I never really frequented the kitchen ever in my life, except when late nights called for a nice cold midnight snack from the fridge. But still, that part of the house always stayed foreign to me, and thus I grew up (and grew old) having never learned how to chop an onion, fry an egg, peel a carrot, boil water, cook rice or even operate the microwave oven.

I never learned how to cook until last weekend when I randomly decided to do something sweet for my family by cooking for them—as ambitious and absurdly impulsive as it felt. Browsing through the Appetite magazine, and feeling intimidated by the beautiful food photos on print, I found a recipe simple enough to pull off. So I cooked my mom and sister a Korean Chicken Barbecue dish, which, to my surprise, THEY LOVED!!! How’s that for a debut dish?! Still not getting over the joy from reaching that life achievement, I cooked the same dish, two days after, for my boyfriend Miguel for our seventh month. The practice made sure I got the dish right. He responded with a “it knocked me off my feet.” COOKING PROWESS POTENTIAL: CONFEERMED.

Moreover, to me there is something in cooking that makes a woman feel empowered—something that makes a woman feel free to express her love for the people she loves, and makes a woman free to believe that she can do anything she sets her mind to. And I have Appetite magazine to thank for making cooking look easy and achievable, Chelsea Lim for the cooking-for-boyfriend idea, and Timmy Potenciano for the Korean Chicken Barbecue recipe—your recipe rocks!!!

(Why thank you, Tanya! - Timmy)

And don’t forget to grab a copy of Appetite’s June 2012 issue for more easy Asian recipes!

‘Til my next culinary feat!

Korean Chicken Barbecue

Recipe by: Timmy Potenciano

Ingredients:

1 kilo                      Chicken breast fillet or thigh fillet, thinly sliced

½ cup                    Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)

5cloves                 Garlic, chopped

1inch                     Ginger, sliced into coins

1                              Small onion, chopped

1                              Pear, chopped

½ cup                    Soy Sauce

1Tbsp                    Sesame Oil

1Tbsp                    Brown Sugar

2                              Green Onions, chopped

¼tsp                      Pepper

1Tbsp                    Toasted sesame seeds

Procedure:

1. Combine all marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add chicken fillet (option to keep skin on or off). Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
2. Prepare grill by spraying with non-stick spray or lightly coating with oil. When grill is hot, add marinated chicken pieces. Do not disturb until the underside is cooked. Use tongs to invert and cook the other side. Chicken is cooked when flesh is firm. In the absence of a grill, marinated chicken may also be pan fried in a wok with some oil.