SEOUL, 23 March 2015 – Philippine cuisine was the inaugural focus of a food feature series launched on Monday, 23 March 2015 in the lifestyle section of the English edition of one of the country’s three biggest circulation newspapers, Korea JoongAng Daily, the partner of the International New York Times in Korea.

The full-page feature, entitled “Cooking with Her Excellency,” invites the spouse of a Seoul-based ambassador to collaborate with a professional Korean chef to cook a popular dish from the featured country, alongside the Korean dish most resembling it. Mme. Maria Ana A. Hernandez, spouse of Philippine Ambassador to Korea Raul S. Hernandez, was invited to launch the series with a demonstration of how to prepare the popular Filipino comfort food, kare-kare, or braised oxtail in peanut sauce, at the kitchen of Asia Live buffet restaurant in InterContinental Seoul Coex in Seoul’s Gangnam financial district. As its Korean counterpart, InterContinental Seoul Executive Chef Oh Heung-min opted for galbijjim, or braised beef ribs, a popular Korean dish often served to dinner guests or on holidays such as the Lunar New Year. Chef Oh has specialized in Asian cuisine for 25 years at the InterContinental Seoul Coex. “I chose kare-kare because it is a dish that appears to both the young and the old,” Mme. Hernandez told Korea JoongAng Daily reporter Sarah Kim. “I also think this is one dish Koreans might like and that they can cook easily with a slight variation in the cooking method and the ingredients.” Mme Hernandez said most of the ingredients are available in Korea, while demonstrating how to achieve the right tenderness with the oxtail before adding dry-roasted ground peanuts, eggplants, onions, glutinous rice, banana blossom heart, yardlong beans, shrimp paste and other seasoning. She said her favorite Korean dish is dolsot bibimbap, mixed rice and vegetables cooked in a special stoneware that allows the rice to burn slightly. “I love the sound and smell of bibimpap and have regarded it as my comfort food in Korea. I find it unpretentious, that all I have to do is mix the ingredients and mix everything with a spoon.” For the food tasting, InterContinental Seoul Coex General Manager Theresa Yeonseon Kim welcomed Mme Hernandez, who was dressed in a green evening dress called terno with butterfly sleeves to showcase the beauty of the Philippine national costume, her husband Ambassador Hernandez, and Embassy Cultural Officer Elaine M. Diza. “Cooking With Her Excellency”, featuring some background information and the recipe of the featured dish as well as an introduction to a restaurant serving it in Seoul, is published as a fortnightly full-page article to be published beginning the first week of March in celebration of the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Korea JoongAng Daily. –END–