Hello Friends! We did it once again. Banchan Workshop #2 happened. 4 months of planning and organizing compacted into 3 hours of workshop. There was 11 of us gathered in the kitchen studio and cooked up a storm and had a feast at the end. To say the least, we had a blast! 3 hours long workshop was everything about cooking process from start to finish. We prepped our own fresh ingredients, we cooked in groups of two, we garnished and plated our own dishes and we served ourselves! Hey, we even cleaned up! Here is how it all played out. Let me warn you, this is going to be the longest post I’ve ever done. There was just too much to share it with you all. Thanks for reading in advance. ;P

I have to say, I really wanted to be prepared for this workshop. I know that the original idea behind these workshops wasn’t anything professional, it was meant to gather some friends over for good recipe sharing and to share the joy of cooking by working together in the kitchen and actually tasting what we’ve made. We had no professional guest chef or anyone telling us what we were doing wrong. But we wanted this workshop to be structured enough that there was plenty of hands-on experience for everyone and possibly a demo from someone who has little bit more experience in the kitchen.

I picked 4 recipes that I wanted to cook together with the class. All of these recipe I have tried making it at home and are original, except for the steamed eggs which is a pretty common dish in Korean meal. We assigned everyone into groups. Some dishes were already prepared by us at home and some we made in class. Here is what we had on our menu.

My sister SungYun (Samantha) took care of arranging flowers for us. Thank you, Sis! Flowers are from this cute flower shop in Alameda called Dandelion hidden away in a small alley on Park St. SungYun unni arranged it in different size bottles including the small bottles that our guests can take home. White field flowers and a hint of fall was such a great idea since we knew that there were going be too many color palette on our tasting table with just the food itself. We wanted to keep the flower aspect simple yet beautiful.

Here is Julee (one of our ‘crew’ member) and our awesome and only male guest, Joseph really getting in to prepping the ingredients for the Fried Bulgogi & Shitake Mushrooms. Yes, you heard me right, deep fried bulgogi!!!

Deep frying is not something that we normally do at home. I mean, the hassle of using so much oil that is not easy to discard or re-use is to say the least. Dealing with hot oil can be a daunting task for anyone who doesn’t spend too much time in the kitchen. But, we really wanted to try this recipe because it’s one of my favorite recipes growing up. My mom would make it for us on a special occasion. I don’t know if it was her idea to deep fry marinated bulgogi but I think it was a genius one. We also wanted to add a dish that is kid-friendly so this was a great addition to our menu. Actually it was the only meat dish that we had on our menu. If we were going to add a heavy meat on the menu, I wanted to go ALL OUT.

One of our guest, Ann working on the Bakesale Betty Coleslaw Bibimmyun (BBC 비빔면). 

With her partner, Tina beautifully plating the dish on our favorite Westelm ceramic plate.

Let’s not forget about the little details that went into this event. These ceramic Chinese spoons from Daiso (Japanese dollar store) is one of my favorite items to use at the workshop.

When I had my first meeting with Marla about using the kitchen studio, she kindly gave me a tour of the studios inside the building and introduced me to some folks. There were different types of bakers, chefs, caterers and coffee roasters like Debbie and Sherry at Ruby’s Roast. They were so kind and welcoming. They gave me a bag of their freshly roasted beans for me to take home and try. I really loved their dark blend which has very nutty and rich flavors; flavors that I love the most when serving with desserts. 

Since we had these awesome coffee for the workshop, I had to think of some type of dessert idea to serve. For those who know me, I don’t know how to bake. I mean, I don’t even know how to bake a simple cookie. I’m used to eye-balling everything just like all other Korean ah-jum-mas (what you typically call older married woman in Korea) and baking that requires exact measurements and timing would be challenging for me. I had to ask my friend and photographer of this event, Lisa at Good on Paper to bake something for us. I knew she would be inspired to bake anytime. Just check out her blog with yummy photos of healthy and simple bake-at-home ideas. Her photos always inspire me to get in the kitchen and bake something for the family, even if it means I have to pull out all the measuring cups and spoons that’s been collecting dust in my drawers. Thank you, Lisa for baking these delicious coffee cake for us! YUM.

Guests Angie and Jane working on their Root Vegetable Stone Pot Rice (영양돌솥밥), most advanced recipe at the workshop. It’s not easy to cook unique rice like this on a stone pot and they basically nailed it on this one. Yay!

At every workshop, I try to squeeze in one egg technique. Last time, it was fluffy rolled eggs (계란말이), this time we made yummy and super simple steamed egg (계란찜), every Korean home meal favorite. Lauryn is working on her eggs which only took 7 minutes to make. She basically owns this recipe now and got a two thumbs up from her kids when she tried this recipe at home after the workshop.

After all the ingredient prepping was done, we took a quick break with ginger lemonade and listened into SungYun’s demo on how to make Vinaigrette Gochujang applied to three different veggies. We did this demo in our previous workshop and everyone loved it including myself as this recipe basically calls for using the right type of ingredient, prepping them and squeeze the store bought magic sauce and it’s pretty much ready to serve and eat on the spot. It can’t get any easier. ; )

Most of the time we were focused on our prepping and cooking but we had some funny moments like this when my guests ask me something about the recipe, I said stuff like “oh, just eye-ball it” or “well, just go with your guts”. Haha! My Korean ah-jum-ma instincts couldn’t tell any better. ;P

One of the dishes made at home was Korean Style Potato Salad served on these wooden paper cones by Donna Hay General Store. Aren’t these the cutest? I couldn’t wait to use all of her wooden paper serving plate that flew in all the way from Australia ^^ !

Kiddie Gimbap (꼬마김밥) and home-made Oiji (오이지무침) pickles were added to the tasting table.

We setup the tasting table outside in front the building. I was a bit worried that we wouldn’t have enough sunlight that day with glimpses of rain earlier that week. We had plenty of sun, plenty of food on our table. Every dish was cooked and timed perfectly so it was served hot.

After we had our tasting table feast, we came back into our studio and did all of our dishes and cleaning to enjoy a cup of Ruby’s Roast dark blend with Lisa’s yummy coffee cake. This will have to be a little tradition at the workshop. Nothing like a good cup of coffee and dessert after working hard in the kitchen~! a little reward for ourselves.

Our guests and workshop students left with a small goodie bag with pickles that we learned how to make in class and a small bottle of flowers that was used for the table setting. Let’s just say that we had no left-overs, no food wasted, no effort unnoticed. We did G.O.O.D.

We had a great time and we hope that our guests have learned a thing or two and was inspired to cook more at home for their loved ones. We could not have put this fun and enjoyable event together without everyone who contributed and collaborated. We want to specially thank Marla at Cake Made by M.E. for letting us use her kitchen, Lisa at Good on Paper for doing an awesome job on the photography, Wow! I’m totally impressed with all your talent. My sister, SungYun (Samantha) and my cousin, Julee for being part of this team. We also want to thank Debbie and Sherry from Ruby’s Roast for providing coffee at the workshop. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

For those who are interested in attending one of our Banchan Workshops in the future, please feel free to sign-up on our emailing list. You can go to my contact page and send a note with subject line ‘Banchan Workshop’ and we’ll be sure to keep you informed of any upcoming workshops! We would love to share and feast with you!

And for everyone else, we have a printable Banchan Workshop Recipe Book (download) here for you to try it at home. Enjoy.

Bring on the Banchan! 

Selina