m not eating that rejection. I mean we are die-hard Heinz people. But Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup, now that was intriguing. It tastes like the richest sun dried tomatoes, thick and intense. I loved every bite of the potato crisps with this tomato essence. And now I’m thinking how else I can use it, like in vinaigrettes, or mixed with the mayonnaise in potato salad, on crostini with toppings, or slathered on grilled chicken breasts. Traina suggests using it on sausage, steak, meatloaf, eggs, tacos, panini, and burgers. Are the light bulbs going off in your head?

It takes 4 pounds of vine ripened, sun-dried Roma tomatoes for each 16 oz. squeeze bottle of Traina Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup. You can go to the Traina website and see how sun-dried tomatoes are made, which is really interesting, and for more recipes. Right now in California, you can buy some of this amazing Ketchup at Bel Air Mart, Gelson’s, Rayey’s, Nob Hill, Mollie Stone’s and McKay’s, and they will be expanding nationwide this spring.

Traina Foods provided me with the Sun Dried Tomato Ketchup to try out. I was under no obligation to write about it. It is awesome, which is why I’m sharing it with you.

I am very glad to be back, after not posting for almost two weeks. I was knocked out by a very debilitating virus from which I am still recovering. Also, I was without a camera, but now am the proud new owner of a Canon T4i. I am still learning how to use it to best advantage, so you’ll have to cut me some slack on the photos for a while. So, dear friends, let’s get to the recipe at hand.

Recently I was invited to a potluck to which we were asked to bring a dish representing our ethnic heritage. I am French, German, Norwegian and Danish, so I had many dishes I could make, but I wanted to bring something different that the other potluckers may not have tried before. I was sorting through the memories of my childhood and what really stood out were the Norwegian and Danish dishes my Mom and Grandma used to make, some of which were complicated and time consuming. One item that appeared frequently was the pickled herring that came in a jar and required no effort beyond a twist of the wrist. We always ate the sweet wine-marinated little fish fillets on soda crackers topped with some of the sliced onions that came in the jar.

In order to get the full Danish experience I decided to do the whole  thing, with authentic Danish rye bread, which is dark, dense and full of sunflower seeds. There is a wonderful blog called Danish Open Sandwiches which is entirely devoted to Smørrebrød, one of, if not the national dish of Denmark. After watching a video on how to make the rye bread, I decided it would be too much to find the rye berries and grind them to the right size. Instead, I opted to make the bread from a mix that is sold at Ikea. The ingredients match exactly those in the video, so I felt it would be very close to the real thing.

The Ikea rye bread has a unique way of mixing. You open the carton and pour the water right in, then shake the carton for a minute before pouring it into your greased bread pan. No dirty dishes. Here you can see the unbaked dough after it has risen in the oven for an hour with the oven light on. It has doubled in size. I have never made this type of bread before, so I was having a lot of fun watching how the whole process played out.

This bread is like a heavy brick. I tried slicing it when it first came out of the oven and was still warm. Big mistake. The serrated knife just tore it in a jagged slice and the inside was really moist, almost like not cooked enough. I had read in my research not to try to cut when warm, but I am one of those people who never listen. So I then did what I was instructed to do, which was wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. The next day, the interior of the bread was solid and I chose my other serrated knife with large scallops to slice it. They turned out perfect and I was able to make really thin slices that did not break apart. Good old yeast and her friend gluten. This bread is not sweet, but has a tang to it from sourdough starter.

I was very happy to find a recipe for Skagen Sild on Danish Open Sandwiches that featured pickled herring and had the added interest of crunchy sweet diced apple. The diced herring and apple are mixed with sour cream, mayo and a little Dijon, plus minced shallots and dill or tarragon. I made mine with tarragon, but dill would be more authentic. The mixture is sweet from the apples and the wine marinade. I believe if you have never tried pickled herring, and think it might be yuck, this is a good positive introduction. If you are interested in Smørrebrød, go to Danish Open Sandwiches for a myriad of recipes and totally humerous writing about the food and lore of Denmark. By the way, Smørrebrød means buttered bread in Danish, the butter being slathered on quite liberally. Skagen (pronounced skay-en) is a beach town on the most northern tip of Denmark and Sild is the Danish word for herring. Oh, and the beaches in Skagen are topless. Ok, that’s another story.

