Kimchi Jjigae

One of the many Korean dishes that I thoroughly enjoy :) I have made this dish quite a number of times at home using a Korean cookbook that I have at home. However, this kimchi jjigae is my take on Marc's (norecipe.com) recipe...of course, it comes with a bit of tweaking.

I was only suppose to make this dish for myself to satisfy my cravings but mum gave me the excuse of "oh I am only cooking two dishes so make enough to feed the rest". As we have homestay students, I had to make a massive pot of kimchi soup to feed 8 people.

Here is Marc's recipe...(this recipe should feed 2-4 people)

INGREDIENTS
1/3 lbs pork belly, sliced very thin
1/2 small onion sliced
1 1/2 cup loseely packed kimchi
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 cup of kimchi juice
2 cups of water
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1 tbsp cooking wine (such as mirin or shaoxing)
2 tsp gochujang (Korean chilli paste)
2 tsp miso
2 tsp Korean soup soy sauce (or light soy sauce)
2 tbsp gochugaru (Korean dried chili flakes) - optional
8 oz silken tofu, sliced into cubes
2 spring onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp butter

1. Heat a small pot until hot, then add the pork belly and onion. Allow some of the fat to render out of the pork belly, then add the kimchi and garlic. Saute until the mixture is very fragrant, then add the kimchi juice, water, ginger, cooking win, gochujang, miso and soy sauce, stirring everything together to combine.
2. Bring to a boil and taste for spiciness. Add as much gochugaru to tate until it's pleasantly tingly. Add the togu, turn down the heat to a simmer and let it cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the pork and kimchi are tender.
3. When you're ready to serve, add the spring onions and butter and give it a quick stir to incorporate. Put a trivet down on the table and serve it straight out of the pot along with a bowl of rice.

What did I do different?

• I added SPAM, cut into cubes and mushrooms, thinly sliced.
• Instead of using water, I used chicken stock.

Some may think it's weird to add SPAM but honestly, it taste so good in the kimchi soup :)

Advice: To extract the most of the kimchi juice from the kimchi, put it into a sieve and push it down with a masher, well, that's what I used anyway. The more kimchi juice you can get into the soup, the better it will be.

Whenever I try a new recipe, I always try my best to keep to what the recipe says BUT I always find myself tweaking away at the recipe. I am not the type of cook that is really anal about having exact ingredients as what the recipe says, if I am missing an ingredient, I will do without it or substitute it with something else...I am not going out of the way to buy just that 1 ingredient where there is a 50/50 chance I will not use it again. 

I guess that's also the reason why I am horrible at baking, I cook by feel and baking requires exact measurements which I do follow the recipe but somehow, it never wants to work our for me.

Well, ENJOY the Kimchi Jjigae :)