I know - I'm such a slacker!

Well, finally, I've gotten everything done for the quarter, so I'm mostly relaxing at this moment. Anyway, last Wednesday I made my own version of kimchi jeon, a Korean-style pancake with (cabbage) kimchi. Jeon is almost a cooking "genre" (for lack of a better term) in Korean cuisine - it's basically a fritter or cake that has a flour-egg-water base and is fried with a little oil, just like the way you would prepare pancakes. However, unlike pancakes, these are supposed to be savory. Anyhow, here's the recipe I used:

Batter:

1 C all-purpose flour
1 egg
Water (I hesitate to say how much since the batter really depends on how much moisture is in the air and in the flour, but I would start at 1/2 C.)

Put the ingredients for the batter in a large non-metallic bowl (glass is best). Mix until well-blended. Add more water, if necessary. The batter should be thick enough to thinly coat the back of a spoon and yet not be runny.

The rest of the ingredients:

1 C t'ong kimchi (napa cabbage kimchi), roughly chopped
1/2 cabbage, shredded
1 C chopped garlic chives
7-8 medium shrimp, chopped
1 T peanut oil
1 t kosher salt
1/2 t sesame oil

Heat a wok over high heat. When hot, put in peanut oil, wait a couple of seconds, and then put in shrimp. Cook until barely pink (which is not long at all). Add cabbage and garlic chives and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and sesame oil. Let cool.

When cool enough, mix kimchi and the cabbage mixture into the batter and mix well. Heat a frying pan (nonstick is preferable, but a regular one works as well) over medium-high heat and add about 1/2 t peanut or vegetable oil. You may want to use a paper towel or napkin to evenly grease the pan. When hot, add batter in portions to make fritters that are approximately 3 1/2-4 " in diameter. Fry until golden brown on both sides. Cut into bite-sized portions. Serve hot or cold.


The kimchijeon in the frying pan.


The finished kimchijeon.

I noticed that I haven't been putting up many gamelan photos lately, so here goes. On Wednesday evenings I usually go to my friend Richard North's house/rehearsal space to play some West Javanese (Sunda, not Sudan, so it's Sundanese)/Malaysian/Cirebonese gamelan, which have completely different aesthetics from Central Javanese and Balinese gamelan. The group is called "Sinar Surya", The Rays of the Sun, which seems appropos for the Santa Barbara environment, except for the past couple of days, when it's actually been raining ;)

Richard North and Donn Howell playing the saron degung. Degung is an extremely calm genre of music from Sunda that features metallophones, an impressive set of gongs called jengglung, various horizontal gong-chimes, and of course a huge goong. (Yes, that's how you spell it in Sundanese.)

Here is Gamelan Sinar Surya in performance at the Santa Barbara Women's Club, Spring 2004. Interesting venue - the stage was small, but we got to have tea with the sponsors after the performance.

Felicia North (Richard's wife) dancing the Rumyang role from Topeng Cirebon, the masked dance tradition from Cirebon, on the northern coast of Java. This character is supposed to portray a rather flirtatious young adult, emerging from adolescence and yet not knowing exactly how to properly behave as an adult.