Written By: Eva Thorne, In the Kitchen with Eva

Feb. 3, 2012

You would not know this from the blogs that I post, but Korean is probably my favorite cuisine.  I love the cleanness of the flavors that combine so beautifully with red chili-derived heat.  That's why I find it a bit perverse that I have never once tried to make a Korean dish!  Nor can I offer any real reason as to why. 

I"m not sure what changed, but something clicked in my head last week.  I pulled out my new go-to  essential asian cookbook and began perusing the Korean section.  Korean soups are especially good, so I decided to focus on those recipes.  I found one for a meat dumpling soup that intrigued me.

As I read the recipe, I was surprised to see that it called for toasted,crushed white sesame seeds.  It dawned on me that the crushed seeds played a key role in creating the distinctive flavor that I associate with Korean food and not other East Asian cuisines. The recipe combined beef and pork, made into dumplings cooked in a ginger and scallion-infused beef stock.  Can you smell it???