7D Korea Golden Rama Tour: Kimchi making lesson
When you are thiking of Korean food, you will never forget about kimchi. Most (if not all) group tour itinerary to South Korea will include kimchi making lesson, Golden Rama tour is included. Our tour guide brought us to a place which looks like a cultural centre in Myeongdong where visitors can try out wearing hanbok and take pictures with the photo prop, see some exhibition about food, try out making kimchi and even buy some of the food products.
After trying out hanbok and taking pictures for uncountable times, we were ushered out to the classroom for the kimchi making lesson. On the way to the classroom, you will see a lot of exhibit about Korean traditional food.
Laver (seaweed) is one of the important staple of food in Korea and there is an exhibit explaining in detail on the making process of laver. Based on what I watch on The Return of Superman, I think the kids love eating laver so much.
Some farming tools are on display in the artsy manner.
Laver are usually eaten as it is with some sauce together with rice. Or rolled as the wrap for the kimbap (Korean version of sushi).
Okay, we have finally reached our classroom. You will see that the ingredients and tools for making kimchi are already prepared on the table for each of the participants. The basic ingredients are the cabbage and the red sauce. There is no basic rule on making the red sauce and I have seen a lot of variety available on the internet on how you want to make your own red sauce (some even use srichacha sauce). But if I recalled correctly, the instructor explained to us that the sauce si basically made with a mix of sugar, pepper, garlic, and red chili.
Right before we are about to slap on the red sauce on every layer of this cabbage, let's just wear our apron and plastic gloves shall we. The instructor taught us the correct way to smear the red sauce to the whole cabbage. In a gist, you have to smear the sauce evenly on all sides of the cabbage.
Once you are done smearing you should wrap the kimchi in a certain manner so that the kimchi will be bundled together. I'm quite surprised I managed to do it though because I am usually pretty bad at a-good-wife-related skill. Turns out, I'm quite ready to find my hubby now. LOL.
Once the kimchi making lesson is over, the instructor will continue her explanation on laver, rice, kimchi, and red sauce because she wants to sell the food products and the laver snacks are quite good for tea time snack, really.
If you are interested to join the kimchi making lesson, you may want to check out this place:
Seoul Kimchi Academy House
2F, Dongyang Building 12-27, Chungmuro (2)i-ga
Junggu, Seoul
Estimated fees for the two hours course: from USD 13.28
Operating hours: 10AM - 7PM