There is a type of cooking that I excel at – I call it “refrigerator cooking.” The rules of refrigerator cooking are simple – make do with whatever you have in the fridge, no exceptions, no running out and getting missing ingredients.
I find that refrigerator cooking also happens to be cheap, because usually if you’ve gone out and bought an ingredient that is the centerpiece, must-have ingredient of a meal, you don’t leave it languishing for a week in the fridge. The funny thing of course is that if you regularly cook Korean food (and have a big fridge), you should have banchan -- side dishes -- on hand at any time and all you need is rice.
But on to the point -- the following recipes can be made from cheap ingredients that one generally has in the fridge, as long as you are also stocked with the basic Korean Cooking Infrastructure items as well. So get on it!
- Gyeran Jjim – really eggs, green onions, sesame seeds and pollack roe (if you have it)
- Kimchi Fried Rice – leftover kimchi, rice, some kind of meat and you’re set
- Hobak Jeon – zucchini, flour and onion
- Gamja Jorim – potatoes, soy sauce, broth
