Spicy red pepper and sesame basa

A simple recipe this one, inspired by the incredibly addictive and luscious gochujang paste which I seem to have become recently obsessed with. (Addictive seems to be an adjective often used for Korean food). It has the most intriguing taste, mostly red pepper and chili, but then a hit of sesame and sweetness in varying levels. The organic, artisan variety I bought from a farmers' market is really sweet, but not so much that it overwhelms. The generic Korean supermarket variety is different, a little more bitter and spicier.

Korean flavours & microwaved crispy skin

Inspired by the same magazine shown in the previous post, I decided to make a sort of hybrid Korean / Mexican meal as is indeed very popular in Korea itself right now. (Apparently they love tacos)! A trip to H-Mart, our local Korean supermarket was required to buy the necessary ingredients. Two sauces, one called Doenjang, a soy bean paste and the other, Gochujang, a red pepper paste were bought to make a sauce called Ssamjang, a mix of these two ingredients plus rice wine, onion, garlic, ginger and chili. I decided to use pork as they do in Korea, a long, slow cooked shoulder and lettuce leaves to use like tortillas to wrap everything up like the popular dish Bo Ssam. I added some extras, however, like Japanese pickles and some beets and some extra crunchy bean sprouts to create a dish of contrasting textures and flavours. Neil, who usually doesn't like eating with his hands, (proper English gent that he is), ate about 6 of these little lettuce leaves piled with different combinations each time.