Korean pantry

I dont have a dedicated pantry. Food items are stored in various corners in my kitchen (the way i find convenient) and I keep most of my foodstuff in my fridge and an extra freezer. At any given moment i have enough food to last a month or two, maybe more. That's because i like to cook extra and freeze. i dont know if the convenience of an extra freezer is worth the extra electricity cost; maybe about $10 extra.. i didnt really check.

My rather scattered pantry consists of basic essential items mainly for chinese and korean cooking. I'll start with korean cooking first, you can buy the items off any korean store.

korean pantry items:

Kimchi 김치 - pic above (i made it a few weeks ago)


Dried seaweed [mi yeok 미역]


Dried kelp [dashima 다시마]

Soy sauce [ganjang 간장]


Sesame oil [cchamgirum 참기름]

Roasted sesame seed [chamkke 참깨]

Chilli paste [gochujang 고추장]


Corn syrup [mulyeot 물엿]


[ssamjang 쌈장] - mixed soybean and chilli pepper sauce (eaten with vegetable leaf wrap)

Soybean paste [doenjang 된장]

Chilli powder [gochugaru 고춧가루]

Beef and anchovy soup stocks or for convenience, stock flavors [dashida 다시다].


shellfish dashida.


Beef and anchovy dashida

Staples such as kimchi and various side dishes are always available and stored in the fridge. Side dishes i have right now are glazed lotus roots [연근 조림], pickled chilli leaves and radish[무우말랭이], pickled yellow radish, various jeotgal [젓갈], seasoned spicy crab [양념 개장] which i made a week ago and a few others) All are home-made except for pickled yellow radish and jeotgal. Korean food though generally healthy can be salty and i try to reduce the salt content in my food. However, less salty food will not keep as long.

For cooking i will have garlic (peeled and minced or pureed), big onions, potatoes, green chillies, spring onions around all the time. Other items are tofu, radish, soya bean sprouts, spinach and occasionally tongho [ssuk gat 쑥갓] / garland chrysanthemum

I have in my freezer frozen mackerel, pollack and some other fish. I have canned mackerel too. Also in my freezer are sliced pork belly divided into 50 or 100g portions, minced beef divided into small portions, korean fishcake [eomook 어묵 or odeng 오댕]. I'm having a hard time trying to get things out from my freezer so i am trying to organise my freezer contents better and make them more accessible.