Book review: Korean Home Cooking by Jina Jung

“Contrary to popular belief, Korean cuisine is simple”, writes Seoul-born chef Jina Jung, the author of Korean Home Cooking

Some might be a little puzzled by this claim; after all, her book contains 100 recipes across seven sections, which include rice; noodles, pancakes and fritters; kimchi and pickles – even desserts and drinks. But for Jung, there’s an underlying ease with which you can share love and heritage through Korean food.

Korean Home Cooking celebrates the versatility of Korean staples, offering a generous selection of communal starters, mains and sweet treats from a core group of ingredients. Cooked white rice, for example, can be fried with kimchi and topped with an egg, or filled with nori flakes, tuna chunks and mayonnaise and rolled into a ball. Tteok (rice cakes) can be stir-fried in chilli paste to create the firm street-food favourite tteokbokki, or poked with skewers and drizzled with a sweet and sour sauce. And the traditional Korean pancakes, which crackle like “the sound of rain falling” when they are cooked in oil, come with seafood, mung bean, courgette or kimchi.

Jung does not discriminate between an after-school snack (seaweed vermicelli fritters), a traditional birthday main (beef japchae glass noodles), or a stir-fried vegetable side (a type of banchan). Dishes are not always listed with instructions on when or what to serve them with, which may confuse those who are not familiar with the cuisine, but could equally lead to illuminating combinations that challenge the constraints of a traditional Korean meal.

In fact, the Korean version of the title means Korean Family Cuisine, and family is where Jung learned to cook; “Korean culinary culture was handed down to me by my grandmother and my mother,” she writes. There’s sure to be a comforting, nostalgic warmth from Korean Home Cooking, whether that’s from a sip of fermented soybean paste stew, the crunch of a stir-fried white radish loved by Jung’s grandmother, or the snap of a dalgona biscuit.

Korean Home Cooking: 100 Authentic Everyday recipes, from Bulgogi to Bibimbap by Jina Jung (Murdoch Books, £22)