Say Kimchi ^_^v

Nothing is more Korean than kimchi, so it is no surprise that you will find it in everything from soups, fried rice, ramyun, and even in donuts. When you take pictures, instead of saying cheese, people will say kimchi.

Today's dish is one of the most simple and quickest to make. Soups are always present during meals, and kimchi jjigae (김치찌개)is a staple. My Korean co-workers and friends always laughed at me because this was my first attempt at cooking Korean food and the biggest flop. Due to that incident, I stopped trying to make my own and ate out for six months before I gathered the courage to try again and even then I did not attempt this dish again until just recently. So after two and a half years, I man up and made it for my parents.

The key to a good kimchi jjigae is the kimchi. It must be sour. If it is not old, sour, fermented cabbage, then your soup is going to be bland and flavorless. Can you guess what my mistake was all those years ago?

Prep is not time consuming like most other foods of this cuisine. Chopping, slicing, and cooking will take you about thirty minutes. Unlike Rachel Ray, I do not expect you to have all your vegetables and herbs washed and ready to go. Instead, it is simple to just prep as you go along. I am more of a Sara Moulton style cook.

Ingredients

2 cups or 1/4 head of sour kimchi
3 slices of samgyupsal (Korean bacon)
1/2 medium onion
6 cloves of garlic
1/2 block of tofu
2 sprigs of green onions
4 tablespoons of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoons of gochujang (red pepper paste)
1 1/2 tablespoons of red pepper powder (cut back on either of the red pepper ingredients if you don't want it too spicy)
1/4 cup of kimchi juice (the juice left that is extracted from the cabbage during fermentation)
3-4 cups of water

Start by squeezing out the extra juices into a bowl on the side. Then cut the kimchi into bite size pieces. Make sure to not waste any of the juices because you will need it for the broth later. Mince the garlic and put it aside.

Take the samgyupsal and cut off the layer of fat with the skin. You can leave it on if you like the fat, but I like my soup a little more lean. Then slice into bite size pieces as well.

Peel and cut the onion down the middle length wise. The slice them into medium size half rings.


Heat up a pot and add 2 tablespoons of oil. You can do all vegetable oil or do 75/25 with sesame oil. Be careful with sesame oil, because it has a lower tolerance for heat and will smoke up if it is too high. Add the dry, kimchi slices and sautee until the leaves starts to become translucent.


Add the bacon, garlic, and onions. Cook until the meat changes to a light brown and the onions start to soften.

Add the water to cover. Put in all the seasonings and the kimchi juice. While the soup is heating up, cut the tofu into large squares. You do not want them too small otherwise they are lost in the soup. Add to the soup and let it boil for 15 minutes.


Take this time to cut up the sprigs of green onion to garnish at the end.

This dish is so simple. Makes me feel uneasy now that I look back at my failed attempt. Hopefully with these instructions you won't fail as badly as I did. Fighting!