Holiday Eating!

Christmas is usually held at my aunt's house in delaware, but we had a change of plans this year. It was at my mom's house, yes, where I grew up. No ham or turkey here folks, just good old-fashioned korean fare.
The spread. Ain't it beautiful?

My aunt fried up some shrimp tempura. Ok, so that's not korean, it's japanese, but hey, it's still tasty. How do these shrimp not curl up when fried? It's a secret. And now I know the secret!

Mrs. K made us a batch of these little pancakes. Not typical of what we would normally eat, as these were made up with ground mung beans, cabbage, and some other stuff. Quite mild, yet delicious.

What's this weird gelatenous stuff on this plate? It's muk. I'm not sure what kind of muk, whether it's made from acorn starch, or buckwheat starch, or mung bean starch, but it's some kind of korean muk. It's jello-esque in texture, but still not. Hard to describe. The muk itself essentially has no flavor. So you have to adulterate with something. Here, my mom has just doused with some sort of soy sauce based nonsense, green onions, and eventually, after this photo was taken, some crushed up nori sheets. I know it's a strange concept, but I dig this stuff.

Grilled squid on the left, and some kind of grilled long skinny fish on the right. Both marinated with some spicy shizz.

A close up of the squid. Beautiful, isn't it? It's painstakingly scored in both horizontal and vertical directions. Why? I have no idea. I think it has to do with how it always curls when cooked, but it's also because it looks so bad ass.

Some spicy pork ribs.

My aunt made some galbi jim, or korean braised short ribs. A family holiday gathering certainly isn't worth anything if it doens't involve stuffing your face with good homemade eats.