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I love to cook, and lately I have been cooking a lot for my folks. I have taken an interest in learning how to cook dishes from different parts of the world and I want to document and share my endeavors others.

All pictures, unless noted otherwise, are taken by me. If you want to reblog them, I would appreciate it if you would give credit The Food Pursuit blog. Thanks!

It’s been a while. I haven’t been cooking a lot these past few months, but I have whipped up a few things. I’ve just been sort of lazy editing and posting up pictures. Now, I’m all caught up with editing, so I will post a number of things in the coming days. I made a pit stop to the Asian market close to my house to get some ingredients to make “떡볶이” (dduk bok ki, I’ll make a post on this dish later). I had left over fish cakes and didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then I came across a recipe on Maangchi’s website for a spicy stir-fried fish cakes called “어묵볶음” (uhmook bokkem). I pretty much followed the recipe, except I used sugar in the place of corn syrup and I didn’t have a green chilli pepper on hand. I should mention that I don’t eat fish much because the fish taste tends to taste strong to me, but the fish cake had more of a subtle fish flavor. You could still tell it’s fish, but other things have been added to the cake which reduces the fishy flavor. The fish cake fried by itself was really good and I couldn’t help but to pop a few before making the sauce. I had it with rice and bits of ham. I loved it and plan on making more sometime in the future. It’s very spicy, even without the green chilli pepper. Personally, I think adding the pepper would have covered up the flavor of everything else. All in all, it’s a great side dish and it’s pretty quick to make, too.

It’s been a while. I haven’t been cooking a lot these past few months, but I have whipped up a few things. I’ve just been sort of lazy editing and posting up pictures. Now, I’m all caught up with editing, so I will post a number of things in the coming days.

I made a pit stop to the Asian market close to my house to get some ingredients to make “떡볶이” (dduk bok ki, I’ll make a post on this dish later). I had left over fish cakes and didn’t quite know what to do with them. Then I came across a recipe on Maangchi’s website for a spicy stir-fried fish cakes called “어묵볶음” (uhmook bokkem). I pretty much followed the recipe, except I used sugar in the place of corn syrup and I didn’t have a green chilli pepper on hand.

I should mention that I don’t eat fish much because the fish taste tends to taste strong to me, but the fish cake had more of a subtle fish flavor. You could still tell it’s fish, but other things have been added to the cake which reduces the fishy flavor. The fish cake fried by itself was really good and I couldn’t help but to pop a few before making the sauce.

I had it with rice and bits of ham. I loved it and plan on making more sometime in the future. It’s very spicy, even without the green chilli pepper. Personally, I think adding the pepper would have covered up the flavor of everything else. All in all, it’s a great side dish and it’s pretty quick to make, too.

Pork Gyoza

I love gyoza or “potstickers” as some like to call it. Because I didn’t want to constantly buy the frozen ones with tons of preservatives inside, I decided to make some of my own. Again, I have to give credit to runnyrunny999 for this recipe since I followed most of his directions. The bottoms look burnt in the picture, but they came out just right.

Ingredients for 20 gyoza:

1/8 or 150g cabbage (I used napa cabbage since that was the only cabbage we had in the fridge at the time, but regular cabbage is good too. I didn’t really go buy measurements, instead I just took about six or so leaves from the cabbage and cut them up).


3 garlic chives (I didn’t have these so I used green onion instead)


150g ground pork（about 1/3 of a pound of pork, you can also use chicken)


1 clove chopped garlic


10g chopped ginger  (I used some ground ginger since that was the only form of ginger I had)


1 tbsp sake （I used the same amount of mirin)


1/2 tbsp soy sauce


1 tbsp corn starch


1/2 tbsp sesame oil （I put in sesame seeds instead since my mom threw out my sesame seed oil, GRRRR!）


1 tbsp oyster sauce


Gyoza skin

To cook:

Chop cabbage leaves into tiny pieces and place into a bowl


Add salt, more or less a couple of tablespoons, into the bowl and mix well.


Set cabbage aside for 10 minutes so that it can dehydrate.


In the meantime, you can chop up the green onion.


