A Belated Korean New Year Celebration

Jeff and I like to celebrate the Korean New Year each February. It's always a fun evening where we can cook together and enjoy choosing which pots we will serve with. New Year fell on February 8th, we had other commitments and no time for a trip to the Korean market. So we celebrated a little late!

This year we invited our friend and potter neighbor, Phil Pollet to join us.

We started the evening with an appetizer of pajeon (green onion pancake). This year we added a little seafood - shrimp and mussels. Traditionally, the seafood version has squid, but not everyone cares for it so the mussels were the substitute.

The main course was the traditional New Year soup, Tteokguk. A rich beef soup with mushrooms, onions, bean sprouts, and a little kimchi and rice cake. The rice cake isn't the puffed rice cakes that we are familiar with here in the US. They are a thick, dense, rice noodle. Often slice on the diagonal. They are my favorite!

Along with the soup we had bowls of kimchi, rice, shredded jicama and carrot, and a nod to the south with pickled okra. It was all very delicious and fun.......... Happy New Year!