Posts Tagged “Most”
No.1 Kimchi
Undoubtedly, one of the most recognizable images of Korea would have to be kimchi. A fermented dish that is always served at every Korean table, kimchi is a health food that is quickly gaining worldwide popularity.
Made with spicy red peppers, there are a surprising number of kimchi varieties available. There are also many dishes made with kimchi such as kimchijjigae,kimchijeon, and kimchibokkeum, to name just a few.
How to Enjoy: Since kimchi is only a side dish, it is meant to compliment the meal rather than be eaten on its own. Whether it is with rice or another dish, kimchi is a tasty addition to the table.
No.2 Bibimbap
Bibimbap is another representative dish that truly represents Korean dining. Served with grilled meats and a variety of vegetables atop white rice, it is then mixed with either red pepper paste or some other distinctive form of marinade.
Not only is the bibimbap a great-tasting health food, but it is also very simple to make and to eat, which has allowed this dish to gain popularity as it being served on airlines. Though the Jeonju region is known to be the home of the bibimbap, there are also many reputable restaurants in Seoul as well.
How to Enjoy: Use your chopsticks to mix the red pepper paste thoroughly with the rice, then, eat with a spoon, along with the available choices of side dishes.
No.3 Traditional Korea Dishes of the Royalty
Korean royal cuisines are dishes strictly prepared by experienced chefs with recipes passed down by previous generations, boasting healthy ingredients, artistic decorations, and of course, truly unique flavoring.
Korean royal cuisine was served to the nobility at the palace feasts, then, the nobility introduced these dishes to the general citizens, hence beginning the Korean food cultures. If you have some money to spare, we recommend that you try Korean royal cuisines, since it allows you to truly experience many areas of Korea’s traditional food culture.
How to Enjoy: Since there are a great number of dishes that will be served with the meal, it is a good idea to ask the waiter how to sample the dishes. Most waiters are very friendly, and will happily provide detailed answers for their guests.
No.4 Galbi
Of all the popular meat dishes, includingsamgyeopsal and bulgogi, galbi remains a best seller. Preparations call for the meat to be cut into strips, 7cm in length, and 1cm in diameter, and left to sit in a marinade made from green onions, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, sesame seed salt, and black pepper.
The meat is then left to grill on medium to high heat to sear in the flavors. Due to the effort in preparing galbi, prices are quite high and most households only eat the special meat on special occasions such as birthdays, or when dining out.
How to Enjoy: The best way to enjoy galbi is to eat it while cooking it on the spot, while cutting the meat into comfortable slices to be eaten with a chopstick in one bite, then eat the last remains of the meat on the bones by picking up the ribs with your hands.
No.5 Bulgogi
Bulgogi is either prepared using beef or pork marinated in soy sauce, honey (or sugar), green onions, garlic, sesame seed salt, and black pepper, and grilled to perfection. The meat is generally sweet and tender, making it a popular dish amongst children as well. The dish is also very easy to make at home.
How to Enjoy: The meat is very well marinated, so it is often eaten with rice. However, there are times when bulgogi is eaten by itself.
No.6 Samgyeopsal
The belly region of the pork where the meat and fat are layered into 3 parts is calledsamgyeopsal. Its popularity in Korea is remarkable, as Korea consumes the mostsamgyeopsal in the world, with the country often having to import samgyeopsal in order to meet the hunger of the citizens.
Samgyeopsal is best enjoyed grilled and wrapped in fresh vegetables. The dish is especially popular amongst men who compliment the meat with a bottle of Korea’s alcoholic beverage, soju, and is often enjoyed during the late evening.
How to Enjoy: Thoroughly cook the samgyeopsal, then wrap the meat in lettuce along with the vegetables of your choice including garlic, kimchi, green peppers, and more. You may also eat the meat alone with a sauce of your choice as well.
No.7 Samgyetang
When preparing samgyetang, thoroughly cleanse a baby chicken. Then, after stuffing the stomach with ginseng, milk vetch, jujubes, and glutinous rice, cook in lightly salted boiling water. This is an extremely popular health food especially during the summertime, where Koreans sought out for the dish during the hottest days of the summer in July and August, in order to revitalize their strength.
During these periods, lines will gather in front of Samgyetang restaurants, so be ready to wait in line.
