Up Top and Down Below (II)
DOWN BELOW
Seoul continues to be a culinary adventure. This time, your friends introduce you to a sinus-running, eye-watering, face-flushing, tongue-numbing trip into Indigestion-Land. The vehicle that takes you on this rollicking journey, is what’s called bool-dak. Enterprising Koreans have set up a website for this lovely dish, on http://www.booldak.com .
BOOLDAK is pronounced almost exactly as it’s spelled. Bool means fire, and Dak means chicken, in Korean. No, we’re not talking about Turkey. (Footnote: In Chinese, “Fire Chicken” means Turkey).
BOOLDAK is chopped up bits of chicken (usually tender dark meat that absorb flavor better) that has been marinated in the world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes, then barbequed on aluminium foil, basted with more of the same world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes.
BOOLDAK is served sizzling and smoking to unsuspecting diners who think the mountains of serviettes provided on the table is just good service.
BOOLDAK’s first mouthful is hot to the bite but very quickly the flavor of the chicken overtakes the spice and we naively think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad”. Beer is poured, the visitors’ first bite deserves a toast.
THEN it hits.
As the beer leaves the tongue and makes its way down your throat, you’re wondering when beer started leaving a trail of fire in its wake. You take another draw from the chilled metal flagon – and it feels worse. You look around in bewilderment at your Korean friends who are trying not to laugh as your face turns redder and redder, and your eyes start to water.
You eat another piece of booldak just to prove yourself wrong. See, yummy – munch munch, swallow. Here’s another toast, just in case they thought you couldn’t handle it. After you swallow your beer, your Korean friend kindly hands you a serviette. “Hey, sweat is dripping off your forehead.”
This is the secret weapon of booldak. The spice lingers, grows, and grabs on to your tongue, tingling every nerve and chafing at every available tastebud. Intuitive reactions to swallow cold water, cold beer, rub at tongue with serviette, will only make it worse. Then the helpful Korean friends, who had already replenished the rapidly depleting serviette supply, point out two sources of relief – burnt rice water, and sweet pickles. Burnt rice water consists of the bits left at the bottom of a rice cooker, rapidly boiled with water – a flatly flavored soup base that, if you believe in that stuff, has “cooling” properties. Frankly, disbelief is suspended when your tongue is flaming – anything to tame the heat, you’ll take.
Quite surprisingly, sweet pickles DO work. Not local pickles, but sliced “bread and butter” pickles that used to accompany deli sandwiches, the ones that are ubiquitous all over New York. The first contact your tongue makes with the pickles, there is the welcome relief of a doused fire. You start to feel your mouth again.
Of course, then you think you can try another piece of the Fire Chicken. BOOLDAK is not for the weak of heart.
Booldak remnants
Cooling Element
Another Korean delicacy – BBQ Octopus
Seoul continues to be a culinary adventure. This time, your friends introduce you to a sinus-running, eye-watering, face-flushing, tongue-numbing trip into Indigestion-Land. The vehicle that takes you on this rollicking journey, is what’s called bool-dak. Enterprising Koreans have set up a website for this lovely dish, on http://www.booldak.com .
BOOLDAK is pronounced almost exactly as it’s spelled. Bool means fire, and Dak means chicken, in Korean. No, we’re not talking about Turkey. (Footnote: In Chinese, “Fire Chicken” means Turkey).
BOOLDAK is chopped up bits of chicken (usually tender dark meat that absorb flavor better) that has been marinated in the world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes, then barbequed on aluminium foil, basted with more of the same world-famous hellfire Korean chilli pastes.
BOOLDAK is served sizzling and smoking to unsuspecting diners who think the mountains of serviettes provided on the table is just good service.
BOOLDAK’s first mouthful is hot to the bite but very quickly the flavor of the chicken overtakes the spice and we naively think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad”. Beer is poured, the visitors’ first bite deserves a toast.
THEN it hits.
As the beer leaves the tongue and makes its way down your throat, you’re wondering when beer started leaving a trail of fire in its wake. You take another draw from the chilled metal flagon – and it feels worse. You look around in bewilderment at your Korean friends who are trying not to laugh as your face turns redder and redder, and your eyes start to water.
You eat another piece of booldak just to prove yourself wrong. See, yummy – munch munch, swallow. Here’s another toast, just in case they thought you couldn’t handle it. After you swallow your beer, your Korean friend kindly hands you a serviette. “Hey, sweat is dripping off your forehead.”
This is the secret weapon of booldak. The spice lingers, grows, and grabs on to your tongue, tingling every nerve and chafing at every available tastebud. Intuitive reactions to swallow cold water, cold beer, rub at tongue with serviette, will only make it worse. Then the helpful Korean friends, who had already replenished the rapidly depleting serviette supply, point out two sources of relief – burnt rice water, and sweet pickles. Burnt rice water consists of the bits left at the bottom of a rice cooker, rapidly boiled with water – a flatly flavored soup base that, if you believe in that stuff, has “cooling” properties. Frankly, disbelief is suspended when your tongue is flaming – anything to tame the heat, you’ll take.
Quite surprisingly, sweet pickles DO work. Not local pickles, but sliced “bread and butter” pickles that used to accompany deli sandwiches, the ones that are ubiquitous all over New York. The first contact your tongue makes with the pickles, there is the welcome relief of a doused fire. You start to feel your mouth again.
Of course, then you think you can try another piece of the Fire Chicken. BOOLDAK is not for the weak of heart.
Booldak remnants
Cooling Element
Another Korean delicacy – BBQ Octopus
posted by tygertyger at 2:12 PM
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