Here I am, still posting about what I made for my Christmas dinner. And this is not the last one either. I hope you don’t mind. We really enjoyed these Biscotti for dessert with ice cream and sherbet. After a big meal – and we were stuffed – biscotti are a light, sweet end with serious flavor, but small portions. This biscotti recipe calls for ¼ cup of orange zest, so you can understand why they are orange colored. They also smell so amazingly of orange essence, that I have found myself walking through the kitchen and opening the biscotti container just to smell them. Aaah….

Biscotti is the plural form of biscotto, which originates from medieval Latin biscoctus meaning “twice-baked/cooked.” As they are very dry, they’re traditionally served with a drink into which they maybe dunked. In Italy, where they originated, they’re served with a Tuscan fortified wine called vin santo. Outside of Italy they more frequently accompany coffee, cappuccino, lattes or black tea. In Spain, they’re served with a small glass of a sweet dessert wine, such as muscat or moscatell. We had ours with coffee, but I didn’t see any dunking. They didn’t last long enough.

It took 4 huge oranges to generate the ¼ cup of zest called for in the recipe. I prefer to use my box grater because it captures more of the juicy zest below the hard skin.

The toasted almonds are roughly chopped in small handfuls. Each nut is cut into only 2 or 3 pieces.

The dough for these biscotti is the stickiest stuff I have ever seen. Let it rest in the bowl for about 30 minutes for the gluten to rest.

Using a large spatula, remove the dough from the bowl onto a floured surface. I know it looks like a big shaggy blob, but do not despair. You are going to transform this homely thing into beautiful butterflies.

And this is what they will look like. Orange-hued and sparkling with turbinado sugar. A sight to behold.

Take that big blob of dough and form/pat/roll it into a log about 12 inches long and divide it into 4 portions.

Take each portion and pat/roll it into a baton about 12 ½ inches long and place on parchment lined sheets.

Cool baked batons completely on cooling racks on parchment.

With a serrated knife, the batons are sliced on the diagonal.

This photo shows the wonderful texture of the interior of the biscotti. Now they are brushed with beaten egg white and sprinkled with turbinado sugar, and baked again.

Your kitchen is going to smell so good and you are going to eat too many right out of the oven. I had to put them in a container so I couldn’t see them. Just sayin’.

Last year around this time my local Ralph’s Market sent out a little brochure with a great appetizer recipe, Bacon Wrapped Dates with Choriso & Goat Cheese. This year their brochure included these Cheesy Puff Pastry Pinwheels, which are stuffed with just about every ingredient that makes your tastebuds sing: artichokes, feta, kalamata olives, roasted red peppers and Gruyere. Plus spinach, so you can feel healthy. All rolled up in puff pastry, sliced and baked into really delicious pinwheel appetizers that can be eaten warm right out of the oven or at room temperature. It’s up to you.

I think these would be wonderful to nibble on while watching the Superbowl next Sunday, February 3, being played in New Orleans. Since I live in Los Angeles, I’ll be rooting for the California team. Yea! San Francisco 49ers! Good luck to the Baltimore Ravens, too. I am looking forward to Alicia Keys singing the National Anthem, and Beyonce at Half Time. So about 3 PM I’ll be sitting in front of my TV watching those really fun commercials and thinking about all of you waiting in anticipation for the kick-off, just like me.

The chopped ingredients are rolled up in the puff pastry and sliced into 3/4-inch slices. The pieces fall out, but just stick them right back in and keep rolling.

The slices may not be pretty and the little pieces are still falling out, but persevere, it all turns out ok in the end.

Here are the finished Pinwheels cooling on their rack, looking so cheesy and delicious!

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope 2012 was as great a year for you as it was for me and Cook & Be Merry. For everyone who visited my blog, Thank You.  And to all my great commenters, you are the absolute best! You make my day and make my blog so much more interesting. I have some really good recipes coming up in 2013 that should make you smile with happiness, so stay tuned as we enter year number four of Cook & Be Merry.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 most popular recipes of 2012 on Cook & Be Merry, chosen by you, dear readers. Above is the most popular recipe by far, the #1 in pageviews of all time, Twisted Cookies with Rolled-In Sugar.