How to Enjoy: Use your chopsticks to rip off pieces of the chicken and dip it in salt before eating. Then, use your spoon to dig out the glutinous rice from the belly and eat it with the soup. You do not have to eat the ginseng inside the Samgyetang, as all of the nutrients have already been boiled into the soup. If you feel that the Samgyetang is still bland after taking a taste of the dish, add a little salt and pepper.
No.8 Naengmyoen
Buckwheat flower is lightly mixed with starch when preparing the noodles fornaengmyeon, then put in a bowl of chilled beef broth along with thinly sliced meat, cucumbers, pear, boiled eggs, and other various vegetables. The mul- naengmyeondescribed above is the most common type ofnaengmyeon, but the spicy tastes of thebibim-naengmyeon made with red pepper paste is another favorite.
If you add raw flatfish to the bibim-naengmyeon, the dish becomes hoe-naengmyeong, and if you switch the beef broth of the mul-naengmyeon to a radish broth, it becomes dongchimi-naengmyeon. In the past, the chilled naengmyeon was eaten during the winter, but now, the dish is most commonly enjoyed during the summer.
How to Enjoy: Cut the noodles with a pair of scissors, then mix the noodles into the broth with your chopsticks and eat with the other ingredients in the bowl, while sipping on the broth from time to time. The mul-naengmyeon is typically served with a side of vinegar and mustard sauce, where you may add to your liking. When trying bibim-naengmyeon, mix the noodles thoroughly with the sauce and enjoy. The broth accompanying the bibim-naengmyeon is the broth used in mul-naengmyeon, for you to eat along with the bibim-naengmyeon.
No.9 Seafood Dishes
Three sides of the Korean peninsula is surrounded by water, making it logical that Korea’s seafood dishes have been well developed. A few of Korea’s most favorite seafood dishes include the haemulpajeon, a pan-fried dish prepared by mixing green onions and vegetables into a flour mix made with flour, eggs, and water, then fried to perfection; Hoe, a Korean raw fish delicacy; and maeuntang, a stew made with fish leftover from the hoe. The haemulpajeon is popular as a snack amongst children, or as a side dish eaten with dongdongju, an alcoholic beverage, enjoyed by adults.
No.10 Tteok
Tteok, or rice cakes, is a tasty snack enjoyed by most Koreans just as cake is enjoyed by Westerners. Rice is the main ingredient, then complimented with various ingredients such as grains, pine nuts, chestnuts, jujubes, fruits, sagebrush, wild aster, and other vegetables to make a diverse variety of rice cakes. It’s quite enjoyable choosing from a selection of over 100 different kinds of rice cakes to eat. In the past, rice cakes were never left out on birthdays, large feasts, or religious rituals.
Today, rice cakes are available at rice cake stores, at nearby markets, or even at rice cake cafes. Rice cake cafes serve beautifully decorated rice cakes that are almost too exquisite to eat, so if you decide to visit Korea, treat yourself to one of Korea’s most traditional snacks.
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LEADERSHIP STARTS TODAY.
The faces of environmental leadership in the world today know that big problems like climate change or oil dependency can’t be solved tomorrow. But these five political heavyweights, hailing from Europe, Australia, Asia, and the good ol’ U.S. of A, know that big changes start with new legislation and lots of cooperation. It also takes courage to build a political career on new ideas and technologies. Take Iceland’s Geir H. Haarde, who won’t let up on renewable energy policy, despite a near-crippling economic disaster earlier this year. Powering Iceland using geothermal energy from volcanic activity? That’s not science fictionâit’s reality in Scandinavia. Check out this video to see Iceland’s geothermal stations in action. Or consider South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak, who has helped make environmental awareness and conservatiion a huge priority to his constituents, while adding clean rapid-transit buses to help reduce air pollution. From ratifying the Kyoto Proposal to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these guys (and gal) are using outside-the-box strategies to make a difference (well,#5 promises he’ll be making a difference). We salute these five leaders for giving environmental concerns the attention they deserve. Hey, it’s our planet. We’d better take care of it.
Check out the article from treehugger here, or read the article below!
