Happy Holidays: Best of 2014

'Tis the season to be jolly and reflect upon the previous year; and boy, was 2014 a good one!  This was Who Eats Better?'s second year on the web!

Last year's end brought a countdown of the Top 10 Tasty Adventures in 2013.  This year, thanks to a lot more readers and shares, I want to recognize the best posts of 2014.  Without further adieu, the winners are....

It's just a bit ironic that the most boring sport I've participated in, ice fishing, resulted in my most popular post this year.  Get your step-by-step guide to catching a trout here.      

Runner-Up:
Job Description: True Korean "Ajumma": Korean women over the age of 60 have been jokingly, but lovingly, dubbed the third gender of Koreans.  They are not your average grannies.  

My summary of my amazing trip to the Philippines got more likes than any post I wrote this year by a landslide.  It captured the attention of readers around the globe and got several comments on Google+ (my main platform for sharing).  If you've never considered the Philippines for vacation, you just might after reading this post.  

Runner-Up:
A Fortress Guarding Beef Ribs: I took a trip to the ancient Korean capitol of Suwon for a famous lunch and interesting history lesson.  

I turned a really easy hike into a comic book adventure.  I love to write unconventional posts like this one and spent a lot of time putting it together.  I think it's worth a look.  

While these weren't the most viewed or liked this year, they still got a decent amount of traffic and thumbs up.  

Welcome to Korea, Mom and Dad!: My two favorite people came to visit me and we ate enough for three blog posts, but I narrowed it down to one.  

Bubba Gump Chicken: Everyone loves recipe ideas and these are the epitome of simple.  Whole ingredients, what you see is what you get.  

Stay Tuned...

A lot of delicious adventures to come in 2015.  Follow the blog to stay up to date.  Happy holidays, and as always, thanks for reading!  

Bubba Gump Chicken

Over the past couple months I’ve been working hard with a personal trainer to build more lean muscle.  She’s also my unofficial nutritionist and has me on a high-protein diet.  Among her favorite proteins are almonds, tofu, eggs, and milk, but her most adored food by far is skinless, boneless chicken breast.  She asks me every day if it’s “on my menu” and is adamant I have chicken for dinner as much as possible.  Chicken isn’t the most common meat found in Korean recipes.  Pork and beef are much more popular, but unfortunately not as healthy as lean chicken, at least in regards to my current goals.  So I’ve had to get creative with what’s available to me locally that I can afford.  (Groceries in Seoul are among the most expensive I’ve ever seen, including when I lived in New York City.) 

I have become the “Bubba” of chicken.  You remember the lovable character of Bubba from the classic movie Forrest Gump, and his iconic shrimp scene, right?  “Shrimp is the fruit of the sea.”  As a reminder, or in case you’ve been living under a rock since 1994, here is the famous clip. 

“Anyway, like I was saying…”  Chicken is to me what shrimp was to Bubba.  I can boil it, sauté it, fry it, marinate it, BBQ it…

Here are some of my favorite chicken dinners. 

"Korean" Chicken

My trainer's personal recipe combines equal parts ketchup and oyster sauce for this simple and saucy dish.  

Chicken Stir Fry

A touch of sesame oil and soy sauce on top of brown rice.  

 

Chicken Tenders

Just pan-fried chicken strips with homemade BBQ sauce (ketchup and oyster sauce).

 

Chicken Curry

A little olive oil and curry powder go a long way.

 

Chicken Sandwich

Some homemade hummus, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, and lettuce replacing one slice of bread makes the best summer sandwich.

 

Chicken Wraps

Black beans add extra protein and with brown rice as the carb, skip the tortilla and opt for lettuce (also makes it gluten-free!).

Chicken Pizza

A chicken twist on the classic Hawaiian pizza.  My homemade BBQ sauce combined with pineapple makes this a sweet and savory meal.    

 

Chicken Tacos

These tacos are so simple: what you see is what you get.  A deliciously spicy salsa is what drove these home.

 

"Rainbow" Chicken

The red cabbage is what makes this colorful dish pop.  I added some Korean red pepper paste (similar to Sriracha) to give it some zest. 

 

Thai Chicken

This Thai peanut sauce recipe is so easy (shout out to Kelly): creamy peanut butter, Hoisin sauce, and Sriracha (ratios in descending order respectively, play with the measurements, add water for a smooth consistency).

Bibimbap for the King...and Michael Jackson

Food has always been an extremely important piece of Korean culture.  For the kings of the Joseon dynasty beginning in the 1300's, food was as precious as gold.  The royal dishes, called "sura", were made by the most skillful cooks using only the best seasonal ingredients selected from every available source in the country.  Kings usually dined on three square meals a day, each with 9-12 side dishes!  Here is a replica of how a typical table appeared at mealtime in the palace.  It's good to be the king, eh?

Replicas of a king's table during the Joseon dynasty; he even got dessert!

I was fortunate enough to attend a cooking class in the beautiful Gyeongbokgung Palace.  On the menu was "goldongban" more commonly known as "bibimbap", which means "mixed rice."  There are many variations of this dish, but we concentrated on the more traditional one (and randomly enough, Michael Jackson's favorite according to the class's head chef), involving minced beef and shiitake mushrooms.  Here are some pictures of our personal "suragan", meaning "royal kitchen."

Clockwise from top left: the instructional station with a closeup view of the action on the TV; our group cooking station; the lovely recipe; Korean women frying up fish fillets.

Behold the magical foods!

