The ABCs of how Kolkata is warming up to K-cuisine – Times of India

It’s loaded with meat, seafood and rice, tastes spicy and delicious, and is still considered pretty healthy! No wonder K-cuisine is winning its way into a lot of hearts and kitchens in Kolkata. And the best part, you don’t need to be a K-pop or K-drama fan to savour delicacies like the healthy bibimbap, kimbap (if you like sushi, that is), mandoo and relish some soju while you’re at it. A lot of city restaurants offer a few of these dishes if you want to order in. And in case you want to don the chef’s cap instead, key K-ingredients like chamgeereum, kochukaru and kimchi are also available in town. So, as SRK would say, it’s K-K-K-Korean time! Go ahead, dive right in.
The K in your kitchen
Along with the raging popularity of K-pop, we’ve been told that there has been a significant rise in demand for Korean products. While one may find fresh vegetables and meat for bibimbap and mandoo in the regular market, special sauces, seaweed, kimchi and other authentic ingredients are also available in the city. In fact, responding to the rising demand, a Korean convenience store has opened up in the city offering products from South Korea. A wide variety of ramyeon, their take on the Japanese ramen, BTS Coffee and other South Korean items are available in the market. “I see a lot of Kolkata residents, young and old, experimenting with Korean food at home. They ask for recipes and procedures from us,” said Seuk Jung, who came to Kolkata as a tourist, stayed back and now runs Korean eateries and a departmental store in town. “That’s why we decided to open the store,” he added.
What to order?
While kimbap (sushi), bibimbap (mixed rice with meat and assorted vegetables) and mandoo (dumplings) are fairly popular, you need to have a little courage to explore a bit more of K-cuisine. You might try their fishcake soup, eomukguk, or dolsot bibimbap, which is bibimbap in a very hot stone pot with a fresh egg cracked on the rice. But as K-cuisine is yet to flourish in the city, the menu in city restaurants is limited.
Utsav Guhathakurta, a food enthusiast, said, “What I like about Korean cuisine is the use of meat. It gained momentum in other cities years back. It’s encouraging that it’s getting popular here. We are yet to get a place for Korean barbecue, but I’m sure a rise in demand will ensure that we get bulgogi (barbecued meat) here soon.”
Shin, who runs a Korean café along with his wife An in the city, said, “We sell kimbap, kimchi momo, tteokbokki, ramen and so on. These are the more popular items. Ever since I came to the city, I wished to open a Korean culture space. What could be better than a cafe?”
Pronounce it right
While kimchi and bibimbap have straightforward pronunciations, you might want to practise saying dakgangjeong and eomukguk for a while. Dakgangjeong, or crispy, sweet, fried chicken, is pronounced ‘thak-kang-jong’ and eomukguk, a fish cake soup, is pronounced ‘a-muk-gook’. On the other hand, tteokbokki, or rice cake, is pronounced ‘tok-bo-ki’. Often argued as the Korean version of Japanese sushi, kimbap is one of the most popular items here. The Korean name, kimbap, literally means laver rice. Laver is a type of edible seaweed and bap is cooked rice.
K-cuisine decoded
Korean cruising is all about rice, vegetables, seafood and meat. Like a well-spread Bengali meal, a Korean meal comes with a lot of accompaniments or banchan. The cuisine might appear the same as Japanese or Chinese, but Korean food has its own bouquet of flavours, tastes and ingredients. While ramyeon is the Korean take on Japanese ramen, Kimbap is a variation of norimaki, the most common variant of sushi. Soju (pronounced soud-ju) is an alcoholic beverage that’s consumed neat with Korean meat dishes.

K-cooking essentials

Rice
Tofu
Soy sauce
Garlic
Ginger
Roasted sesame seeds
Scallions (green onions)
Chamgeereum (sesame seed oil)
Kochujang (Korean chili pepper paste)
Kochukaru (Korean chili pepper powder)
Doenjang (Korean soybean paste)
Rice wine (chungju, mirin)
Myulchi (dried anchovies / shutki maachh)
Gim (dried seaweed sheets)
Noodles (jajangmyun, somyun and/or dangmyun)