When I was in San Jose, every so often, I would pop into a Korean grocery store and pick up several tubs of marinated bulgogi (uncooked) to cook at home.  One tub would be used on the day it was bought and the rest would be stuck in the freezer for other times when I wanted to convenience of cooking up a quick meal.

Here in Kuching, we found that there is a small enclave of Korean expatriates around (there’s even a small Korean grocery store here) and a few Korean restaurants.  So far, we’re tried two of the restaurants only to find them somewhat disappointing.

Just this past week, I had a hankering for some Korean food.  So I decided to make it myself.  After all, our Killer Kalbi recipe is probably one of our all-time most popular recipe (with good cause—it’s REALLY good).  So I decided I needed to expand my Korean repertoire.

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I haven’t made Western style beef stew in a while. The last two beef stews I made was the Chinese style beef stew that I blogged about a while back (with tendon and daikon). But recently, I got myself some beef chuck and I had in mind to make a different beef stew.

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I successfully take on the challenge of making this classic Persian dish for the first time.

We’ve been here in Kuching for over a year now, and we’ve settled in nicely.  We’ve even had a chance to throw a few parties at our house, doing a Japanese dinner for our friends one night, and inviting friends over for Esther’s birthday in August.  But I’ve been meaning to invite my boss to dinner. My boss is based in San Jose, but he works here half the time.  He lives out of his hotel room and eats out for every meal, so I was sure he’d appreciate some home-cooked food.

So I invited him over to our house for dinner this past Saturday. My boss was born in Iran, so I thought it would be nice to make him some Persian food.  I started researching dishes and recipes, and decided to make the classic Persian dish, chelow kabab koobideh – rice with mince meat kebab.

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Stewed beef tendon has hearty flavor with a wonderful mouthfeel.

Well, I’ve been working for two weeks now and I’m beginning to feel a bit better although I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to do every week. The hardest part has been coming home to cook after a long day at work. Some days, it’s really rough trying to get into cooking mode when all I want to do is lie down and veg! I have a new respect for all you working moms out there. If you have any tips for me on how to cope, I sure could use them.

Anyway, because of that, my weekends are now my major cooking days. Or at least one of the days, I try to make into a cooking day. The other day (usually Saturday), I put my foot down and insist on some rest—which means no cooking!

Yesterday, I decided I was going to make Chinese Beef Stew. It is something I’ve not made before but I remember distinctly having it at a friend’s house. She had used oxtail so it had a lovely beefy flavor along with the wonderful fragrance of cinnamon and star anise in the broth. She also told me that it was quite easy to make.

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