Thai Cuisines

By Dr Kevin Johnston

Korean preparations are known for it's fiery taste and peppery tastes. Generally, various regions that you might come across hot and spicy foodstuff all over the earth possess a few features similar to each other. These areas are generally sultry and/or hot regions, geographically, or else they used to be the part of a most important spice route in olden times. Korea is neither humid nor warm, experiencing a quite cool climate overall. Nor has it ever been on a key spice route.

Without any of these traits, Korea is said to have the maximum per capita intake of chilies allover the world. So how did this Korean love for hot and spicy food come about? During 12th century, Chinese cuisine was introduced to chilies by the Natives of portugal. They introduced the Chinese to the hot pepper, and adopted from there few seeds made it from China into Korean cooking culture. There is also a belief that the chili was introduced by the Dutch to Korea very late, around the 17th century.

Although chilies are regarded as the basis of Korean preparations but earlier than the arrival of chilies as well Korean food was highly spiced. Korean dishes use to obtain it's strong flavor adopted from mustard and radishes in earlier times but at present chilies are the chief ingredient.

The most preferred chilies in Korea is a variety identified as Koch's. This type of chili have usually finger-like appearance as well as a glossy body. It is known to be similar to the varieties of chili eaten in western cuisines specifically Anaheim or New Mexico variety.

Koch's is included in Korean dishes in three kinds: coarsely grinded, chili flakes and in fine powder appearance. Probably the most popular Korean dishes that make use of coarse chili is kimchi, it is well-liked fermented cabbage dish. The flaky form of the chili is most often used as a tangy dressing. The fine grade is quite often used to prepare a red hot chili paste well-known as koch'ujang, which is included in almost every cooked Korean dish. However this chili paste can be with no trouble prepared at house but if you wish you can buy from any of the Korean market. Not only red chili powder is included to prepare this chili paste however other ingredients such as rice flour, barley powder together with salt and soy sauce creates this fiery and spicy paste.

Besides chili paste, noodles, rice along with tofu and seasonal vegetables are the supplementary most important food items used in Korean cuisine. Sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and peppery flavors are the main tastes in Korean dishes. The acceptance of Korean recipes makes it the topmost cuisines of the globe.

About the Author:

For more information on Korean recipes please visit Great Korean Recipes. You may also have a look at some fantastic Thai recipes by clicking Thai Recipes.