ICELAND’S GEIR H. HAARDE
Despite the economic pummeling Iceland has taken in recent months, its eco cred remains top-notch. The island nation gets 80 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources, an impressive achievement even for a country of 300,000 people. We posted videos of Iceland’s geothermal stations earlier this year. Even with the economic downturn, Prime Minister Haarde remains committed to making renewable energy a new pillar of the Icelandic economy.
Earlier this year, Haarde was named the greenest political leader by NEWSWEEK. He has been lauded not only for his leadership in expanding geothermal supply, but also for training scientists around the world as Iceland has headed the geothermal department of the United Nations University. With government backing, Icelandic companies are exporting their expertise in geothermal to places as far-flung as Djibouti, China and southern California
GERMANY’S ANGELA MERKEL
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is one of the few politicians left in the international arena who helped hammer out the original global warming agreement at Kyoto in 1997. Merkel’s environmental leadership goes way back â she was named German environment minister in 1994. She has pushed Germany to raise renewable energy to 50% of the electricity portfolio by 2050. It’s currently 12% â compare the United Kingdom’s 3% â and is on track to be 20% by 2020.
Since January 2007, when Germany assumed the presidency of the European Union, Angela Merkel has prioritized climate change as a key issue for her administration. Merkel is spearheading the EU’s bold energy plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020.
In January, The Guardian named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as one of 50 people who could save the planet.
Still Germany is far from earning its stripes as a truly green nation. A recent study found that 10 of the top 30 worst polluting power plants in Europe are located in Germany.
AUSTRALIA’S KEVIN RUDD
Australia still produces more than 80% of its electricity from coal, and its economy depends significantly on coal exports, which is a huge problem in a new green economic era. But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd won the election last year partly on a platform to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and by a margin so large the media called it a âRuddslide.â He then switched his predecessor’s long aversion to the agreement and signed in last December.
Rudd is also trying to build up renewables, and set a target for all states to produce 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. We recently reported that South Australia has already reached the target ten years ahead of schedule.
However Rudd has also begun to push hard for clean coal, a disconcerting development for environmentalists. In September, Rudd made the rounds in New York looking for an Australia-based international program to ramp up research and development of clean-coal technology.
Rudd backs a clean coal strategy with three tenets: first, develop new coal-burning power plants that emit carbon dioxide in a more-concentrated stream. Second, capture the carbon dioxide and funnel it into pipes. Third, transport it to places where it can be injected underground for long-term storage.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog, Australia says it will commit up to 100 million Australian dollars a year toward a âglobal carbon capture and storage institute.â His objective is to push hard on achieving a goal laid out this summer by the Group of Eight leading nations: Deploy some 20 industrial-scale carbon-capture coal plants by 2020.
SOUTH KOREA’S LEE MYUNG-BAK
As the head of Hyundai, the country’s largest conglomerate, in the 1970s and 80s, Lee helped build much of postwar South Korea transforming a poor, farm-based economy into one of Asia’s great success stories.
When Lee became mayor of Seoul in 2002, he helped clean a dirty waterway that had been buried beneath a concrete highway system in the 1970s. He also overhauled the city’s transportation system, adding clean rapid-transit buses.
Recently, as president, Lee’s government launched new energy conservation program, which requires yellow label on electronic devices that spend more than one watt in standby mode. The plan has a second phase that may soon be implemented, where car owners will be forbidden to drive on one designated weekday, and violators will be fined.
Koreans are increasingly prioritizing environmental issues alongside their president: a recent poll indicated that 53 percent think environmental protection is more important than economic development.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (???)
If President-elect Obama follows through with many of his campaign promises, he may swiftly earn a place among the world’s most inspiring green leaders. Certainly his mention of âa planet in perilâ during his speech on election night was encouraging.
His senior advisers have said Obama will introduce a major climate change bill in an attempt to bring the US back into the international environment fold, according to The Guardian.
He is also expected to announce a goal of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then cutting them by 80% by 2050. Obama supports a cap-and-trade system with carbon permits auctioned off to industries to encourage them to reduce emissions.
During the campaign, Obama spoke of a 5 billion economic-stimulus package intended to revamp the US energy economy by creating five million new âgreenâ jobs. You can also see our post on 7 Executive Orders President Obama Should Sign to Protect the Environment: Center for Progressive Reform.
