Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Mexican Food

Many folks in the blogging community seem to be excited about the new Taco Bell up in Seoul. If you are like me and enjoy Mexican food, but you live 3 and a half hours away from Seoul, here are some old posts on how to make homemade tortillas and taco meat. Hopefully this post can save you from feeling like a looser who spent up to 8 hours in a quest to eat at Taco Bell.

6 comments:

Flint said...

A few of the "foreigner" bars in Cheongju sell palatable burritos. Probably fresher than what you get at Taco Bell.

3gyupsal said...

I've only been to Cheongju once about five years ago. It was really the first "city," that I had seen in Korea. It's good to know that you guys have that kind of thing up there.

Jinju is kind of small so we don't really have anything that would qualify as a "foreigner," bar. The foreigners here just kind mob up and go from place to place. I think foreigner bars are just places that somebody tries once, decides that they like it, and then brings their friends. In the past some places have banned foreigners after they had acted all crazy and shit got broken. There still aren't many places that try to attract foreigners because I think that in some cases we are still seen as a liability.

But If you want to get a burrito, I think the closest place from here is Masan, the next closest place would be Busan. But usually on my trips home I load up on ingredients like shortening, re-fried beans, and stuff like that so I can make my own. Also my wife can get cheese off of the internet at save-costco.com (I'm not sure of the real internet address.)

Oh yeah I think Geoje Island might have some interesting places, they have a bunch of foreign factory workers from Southeast Asia and Russia to work in the Ship factories down there.

Anonymous said...

just thought I'd let you know of a way to make tortillas without shortening...which I never did find either.
2 cups flour
11/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (I use a little less)
3/4 cup mik
1 tbl olive oil
whisk dry ingredients together, bring milk to room temp, add oil, then add to dry. Kneed, adding flour as needed until slightly tacky. Put in bowl, wood or glass best, and cover with a damp towel for about one half an hour. Break down into balls, I normally make about 7 but I like them large, put on plate and cover with towel. For me I just cover 2 and put the rest in a tupperware and refrigerate for a later use. Makes great breakfast burritos, nice an fluffy.

My question is, where did you get cast iron in Korea. enjoy

3gyupsal said...

Hey, anonymous, awesome, I'll try that when I run out of shortening. You can also use the recipe I use with lard, which I think you can actually find here. Your recipe looks close to a recipe for Indian naan. Hey come to think of it, I might try your recipe tonight, Since I'm planning on making some Massala.

As for the cast iron pan, thank you for noticing by the way my wife gets jealous of all of the attention I give it, I didn't get it in Korea, I bought it in New Hampshire at a kitchen supply store. For some reason I really, really wanted a cast iron pan and I resolved to get one the last time I went to the states. If you want one, you could try to order it via the internet. Mine is a "Lodge," and they have a company website. I ordered a cast iron charcoal grill off of their website once and had it sent to my sister in the states, I don't know if they do international orders, though.

I don't know where you would get something like that in Korea, though. But I did see Le Creuset cast iron pots in the big Shinseagae department store in Busan. They were expensive about 150,000-300,000 a piece. No awesome frying pans though.

Anonymous said...

your welcome for the recipe...I agree it is close to a naan. Yeah, at home I left many cast iron pans behind, but last i checked there not doing to well. The daughter and her brood aren't as picky as I am I guess.
Try making a breakfast burrito, there wonderful. I fry up some potatoes (pre-boiled to draw out the starch), bacon, onions and eggs, slop some Pace (I know, but only hot salsa available in ROK), roll it all together in a nice freshly cook tortilla, and chow down.

3gyupsal said...

Hell yeah that sounds great I'll try that.