Apologies for posting this one so late. My husband’s birthday was in November and I am only now posting photos of his birthday dinner.
I decided to cook only traditional Korean birthday dishes for my husband, without even asking him what he wanted for his party. We invited a group of our friends and it was interesting to see the different responses from all the dishes I cooked.
The first dish is called “hwang-te gui” (황태 구이). I tried to find an English name for this dish but no luck. Hwang-te is a dried fish and is normally cooked in a chilli sauce with garlic. Koreans eat this on special occasions and it’s also served with beers at pubs.
The second dish which turned out great is sweet and sour chicken (kkan-pung-gi-깐풍기). It’s a chinese dish but its also very popular in Korea. It’s fried crispy and mixed with sweet and sour sauce.
The next photo has 3 different types of dishes in one. The first one on the left is mung bean pancake(빈대떡). The one in the middle is fried fish(생선전) and the last one on the right is fried zucchinis(호박전). You will find these at a birthday dinner all the time. I remember cooking these whenever it was my father’s birthday or some other festive occasion (New Year, Thanksgiving, etc).
The most important dish out of all for a birthday is seaweed soup – mi yek guk (미역국). This soup can be cooked with beef or mussels although personally I prefer it with mussels. The shop is normally given to new mother for about a month after giving birth. It is supposed to aid with breast feeding. So to symbolise your birth and your mother’s hard work, it’s a must dish that you eat it on your birthday.
The other dishes I cooked were sweet poato glass noodles(jap che -잡채) and acorn jelly salad (도토리묵). Out of all the dishes I cooked, sweet and sour chicken was the most popular dish then followed by the noodles. It’s always great to see my friends enjoying my food!