Once cabbage has rested, take handfuls of it and squeeze out the water. Place the squeezed cabbage into another bowl


In a medium sized mixing bowl add your meat, garlic, ginger, sake or mirin, soy sauce, oyster sauce, cornstarch, sesame oil or seeds, and mix until sticky (you may want to use your hands to mix this).


Add cabbage and garlic chives/green onion to your mixture and mix it together.
Then set aside. Runny says to set it aside for an hour but this varies with different recipes. You can leave it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes (like I did) to 1 hour.


When mixture is ready, take it out of the fridge and get your gyoza skins as well.
Get a small cup of water. This will be used to seal the skin.


Take one gyoza skin in your hand. Dip your finger into the cup of water and swipe it around the edge of the gyoza skin.


Take a small spoonful of your mixture and place it unto the center of the gyoza skin. If you put too much in, it will be harder for you to close it so just put in small amounts.


Fold up half of the gyoza skin and make pleats on the top side of the gyoza skin. If you don’t know how to do this, check out runnyrunny999 video on making gyoza here before you start to make your own.


Once that’s done, set aside on a baking sheet. (Some recipes call for flour to be sprinkled on the baking sheet to make it more crispy when you cook it, but it’s not necessary)


Repeat steps 11-14 for the rest of them.


Once done, get a medium size or large size skillet and heat it up. Add a bit of oil once heated.


Place gyoza in the pan.


Over high heat, cook them for 1 minute.


Add about 1/2 cup hot water or a bit less. Be careful to not put more than that as your skins will become really soft and can open up or tare easily.


Cover with a lid, and let them steam for about 5-6 minutes.


Uncover the gyoza and let them cook until liquid is gone.


Place gyoza on a plate and enjoy. They are best eaten while warm. Don’t try to eat them straight out of the pan. Also hot liquid can squirt from them when you take a bite so be careful with that too.

I didn’t make gyoza sauce for mine, but you can check out Runny’s recipe for that in the video like posted above in step 13. 

The verdict: Everyone enjoyed them, except for my mother (my mother’s sentiment will most likely be negative in all of my post). Despite this, Mom ate the most of them each time I cooked them (which was two days in a row). She wanted them deep fried, which probably would taste good, but I don’t want to make them super fatty. The general consensus is that I can cook again anytime.

So lately I have been cooking up a storm and this is one of my specialties that everyone seems to love: tanuki onigiri The recipe comes from runnyrunny999. The only change I made was with using mentsuyu, a Japanese soup base. I didn’t have any store bought mentsuyu on hand nor did I have the konbu kelp or bonito flakes to make the quick mentsuyu. Instead I substituted it with my own sauce consisting of: 2 tbsp. water 1 tbsp. soy sauce 1 tsp. mirin 1/4 tsp. of brown sugar. I won’t post the whole recipe because all of that information including runnyrunny999’s video which is linked up above. The verdict: I loved it. I had to make it with filling inside and without the nori strip for my folks to eat it. At the time I had some general tsao chicken and I put small pieces of those in the center for them. They loved it (except for my mom who wanted bacon and everything else in the ball, but on the whole she liked it). Because of rave reviews, I was forced to make this three days in a row. If you don’t want a plain onigiri ball (which I love as well), this is the one for you.

So lately I have been cooking up a storm and this is one of my specialties that everyone seems to love: tanuki onigiri

The recipe comes from runnyrunny999. The only change I made was with using mentsuyu, a Japanese soup base. I didn’t have any store bought mentsuyu on hand nor did I have the konbu kelp or bonito flakes to make the quick mentsuyu. Instead I substituted it with my own sauce consisting of:

2 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. mirin

1/4 tsp. of brown sugar.

I won’t post the whole recipe because all of that information including runnyrunny999’s video which is linked up above.

The verdict: I loved it. I had to make it with filling inside and without the nori strip for my folks to eat it. At the time I had some general tsao chicken and I put small pieces of those in the center for them. They loved it (except for my mom who wanted bacon and everything else in the ball, but on the whole she liked it). Because of rave reviews, I was forced to make this three days in a row. If you don’t want a plain onigiri ball (which I love as well), this is the one for you.