Kimchi Jjigae – Korean Kimchi Stew

After I made my own kimchi, there was another dish I wanted to try, and that is the Korean Kimchi Stew. Normally, this is a stew that has soft tofu and an egg added to it, or at least that is how I saw it everywhere. It is mainly prepared in one-serving ceramic pots, but in my case, I did not have that, so I made a bigger pot of the stew. I tried a few versions of this stew, and funny enough my favorite was the one that had pork and no tofu (because I had none left).

When it comes to the egg, normally you would crack an egg directly in the stew, but that applies well if you make one serving. In my case, I made about 3-4 servings, so I made some half boiled eggs instead. It is not very traditional, but I really enjoyed it.

To get into the recipe, let’s make a list of our ingredients:

Ingredients:

• 300g pork neck
• 30g bacon
• 160g kimchi
• 1 onion
• 4 green onions, the white parts
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce (15 ml)
• 2 tbsp gochugaru (30g)
• 1/2 tsp gochujang (5g)
• 400 ml chicken soup
• 1 tbsp oil (15ml)
• salt and pepper to taste
• a sprinkle of MSG *optional
• shiitake mushrooms *optional
• 1 egg per serving**
• 100g tofu *optional

Method:

1. Cut the pork in bite-size pieces. Season the meat with salt and pepper and a bit of MSG(I know some people don’t want to use it, so you may skip if if you have something against it). MSG will bring umami to the dish. Let the meat rest for 15-20 mins.
2. Dice the bacon and add it in a pot with one tbsp of oil. The addition of the oil will help render the fat from the bacon a bit faster.
3. Once the bacon fat is rendered, add the pork pieces.
4. Sear the meat on all sides. You don’t have to cook it all the way through, but I like to get it nice and brown on all sides, it is way more flavourful.
5. After the meat has been fried nicely, add the gochugaru – Korean Chili flakes – and stir. At this point I would recommend you lower your heat a bit as you don’t want to burn the chili flakes.
6. Add the onion, finely chopped and the white parts of your green onions, thinly sliced — the green parts I kept for garnishing. Stir and cook for 2-3 minutes.
7. Add the kimchi. Chop it a little bit before adding, in case you have bigger pieces. Cook for 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
8. Add the soup and bring to a boil.
9. Add the gochujang and oyster sauce and stir well. If you want to add shiitake mushrooms as well, this is a good moment to do so. Cover and let it simmer for 20 mins.
10. After this, it would be the moment to add your tofu. Use the softest and silkiest tofu you can find, I used silken tofu, the soft version. Crumble it or cube it and add it in the stew and let it simmer for a few more minutes.
11. I garnished it with some green onions, the half boiled eggs, and some shiitake mushrooms that I rehydrated and boiled.

It is a really nice and comforting dish, the kimchi brings a lot of warmth and flavour. I love the way it combines with the egg, so don’t skip it, no matter the way you prefer to add it. I served it with some rice as well, they go lovely together.

Hope you enjoy this recipe.