It's already been 2 weeks since I led a dumpling workshop at the Korea Society. It's late, but I wanted to at least make a note before it became a distant memory.
The Korea Society provides me with a unique opportunity where I can combine a short presentation, cooking demo and simplified hands-on cooking participation. Last time I was at the Korea Society, I held a workshop under the theme of Korean drama and Korean food. We watched a portion of the Korean drama Kimchi Family (발효가족 bal hyo ga jok) and made gardenia kimchi from the drama clip. By the way, a 10-minute video clip from the event is finally available here.
This time, I went with the theme of Korean dumplings. I started by sharing some fun stories behind Korean dumplings. I drew examples from a folk song from the 1200's that mentions a dumpling store (although the song itself is quite racy and is not about any dumpling store), dumpling recipes from the first cookbook written in Korean language in the 1600's, and commercials from when steamed buns were first mass-produced in Korea.
Then I had a short demo of making kimchi dumpling and rolled dumpling (also often known as naked dumpling) along with making dumpling wrapper from scratch and different shapes of dumplings that were shown in the cookbook discussed during the presentation.
After that, it was time to do-it-yourself! People got their hands on making kimchi dumplings and rolled dumplings, we cooked them and enjoyed a bowl of kimchi dumpling soup and rolled dumplings with a dipping sauce.
After some dumplings along with a specialty drink of cinnamon-ginger (수정과 su jeong gwa) soju cocktail, people were relaxed and ready for a dessert. I went back to demo how to make basic steamed buns and everyone had a taste of a mini steamed buns with sweet red bean filling.
The event sold out pretty fast and we ended up adding a few more people than originally planned. I had a lot of fun planning and preparing for the event, but I'm always reminded what great help I get at the Korea Society throughout the planning stage and during the workshop. It's always a pleasure to work with nice and smart people.
Hopefully I can unfold these dumpling stories and recipes on my blog over time. Maybe the video clip will come sooner than the last time. For now, I'm working on the next projects on my plate but I'm also keeping my distance from dumplings for a while. Not that I got sick of it, I think I was actually getting addicted(?) after eating all kinds of dumplings and steamed buns for about a month straight. Like everything in life, I believe in moderation.
But I guess that doesn't mean I am staying away from sweets. The day after the dumpling workshop, I made green tea mochi rice cake (찹쌀떡 chap ssal ddeok) with the sweet red beans and pine nuts leftover from the event. This may have been the first time I made a conscious choice of making a dessert gluten-free. Gluten or not, it was delicious.
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