More Delicious Omsom Dinner Starters

When I was doing my holiday food list, I mentioned Omsom (and that I hadn’t tried the new threesome, the East Asian Sampler). Before I knew it, they offered to send me one. They sold it out almost immediately, but it got replenished and I got my box to try.

This sampler has Korean Spicy Bulgogi, Chinese Mala Salad and Japanese Yuzu Misoyaki and is meant to go with salmon, chicken or vegetables. The only one of the trio that was familiar (from many trips to Seoul in a previous life) was bulgogi. We tried it the other night with some chicken thighs.

There are a couple of things that I really love about Omsom. First and most important, it all tastes good.  They’re all simple to make and you’re not left with a huge clean up afterwards. Can’t beat that, right? And they’ve been really responsive whenever I’ve contacted them (when I’ve been too quick to hit Apple Pay and messed up an order).

But back to bulgogi…I had time to let it marinate overnight. After that, all you do is sear the chicken in a pan and serve. I didn’t want to waste any of the fond (brown bits on the bottom of the pan), so I tossed in a bit of chicken stock and deglazed the pan, giving us a little sauce to use on the rice. It was great! Don’t let the “spicy” in the title dissuade you. It’s got a little kick, but nothing to be afraid of (and If you need to up the heat, some gochujang or sriracha will kick it up).

Next up for us was the Japanese Yuzu Misoyaki, because we got some beautiful salmon from the fish market. This is even easier that the bulgogi. Roast the salmon, top with the sauce, finish under the broiler and serve. Perfectly cooked salmon and delicious! Frank is not a fan of salmon, so the fact that his plate was devoured in minutes shows just how good this was. Our only (minor) complaint? The sauce was so tasty, we would have liked a little more of it on the fish. If it gets more salmon consumed around here, I’ll be buying more very soon!

While I was deciding what to make with the third starter, Chinese Mala salad — mala which I hadn’t heard of — started popping up everywhere. When Tejal Rao, the NY Times LA food critic lost her sense of taste and smell due to Covid, mala was the first thing that she felt like she could taste. Jason Wang of Xi’an Famous Foods in New York says, “You can mala anything.” Omsom has three salad recipes with the mala and some spareribs. Which would you pick? Luckily, I’ve got 3 packets of the starter, so we have choices!