#2 BBQ Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

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#3 Mini Tart Shells, Food Art & An Optical Illusion

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#4 26 Food Porn Sites That Are Not Tastespotting

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#5 Twirly Lemon Butter Cookies with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

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#6 Snickerdoodle Cookies

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#7 Parmesan Panko Zucchini Fries

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#8 Chicken, Sausage, Asparagus & Mushroom Pasta From Grace-Marie’s Kitchen

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#9 Gumbo ~ Shrimp, Chicken & Andouille Sausage

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#10 Blueberry Pudding Cake for My 4th of July BBQ

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Here’s to us in 2013. I wish you abundant happiness, prosperity and great cooking!

Lynne xo

~One Year Anniversary for Cook & Be Merry
~Top 10 Recipes of 2011

If you are looking for a last minute cookie recipe for your New Year’s celebration, you have come to the right place. Have you ever seen so many cookies in one place in your life? I have to admit, I haven’t and it was amazing to behold. This was the Food Bloggers Los Angeles Holiday Cookie Exchange 2012, with about 30 bloggers contributing upwards of 1500 cookies to enjoy and share.

The meeting was held at Erika’s home, of In Erika’s Kitchen, and the cookies were spread over her very large dining room table. It was a beautiful sight.

You can see additional photographs of the individual platters of cookies, with links to the recipes, taken by Dorothy at Shockingly Delicious. She did a fantastic job on this very large project. Astounding, in fact. Check it out.

These are the cookies I brought ~ Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies Dipped in Chocolate and Honey Roasted Peanuts ~ and the recipe can be found here.

We were asked to bring a savory dish, if we wanted to, as the event was held at lunch time. I brought these Spicy Korean BBQ Turkey Sliders with Ginger Sesame Slaw and the recipe is here. These sliders were a big hit and would be perfect for a New Year’s party.

There were so many cookies that they didn’t all fit on the table, so near-by chairs were drafted for the task. I took home a huge platter of cookies, and my family and friends were thrilled, believe me.

Happy New Year everyone! Here’s to us in 2013!

Lynne xo

My Food Bloggers Los Angeles group recently held their annual Cookie Exchange and Cookbook Swap at the home of Erika, of In Erika’s Kitchen. We were invited to bring 5 to 6 dozen cookies to share and as many cookbooks as we were willing to part with. One gal said she couldn’t part with any of her own cookbooks, so she went to a book store and bought a new one to share. Lol. Anyway, there were about 30 of us FBLAers and I have never seen so many cookies in one place in my life. A quick calculation tells me about 2000 cookies. Sugar, sugar.

Since we were meeting around lunch time, it was also suggested that we bring a savory dish to share, which is where these Spicy Korean BBQ Sliders come into the picture. I brought the components separately in containers and mixed them together there. I was so happy to be using up some of the massive amount of turkey leftovers I had from Thanksgiving, you have no idea. People were hovering, waiting for me to finish assembling them, so they could have one. One person who couldn’t wait was Erika’s 13 year old son, Emery, who asked if he could have one before I was finished, because he couldn’t wait. So I caved and gave him one. Several minutes later, he threw this arms around my neck and exclaimed, “Lynne, I love you!” Well, can a cook receive a better complement than that?

The ingredient in my sliders that make them so spicy amazing is Gochugaru, Korean Red Pepper Powder. Gochugaru comes in two styles, fine and coarse. The fine powder is used to make gochujang, the Korean red pepper paste which I used in a previous recipe for Korean Chicken Wings. The coarse flakes are used to make kimchi and in many other Korean dishes, such as my Fried Tofu with Spicy Korean Red Pepper Sauce . Gochugaru is found only in Korean cuisine, unlike other ingredients that have versions in the cuisines of many countries around the world.

Two different brands of Gochugaru

You can order Gochugaru on-line at Amazon or hmart. If you live in Los Angeles there is probably an Asian or Korean Market near you, or you can drive to Market World in Torrance. And if you are thinking, like me, that Korean food is the next big thing, check out this website Maangchi. Lots of information and recipes. I hope you have fun with this.

Recently I was invited to an early Thanksgiving event and I needed to bring a dish for the buffet. I wanted to make something that could be put together the night before, because I am barely coherent in the morning and I needed to leave my house at 10AM. These Spinach Crepe Spirals are perfect, because I could make the crepes the day before, spread with filling, roll them up, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate over night. The next morning just slice and place on a serving tray, and you’re good to go. Plus you get to eat the trimmed ends while you work. What a deal.

I have been making these appetizers since the 1980s and they were served on the side of an asparagus salad at one of my UCLA Culinary School banquets in 1995. You can read the menu and my post about that banquet here.

