The Feast!

Like I said, we spent most of Saturday preparing for the crazy 60th birthday celebration feast, with very specific food being prepared. Behold the feast table. May I remind you that it was my sister-in-law who researched and came up with our modified table setting. Things are arranged very specifically, with the food being pointed to the head of the table, where my mom was supposed to sit.

There is some fruit of course, stacked high. The whole stacking to the ceiling thing has a point. There is some candied ginger all the way on the left. That's supposed to be there too. The inner two dishes in the front row are very traditional Korean snacks. The green and white one is duk, which is a rice based sticky and chewy snack. The brown one is a sweet. I've had it before when it is fresh. These were found at H Mart and were labelled as being good through 2008. So I wasn't surprised when they tasted rather gross.

Row two you can see the chicken teriyaki skewers I made. We needed a skewered meat. It's obviously not Korean at all, but it's skewered, so it counts! This is an extremely easy dish to make. You take some chicken thighs (not chicken breast, but chicken thighs) and cut them and skewer them onto bamboo skewers that you've pre-soaked. Don't forget this soaking part or they'll burn. You then broil the chicken so that it's somewhat cooked, then you baste them with some store bought teriyaki sauce (the thick kind, not the thin kind) and then cook some more. Baste them on both sides and don't forget to flip them. Then you're done!

Also on row two are a few pancake type dishes. They're not like Aunt Jemima pancakes, but Korean style pancakes. You don't pour maple syrup on them and eat them for breakfast. They just happen to be cooked in a pan by pouring a batter into it and then flipping. So it constitutes a pancake. We had a fish pancake, a veggie pancake, and something we affectionately refer to as crabbie patties. It's made from imitation crab meat. It's delicious! There's also some more kimchi (of course) and some more banchan (small dishes).

My SIL made some sukiyaki. Sukiyaki isn't Korean either, but we needed some type of entree and she's good at making it. Sukiyaki is a Japanese dish, with some veggies, meat, and tofu, and lots of liquid, that you pour over some clear noodles. Different people use different noodles, but we usually pick the dried clear kind that you cook. I've never had sukiyaki with shirataki noodles or udon noodles. But I think the clear ones take some getting used to.

The piece de resistance had to be the Hwachae, or fruit soup, that my SIL had to make. I believe this was something special specific for the 60. This dish literally included a dozen different fresh fruits, and also included some sake. Yeah. It basically ended up tasting like a runny fruit salad that had a slightly flower-y flavor to it. I liked it. But I love fruit, so it wasn't surprising. You were supposed to garnish it with pine nuts and mint leaves. I passed on that as I do not like pine nuts nor do I like to bite into mint chunks. It was a really fun dinner to make and my mom really appreciated it, but I'm rather glad I'll never have to do it again! I can just wait for my 60th birthday and make people prepare my feast!