It’s hard to imagine a book that exudes more bright cheer and technicolour ebullience than Balli Balli, and yet it has a dramatic – indeed, traumatic – backstory. Having given up her Korean street-food business in London after a successful decade, West decided, after having her children, to concentrate instead on a more family-friendly way to continue her career, giving lessons in Korean cooking and working in recipe development instead. Then, a couple of years back, she was diagnosed with a benign brain tumour and after surgery and treatment, she writes, “my pace of life slowed, but the need to make something for dinner quickly became essential – recipes that took minimal time, were comforting, but most of all delicious. So that’s where this book comes in.” I’m desperately sorry that Da-Hae West had to go through all this, but I am enormously grateful for the invaluable book she produced as a result.
“Balli” means quickly in Korean (and I’m rather tempted to adopt “Balli Balli” as an injunction myself!) though I can assure you the recipes in this book are not the sort that demand a frenziedly fast pace, or fluster you with unrealistic expectations and unwieldy ingredients lists. Naturally, you will need to stock up accordingly before you start but, mindful of the constraints we all have to work with, West doesn’t send us on long, labyrinthine shopping expeditions. This is a book that fits in with the lives we actually have. Let me enthusiastically shout a few recipe titles at you: Soy-Pickled Onions! Kimchi Hotdog! One-Pan Chilli Chicken! Korean Smashed Tacos; Korean Soy Marinated Steak! 10-Minute Dumpling Soup! Speedy Chilli Oil Noodles! Dumpling Fried Rice! Spicy Mushroom Hotpot! Dalgona Iced Coffee! But that’s quite enough shrieks (the old printing slang for exclamation marks) from me. I shall leave you calmly with the recipe I am inordinately happy to be sharing with you today, namely the Mandu Crisps & Kimchi Salsa. But before I go, I just want to tell you that this recipe has already been enthusiastically incorporated into my repertoire. And it’s very forgiving and reassuringly adaptable. The last time I made it I wasn’t in my own kitchen and didn’t have the recipe or all the required ingredients to hand, so I cobbled together a vague approximation to great success! Just for the record, I pushed 500g tomatoes, which is more than in the actual recipe, through a coarse grater, chopped the kimchi from a 168g tin, adding all the juice, too, plus a finely chopped red chilli, some salt, a fat pinch of caster sugar and chilli flakes then, not that it should have been there, but my ageing memory erroneously prompted me to, minced in a clove of garlic. Not having any mandu or gyoza skins (though I actually do keep a stash of them in my freezer at home) to fry to make the crisps, I just opened a bag of tortilla chips for dippage instead. (And the scant leftovers, smeared over a slice of toasted Turkish bread, made for a fabulous cross-cultural bruschetta!) I don’t mean any disrespect to West by giving you details of my bastardised version. Far from it: it is a great tribute to her book that once you have familiarised yourself with the recipes, you will feel empowered to adapt them as circumstances require. That’s cooking!
Balli Balli by Da-Hae West, published by Ryland Peters & Small (£22).
Photography by Clare Winfield.