I haven’t made these lately, so as I was making the crepes I decided to taste test one just spread with some butter and rolled up. Yum. They have minced spinach and green onions in them, which are so delicious. Then I was thinking that these would be a great way to use Thanksgiving leftovers. Just fill with turkey and dressing, roll up and douse with gravy. Or cold like a sandwich roll-up. It’s a crepe, after all, so the possibilities are endless. Time to get creative.

Last Sunday was my Food Bloggers Los Angeles (FBLA) meeting for October, which I was fully planning to attend. And then my life went sideways, you know what I mean, and I couldn’t make it. I made these Cinnamon-Sugared Pumpkin Donut Holes and they were ready to go. Everyone was bringing a dish with pumpkin and I was really looking forward to it. Oh well.

You can see a really nice write-up about this meeting on Shockingly Delicious (Thanks Dorothy!) and there are links at the bottom of her post with many pumpkin recipes from our FBLA members. I hope you enjoy them.

These little morsels are actually mini-muffins, but after being rolled in melted butter and the cinnamon-sugar mixture, they really are like donut holes. The muffins are flavored with the wonderful pumpkin pie spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves and when you bite into them you are transported to a little bit of pumpkin pie heaven.

Today is October 12th. That means in a couple of days it will be Halloween and a couple of days after that, Thanksgiving, and a couple of days after that, Christmas. Time flies, doesn’t it?

So I was thinking about what to cook for the holidays, especially appetizers. I like them because I can make a bunch of different kinds, and they’re small and cute. Aaaw. Anyway, I have been thinking about  potato skins and had this yummy idea to stuff them with sautéed mushrooms. But not just mushrooms. I was imagining what mushroom dish I love and what came to mind was a mushroom burger with caramelized onions, roasted jalapenos and melted cheese, which became my inspiration for these stuffed skins.

I am planning to make these with smaller potatoes, so they can be finger food appetizers. But they could also be made with large potatoes as a side, or two could easily be a main dish. Add a salad and you’re good to go.

I was also thinking these stuffed skins would be a good way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Just add an egg, mix and pipe. Or if you don’t pipe, spoon mounds over your filling of choice (stuffing, turkey, gravy, cranberries?) and bake. Delicious.

The potatoes halves are scraped out with a spoon and brushed with garlic butter. The red bell pepper, onion and roasted chile medley and sautéed mushrooms can be made the day before and kept chilled until needed.

The skins are filled with the vegetable medley and topped with the mushrooms, which have been sautéed with garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice.

And finally, topped with the Duchesse Potatoes or shredded cheese, and baked to perfection. Ah me, the holidays just can’t get here fast enough.

One of the first restaurants I went to when I moved to California in 1972 was The Kettle in downtown Manhattan Beach. My friend who took me there insisted we order their Zucchini Sticks, because they were fabulous dipped in Ranch Dressing. The Kettle is still there, 39 years later, and guess what? Zucchini Sticks are still on the menu! I suspect their customers would have a fit if they were no longer available. *smile*

When I was thinking about what I was going to make for the August Food Bloggers L.A. meeting, which was about zucchini and tomatoes, I considered making Zucchini Fries, but ended up making the Zucchini and Tomato Tian instead. But the thought of those Zucchini Sticks at The Kettle was nagging at me and finally I decided to make some for myself.

The Zucchini Sticks at The Kettle are dipped in a flour and buttermilk batter and deep fried. In appreciation of my waistline, I decided to forgo frying and do an oven-baked version instead. So I decided to do an experiment with different breading mixtures to see which one I liked the best.

This is my breading station with three bowls: one with flour, one with beaten egg and one with the breadcrumb mixture.

The aluminum foil covered sheet pan is lightly sprayed with cooking spray, the breaded zucchini is lined up and lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Then into the oven for a total of 20 minutes at 400 degrees and Voila! Crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside.

I made 5 different breading mixtures. In this photo, the extreme left column of each was fried as an experiment. I really was going for the taste and if the fried ones were better, I would have gone with them. But they weren’t. Thank God. Each version was dipped in flour and egg first. The breading mixtures used are as follows:

Row 1: plain Progresso bread crumbs
Row 2: plain Progresso bread crumbs + Parmigiano Reggiano
Row 3: plain Progresso bread crumbs + Parmigiano Reggiano + Panko
Row 4: Panko only
Row 5: Panko + Parmigiano Reggiano

The Winner! Row 3: crumbs, parmesan & panko. This is what you see in the very top and very bottom photos. This version was nicely crunchy and I happily ate it with marinara. Really good.

