THE UK is very cosmopolitan when it comes to food.

You only have to look at somewhere like Stockton Heath where contemporary British, French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese and Indian restaurants are all part of the bustling dining out culture.

But Korean cuisine is a different story. Outside of London there are a limited number of restaurants and shops serving authentic Korean food in the UK.

Hyeon Jeong Yoon hopes to change that as a cookery class teacher and the only Korean food blogger in the country.

The mum-of-two grew up in Daegu, the third biggest city in South Korea with a population of 2.5 million.

It was there she met her husband Simon Duffy while he was teaching and she moved to England seven years ago when her mother-in-law fell ill.

Since then Hyeon’s love of food has stayed strong and she launched Gilded Gingerbread in June 2017 as a way to share her traditional recipes learnt from her mum and grandmother.

And so, with Hyeon located just a short drive from Warrington in neighbouring Newton, I was invited to try my hand at a couple of dishes.

I learnt to make kimchi, Korea’s staple fermented vegetable dish (much better than it sounds) as well as bulgogi, which translates as ‘fire meat’ and is marinated slices of steak served with rice.

Hyeon, 42, said that many Koreans eat kimchi every day and it is easy to see why when it is so tasty and easy to whip up.

I made the Chinese cabbage-based vegan kimchi as it showcased another part of Hyeon’s work, running a business called Love Kimchi.

Hyeon sells ready-made kimchi which is free from any animal products as well as DIY kimchi-making kits.

But there are more than 200 varieties of the often spicy dish and more remarkable still is the fact you can keep it for up to two years as it is fermented – and its flavour changes over time.

Chopping the vegetables, thickening a sauce over the hob and adding the seasoning was all it took and it tasted great – as long as you don’t mind food with a bit of a kick as there is plenty of red pepper powder in there.

If you choose to follow the recipes the main difficulty is sourcing the ingredients like Chinese cabbage, glutinous rice flour and Korean red pepper powder (gochugaru).

Hyeon recommends Manchester’s Wing Yip Chinese supermarket but reckons ingredients should gradually become more readily available due to Korean food being considered quite trendy at the moment and the increase in demand for vegan products.

It also helped that all eyes were recently on South Korea for the Winter Olympics. Then there’s the health benefits. Kimchi is a superfood due to its numerous health benefits and anti-ageing properties.

One of the biggest benefits is in its healthy bacteria, lactobacilli, which is found in fermented food. Bulgogi was more of a challenge but also pretty quick which is perfect if you’re feeding all the family or entertaining.

Hyeon, who teaches for Didsbury’s Food Sorcery school and also hosts Korean barbecue classes, recommends using ribeye steak but medallion or sirloin are fine too and by putting the meat in the freezer for an hour beforehand makes it a breeze to cut it into strips.

It is all fried up with a soy sauce, garlic and sesame oil (another ingredient rather difficult to get hold of) marinade which gave the steak a mild, sweet flavour which was really moreish. It’s traditionally served with rice or noodles but over in Korea you can find bulgogi sandwiches or even burritos.

Eating the bulgogi and kimchi at the end was a delight. It was my first experience of Korean food but I’m already a convert.

  • Hyeon is at Liverpool Vegan Festival on Saturday. To visit her website go to visit gildedgingerbread.com

HOW TO MAKE KIMCHI

Ingredients
2 Chinese/Napa cabbages (2kg)
1.5l water mixed with half a cup sea salt
2 cups water
1 piece of sea kelp (3cm square)
1 tbsp glutinous rice flour
1 pear
1 piece of ginger (5g), mashed
6 cloves of garlic, mashed
2 tbsp sea salt
2 and a half tbsp sugar
1 and one third cups Korean red pepper powder (gochugaru)
9 spring onions/scallions (125g) finely shredded
1 carrot (70g) cut into matchsticks

Method
Wash the cabbages and chop them into small bite size pieces and put them in a big bowl or pan. Mix the sea salt and water until the salt has dissolved and add to the cabbages.

Cover the bowl with food wrap for four hours to marinate taking the cover off and giving it a stir every hour. When four hours are up, drain all the salty water from the cabbages using a colander. Leave the colander on a plate or a bowl for around half an hour to drain all the salty water from the cabbage.

To make the thickening sauce, put the water and kelp in a pan over a high heat until it boils and then simmer over a low heat for around 10 minutes.

Remove the kelp and add the sticky rice flour to the pan over a low heat, stirring until it thickens. 

Don’t worry if it is a little lumpy. Leave to cool. Peel the pear and cut into small pieces then puree with a mortar and pestle.

Put the thickening sauce in a bowl. Add the Korean red pepper powder, mashed garlic, ginger, pear, sugar and sea salt and mix them well. Add the chopped carrots and the spring onions to the sauce and mix them.

Once mixed, add the sauce to the drained cabbage in a big bowl or pan and mix well. Eat it with a bowl of freshly cooked rice and side dishes to enjoy it the Korean way.

AND BULGOGI

THIS non-spicy Korean classic serves two and takes about 35 minutes to prepare but just 10 minutes to cook.

Ingredients

500g ribeye steak
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp mashed garlic
1 tbsp rice wine
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 onion, thinly sliced (230g)
5 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 spring onions/green onions, chopped into small pieces (25g)
Pinch of pepper
Pinch of roasted sesame seeds

Method

Freeze the steak for one to one and a half hours (it differs depending on your freezer temperature) and slice the steak as thin as a slice of bacon. 

Chop the thinly sliced steak into small bite sized pieces. You don’t want to completely freeze the steak, but putting it in the freezer for a couple of hours makes it much easier to slice thinly.

Put the sliced steak into a bowl. Add the sugar and the mashed garlic, the rice wine and the oyster sauce and stir them completely.

Add the chopped onions, the soy sauce, the sesame oil and the spring/green onions and stir them a bit. 

Add a pinch of pepper and mix well. Set aside for 30 minutes. Heat a frying pan over high heat. Do not use any vegetable oil to cook the bulgogi. 

Put everything in the pan and cook until the meat is well done. Stir occasionally while cooking. It shouldn’t take too long to be cooked completely. 

Note: if you like tender cooked onions, fry them separately before you cook the meat.

Serve the bulgogi with a bowl of cooked rice and your favourite side dishes.