The most interesting thing about Korean dishes is the significance of all its components.  Koreans have a strong belief in the holistic power of food.  Good food is the best medicine.   Ancient Koreans actually believed that certain food had healing powers and could cure even the worst diseases.  While not as extreme today, there are many foods that hold a distinct purpose.  Some of our ingredients in the cooking class including shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, and Chinese bell flowers held the secrets to warding off cancer, relieving a hangover, and soothing a sore throat, respectively.  

My universally balanced bibimbap.

Another integral part of any Korean dish is the color.  The importance of colors spawns from the belief that a person's body is only healthy when its yin and yang are in balance with the five elements that make up the universe.  Not only visually appealing, the food's colors are these five elements' representation: red, green, black, white and yellow.  You can see in the bibimbap that we made in the class, each color is made prominent by the cucumbers (green), fern brackens (black), Chinese bell flowers (white), fried fish fillets (yellow), and red pepper paste (red).  

Professionally-made bibimbap

In most traditional bibimbap, the color yellow is represented with a raw egg.  Cooked and served in a scorching iron bowl, the hot rice cooks the egg as you mix all the ingredients together.  The presentation is almost too beautiful to eat! 

The cooking class was a great success.  Not only did I eat some delicious food, but I learned the care and love that goes into making Korean food.  Several Korean women were frying the fish fillets as we entered and the fern brackens had been soaking in salt water for days.  There are very specific techniques in cooking and preparing each ingredient, and they made sure we were doing it just so.  It was quite a delicious learning experience!  

Here I am with my group at our cooking station.

Vegan Challenge: Hosting Dinner

About once a week some friends and I take turns hosting each other for dinner.  We aptly call it “Monday Night Dinner.”  Some of our most stand-out dishes include Alaskan salmon, pho with thinly sliced beef, and most recently, steak and cheesy potatoes.  So when it was my turn to host during my vegan challenge, I was pretty nervous.  I almost hoped my friends would forget I was forsaking meat and cheese and I could just trick them into thinking this was just like any other meal.  They all came in with their vegan jokes, however, so I knew I wasn’t going to be pulling any wool over any eyes. 

Fortunately, I live in Boulder, CO: the land of dietary restrictions including veganism, gluten-free, and granola-loving hipsters.  It wasn’t hard to find some help.  A vegetarian co-worker, formerly a strict vegan, had a stash of favorite vegan recipes that he shared with me.  One of his favorites was a Rustic Bread and Eggplant Lasagna.  It has layers of tomato sauce, but instead of noodles in between, there’s sourdough bread, and instead of meat and cheese, you’ll find roasted eggplant.  Topped with breadcrumbs and fresh basil, it was a beautiful and tasty dish. 

Although it's called lasagna, I'm not sure we really missed the noodles and meat because the dish was so unique and flavorful.  Still, for my non-vegan friends, and to settle my dinner-hosting nerves, I had the Parmesan cheese and seasonings prominently displayed. 

They dabbled in the cheese (who wouldn’t?), but overall, we all really enjoyed it. 

I will say, the sourdough bread added quite the sour element, almost overpowering to me.  If I make this again, I might try it with another hearty herbed loaf.  Or I’ll just wait a couple weeks and use noodles and hamburger meat...who am I kidding? 

Next: "Vegan Challenge: An Ode to Chickens"

Drew's Variation: Spicy Chorizo-Stuffed Pork Loin

My younger brother Drew is an aspiring chef.  I think for at least the last decade the kitchen has been Drew’s domain.  Last year, at the age of 17, he published a calendar with beautiful pictures of some of his favorite creations, accompanied by recipe cards.  He’s amazing, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my little brother.  If I was stranded on an island and could only bring one thing, I’d bring him because we could quote Monty Python over some creative feast made out of coconuts and fish.  “Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?” (Direct quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)

Anyway, I invited some friends over and decided to take a stab at Drew’s stuffed pork loin.  I started with the biggest cut of meat I’ve ever purchased for myself: a 4 ½ pound pork roast.  It was a little intimidating so I cut off about a pound (which I used to make pulled pork tacos about a week later: yum!), but it was still quite the feat to carve off the fat and then slice the whole thing in half, long ways.  After marinating, it was stuffed with chorizo sausage, fresh cilantro and spinach, and some lime zest and juice.  Once it was tied shut it kind of looked like a giant hoagie.  It was a monster of meat! 

The marinade ingredients included tequila, so it was only natural that my friends and I sipped on lime margaritas while the meat monster grilled and I simmered some colorful peppers and onions for the accompanying Mexican rice.  The thick pork took about an hour to cook through, and we were all coughing on paprika that had infused the air, but the cooking process was my favorite part of the evening.  All eight of us were crammed into the kitchen, engaging in separate conversations, sometimes all joining into one, listening to music, choking a bit on spices, and laughing.  The food was more difficult and took longer to prepare than I had anticipated, but I couldn’t have been happier with my friends there to keep me company and pitch in where needed.  It really was the perfect evening.

Back to the pork: it turned out to be incredible.  I was worried I had overcooked it out of fear of subjecting everyone to raw meat consumption, but it was so juicy and tender, and the stuffing was the perfect complement!  It brought a little heat, but the mild Mexican rice and vegetables kept the bite at bay.  I also served a small tomato and cucumber salad as a palate cleanser.  Our kitchen conversations easily transferred to the dinner table where the talking and laughing flowed as smoothly as our sweet margaritas. 

Cheers, little bro!  I couldn’t be prouder and am even more excited to try my hand at the other 11 recipe cards which include Gyro Burgers, Sausage and Goat Cheese Pizza, and Chocolate Zucchini Cake!