From different kinds of kimchi to pecan pancakes, cookbook Our Korean Kitchen is an ode to love

When chef Jordan Bourke fell in love with the woman who would become his wife, he also fell in love with the food of her country.

In the book’s intro­duction, he writes, “Our Korean kitchen is an unusual one, a kitchen found not in Korea, but in London, and with only one true Korean at the helm, my wife Jina, a fashion designer in her own right, but equally passionate about the food of her birthplace. And then alongside her is me, an Irish chef, who somehow found himself besotted with not only the girl from Korea, but also the food and culture of a nation so far away from my own.

“Years ago, when Jina first introduced me to proper Korean food, I was astonished that I had known so little of it prior to meeting her. I couldn’t understand how a food and culture this wonderful could have remained relatively unknown to the rest of the world in comparison with its close neighbouring countries, China and Japan, whose traditional dishes are famous and familiar to us all [...]

“What is fascinating about Korean cuisine is the sheer quantity, literally hundreds, of national dishes, each one being unique to the country, and within that there are numerous regional varieties.”