Seafood / Famous Food / Desserts

Fish and Seafood

Fish and shellfish have been a major part of Korean cuisine because of the oceans bordering the peninsula. Evidence from the 12th century illustrates that commoners consumed a diet mostly of fish and shellfish such as shrimp, clams, oysters, abalone and loach, while sheep and hogs were reserved for the upper class.

Famous Food

Kimchi


Kimchi refers to fermented vegetable dishes usually made with Napa cabbage, daikon or sometimes cucumber, commonly fermented in a brine of ginger, garlic, scallions and chilli pepper. There are endless varieties and it is served as a side dish or cooked into soups and rice dishes.


Mul Naengmyeon (noodle)


In Korean traditional noodle dishes are onmyeon (noodles with a hot clear broth), naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodles), bibim guksu (cold noodle dish mixed with vegetables), kalguksu (knife-cut noodles). In royal court, baekmyeon (literally "white noodles") consisting of buckwheat noodles and pheasant broth, was regarded as the top quality noodle dish.


Bachan


Banchan is a term referring collectively to side dishes in Korean cuisine.
Gui (grilled dishes) are grilled dishes, which most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetable ingredients. At traditional restaurants, meats are cooked at the center of the table over a charcoal grill, surrounded by various banchan and individual rice bowls.


Namul


Namul may be used to refer to either saengchae and sukchae, although the term generally indicates the latter. Saengchae is mostly seasoned with vinegar, chili pepper powder and salt to give a tangy and refreshing taste.

Desserts

There are traditional sweets eaten as dessert such as tteok and hangwa.

Tteok refers to all kind of rice cakes made from either pounded rice or glutinous rice left whole, without pounding. It is served either filled or covered with sweetened mung bean paste, red bean paste, mashed azuki beans, raisins, a sweetened filling made with sesame seeds, sweet pumpkin, beans, jujubes, pine nuts and/or honey.

Tteok is usually served as dessert or snack. On the other hand, hangwa is a general term referring to all types of Korean traditional confectionery. The ingredients of hahngwa mainly consists of grain flour, honey, yeot and sugar. Hangwa is largely divided into fried confectionery.

Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_cuisine