Foodblogging: It's Korean week!

We're returning to pescetarianism at least for the month of January after a year of what might be described as hedonism.  It's time to crack down and start eating healthy again.  And because I can't ever get enough Korean food, it's Korean week in our house.  We started off New Year's Day with a Korean feast. 

Dduk gook (rice cake soup), sigeumchi namul (spinach side dish), dubu buchim yangnyumjang (panfried tofu with spicy sauce), kimchi, and kongnamul muchim (bean sprout side dish).

The dduk gook was a vegetarian version from The Kitchn and it was..... not so great.  It really needed some depth of flavor from a broth.  I think using vegetable broth or even dashi stock instead of plain water would have been much better.  We had a carton of beef broth leftover in the fridge so I added that afterwards and it's much more palatable.  So we're not entirely pescetarian on this one.

I used a different recipe than I normally use for the kongnamul muchim.  Maangchi is usually right on, but her version was WAY salty.  There's just no reason to boil the sprouts in super salty water in the beginning.  I had to rinse them off and go easy on the sauce and they were still really salty.  Husband and Lily didn't mind, but I'm pretty sensitive to salt.  I'm going back to my original recipe with sesame oil, sugar, and just a splash of soy sauce.