Also very good was Row 5: Panko and parmesan. It didn’t get as browned as Row 3, but it tasted so nice with the Ranch Dressing. And now I am totally zucchini-ed out. Do not mention zucchini to me again until next summer, ok?

I am such a sucker for grill marks. There is something about them that makes my artist’s eye really happy and quivery. I have been seeing grilled or fried cheese just about everywhere and really wanted to try my hand at it. Halloumi cheese seems to be the one most frequently chosen for grilling because of its low fat content, around 25%, and high melting point.

Halloumi originated in Cypress, which is a Greek and Turkish island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey and west of Syria and Lebanon. It was initially made there during the Medieval Byzantine period and traditionally contains sheep and goat’s milk. The Halloumi I used was made from only sheep’s milk and it had that really salty sheep-y taste I love. The texture was firm, even a little rubbery and the flavor of the grilled brown parts was so tasty.

Because Halloumi doesn’t melt, it is perfect for adding cubes to skewers with meats or vegetables for grilling. You can slice or coarsely grate it over pasta or pizza, or into salads, soups and omelettes. Use it on a sandwich like you would ricotta insalata. If you like the saltiness of feta, you will love Halloumi. I will definitely be finding other recipes in which to use this cheese. Yum.

The edible flowers in this salad all came from my garden. It was so much fun to pick them and place them just so on the salad. The little blue one at the top is from my borage plants. The larger orange ones on left and right are nasturtiums and on the bottom white carnation. The little one in the middle is a basil flower sprig. I had some marigolds earlier in the summer that I was going to use, but they are done now. Actually there are many edible flowers and you can probably find them in your garden. For a complete list of edible flowers you can click here, and be sure to read about the do’s and don’ts before going off with your basket and scissor. I put my flowers in a bowl of water and refrigerated them until I put them on the plate.

Halloumi with watermelon is a traditional Cyprian dish, and with good reason. The salty tangy cheese and sweet watermelon with the herby basil-mint sauce are such a taste treat. Not only is the flavor beguiling, but the texture of the crunchy melon and chewy cheese is really interesting, along with the minty aroma of the sauce. This salad has it all and I hope you give it a try. Bon Appetit.

Do you remember last June, when I was making Pistachio and Goat Cheese Wrapped Grapes and I told you Kim, from Rustic Garden Bistro, came for lunch and brought me fresh many-hued eggs from her very own chickens? Well, I wanted to make something really special with them and I think this Roasted Asparagus and Prosciutto Salad with Romesco Sauce is a very worthy dish to showcase those beautiful eggs.

I love all the components of this salad: the smoky crunch of asparagus, salty prosciutto with the great mouth feel of that little strip of fat, crisp fresh frisée and the runny rich yolk of the egg, all drizzled with a lemon juice vinaigrette. On top of all that is the Romesco Sauce, which is a thick mixture of ancho chiles, tomato, roasted red pepper, almonds, toasted bread, garlic, paprika, vinegar and olive oil. This makes you close your eyes as you savor each bite and feel replete with satisfaction at the end. *Sigh*

These are the beautiful eggs that Kim gave to me. I have never had eggs where I knew which chickens laid those eggs. My experience is with farm factory white eggs from the grocery store, which have served me well for 60 years. But knowing exactly which chicken created an egg is something really amazing to me. I guess I never thought about where eggs came from… well, they came from the market in those gray cardboard cartons, right?

Romesco Sauce is from Tarragona, Catalonia in Northeastern Spain where it is served with seafood and grilled vegetables. The Romesco Sauce in this recipe makes more than you will use, but it is delicious on meat, chicken, fish or stirred into fish stews. You can toss it with pasta, couscous, faro or rice, or use as a sandwich spread or dip for crudities. I just spread it on a slice of toasted sourdough bread and it was fanastic!

Last Saturday I attended The Red Hat Society Tea at Grace-Marie’s Kitchen at Bristol Farms in Manhattan Beach. I was very excited to meet the Red Hat ladies, because I had missed their luncheon last year. Grace-Marie always adds one red ingredient to every recipe she makes in their honor, so I knew the dishes she was preparing would be fun and delicious. In addition to the fabulous Watermelon Gazpacho, we had Savory Garden Tomato Muffins, Red Pepper and Pesto Chicken Bites, Ruby Nectarine and Goat Cheese Croissant Tea Sandwiches, Red Cherry and Macadamia Nut Cookies, and Red Plum “Tarte Tartin” Cake.

