Kimchi Jjiggae by cryptoclastic

Recipe by cryptoclastic Uploaded by Drimble Wedge

So a quick look at the Goons With Spoons wiki has shown me that there’s only three total recipes under the Korean cuisine heading. This makes me a little sad, honestly, especially since one of them is just a side dish, and another is for straight up kimchi. I’ve been living in Korea for two and a half years now, and have definitely grown to love the cuisine, and even learned to cook a bit of it!

Now, since there was apparently a big kimchi making thread a few months back, I’m assuming a lot of you have kimchi. As such, today I’m going to show you how to make what is pretty much the easiest dish out there to use your kimchi in. Kimchi jjigae! If you talk to your average married Korean man, he usually knows how to cook just a handful of dishes. One of them is usually kimchi jjigae. This means it’s ridiculously easy!

Essentially, you take kimchi, cut it up, and boil it for a while. That’s kimchi jjigae. The awesome part about kimchi jjigae is that while it is at its core really simple to make, there are lots of different little ways you can tweak it to make the final product different. You can add things like ginger or garlic, gochujang, tuna instead of pork. Noodles, vegetables, whatever. Some people even add vinegar or soju. As such, almost everyone has their own different take on it.

So anyway, here is what we’re going to need to make my version.

• 1kg of kimchi!
• 500g samgyupsal/pork belly
• 1 onion
• 3 or so large Korean green onions (optionalish)
• ½ a thing or so of enoki mushrooms
• 1 pack of tofu
• 1 tbsp or so of doenjang (Korean miso?)
• 1 tsp of red pepper powder
• Dash of sesame oil

That’s pretty much it. Keep in mind, this is also quite a bit. I like my jjigae with less soup and more meatiness, and I still get four servings out of it. For just two people you could half this recipe no problem.

To start, do all your prep. Start pressing your tofu: wrap it in paper towel, put something flattenable on it, and then a weight. Cut your onion up, I usually half it, then slice it and cut twice. For the onions, small rounds. Mushrooms, just cut the base off.

Next, take your pork belly and cut it up into about one inch pieces, lengthwise. This is a bit less than 500g, but I was trying to be a little bit healthier than normal.

Throw these pieces into a pot. My pot here is pretty big, but I’m cooking a lot.