Fermented bean paste & Japanese organic products

The miso fish & pumpkin recipe I recently wrote about is actually quite close to a fairly common Chinese fish dish, as you can see here and here. Instead of miso, Chinese fermented soy bean paste (豆酱 or tau cheo in Hokkien dialect) is used instead. A typical jar looks like this.
Concerned about additives and [...]

Korean glutinous rice balls in red bean porridge

Just came across this wonderful food blog, 小小米桶的寫食廚房, by a Taiwanese housewife and published food writer, whose nickname is “Xiao Xiao Mitong” (Tiny Rice Tub). The large collection of recipes, including Japanese and Korean ones, is accompanied by plenty of stunning photographs, and annotated with Mitong’s cooking comments.
With Winter Solstice just a couple of days [...]

Korean Roasted Corn Tea

I’d never heard of oksusu-cha before, and simply chanced upon it in the new Korean grocery shop in Square 2 mall at Novena.

Close-up of the roasted barley grains.
Surfing the net, I’ve also just learnt that in Korea, it’s common to mix roasted barley (bori-cha; Japanese: mugicha) with roasted corn to make tea.
My Korean friend [...]

Tea for the caffeine-sensitive person

I love teas but have had to refrain from black teas because of my increasing caffeine-sensitivity. Mainly I get gastric irritation, against which there are some tips here.
Some solutions:
1) Go for low-caffeine or no-caffeine teas: genmaicha, kukicha, houjicha; and teas not made from the camellia sinensus plant: mugicha, Chinese chrysanthemum tea or herbal teas. Korean [...]