The entire lunch was fantastic, but it was this Gazpacho that was over the top. I mean, this is the BEST gazpacho I have tasted in my LIFE. It was sweet from the watermelon and so tasty from Hatch Chiles, fresh fennel bulb, lime juice and zest, tomato, and red onion. Flavored with cilantro and mint, along with the flavor notes of smoky Spanish paprika, cumin and ground coriander, it made my taste buds sing. A cappella. Really beautiful.

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It is Hatch Chile time and Bristol Farms was having a big event outside the store when I arrived. Huge cartons of Hatch Chiles were stacked up everywhere and little samples of roasted chile concoctions were being given out. The Hatch Chile is grown in New Mexico and is quite famous. The Hatch Chile Fest is expected to gather around 30,000 people over this Labor Day Weekend. You can get Hatch chiles for yourself at participating Bristol Farms and Ralphs markets over the next week. Dorothy, over at ShockinglyDelicious, will show you how to roast Hatch Chiles yourself and about the Hatch roasting events in Southern California. Check these out.

Here you can see the ruby tones of the watermelon and the toasty delicious looking Hatch Chiles that were part of the garnish on top of the Gazpacho. The garnish was completed with cilantro, mint and lime, giving a little hint about the flavors in the jeweled topaz of the soup you are about to enjoy.

One of the Red Hatters had a birthday and was celebrated with the Birthday Hat and a song.

I wanted to get a group photo to show off the great hats these gals were wearing. The Red Hat Society is the largest women’s social club in the world and is primarily for women 50 years and older. Their sole objective is to inspire, empower and transform the lives of women through fun and friendship, and they have chapters in 50 states and 30 countries. I hope you will check out the Red Hat Society website and see all the fun stuff that they do. You can also read about Queen Mum Jeanne Smith in this article from the Redondo Beach Patch about the Redondo Rubies Chapter. And please check out these fabulous red hats that are available. I may join just so I can wear one.

For additional recipes from Grace-Marie’s Kitchen, look under Categories in the right-hand column.

Grace-Marie Johnston

For more information about the new schedule of cooking classes, visit Grace-Marie online at Bristol Farms or email her at gmj@bristolfarms.com.

I have really been enjoying this Spicy Korean Red Pepper Sauce lately. I have made a big container of it several times and slathered it over every food in sight. I mean, listen to the ingredients: soy sauce, grated fresh ginger, garlic, sugar, sesame oil, sesame seeds and gochugaru, which is Korean red pepper powder. I have covered roasted chicken wings and sauced crispy pork belly. It has one of those tastes that I can say, ‘it brought me to my knees.’ It is that spectacularly good. I mean it.

When I was working on this post, a family member knelt next to my computer, looked at the photo above, and exclaimed, ”Oh my god, that looks amazingly delicious! What is it? Are you going to make more of that?” I explained that it was fried tofu that was crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside, with the sauce he’d had on his chicken wings the night before, which he’d told me was drop-dead delicious. You know, one’s grown children are good for something after all. They tell you effusively how great your cooking is. Undoubtedly to ensure you continue to cook for them, when in reality they can cook for themselves just fine. But it works. I am such a sucker. Lol.

Two different brands of Gochugaru

Gochugaru, the Korean red pepper powder, comes in two styles, fine and coarse. The fine powder is used to make gochujang, the Korean red pepper paste which I used in a previous recipe for Korean Chicken Wings. The coarse flakes are used to make kimchi and in many other Korean dishes. Gochugaru is found only in Korean cuisine, unlike other ingredients that have versions in the cuisines of many countries around the world. You can read a very cute story about how the red pepper got to Korea on this blog KorasianKitchen.

I hope I have psyched you up about this Korean sauce and you can hardly wait to make it. You will need to get some gochugaru, which you can order on-line at Amazon or hmart. If you live in Los Angeles there is probably an Asian or Korean Market near you, or you can drive to Market World in Torrance. And if you are thinking, like me, that Korean food is the next big thing, check out this website Maangchi. Lots of information and recipes. I hope you have fun with this.