Kimchi Jjigae/ Stew - 김치찌개

Last week bubs and I went shooting for the first time. Well, first time for me. And I mean real shooting, with REAL guns. No bb guns, laser tag or nerf guns :P. We did a round of 9mm bullets so there was a good amount of recoil. It was so... powerful! I felt like an FBI agent loading my gun. I probably didn't look like one though... Jumped at the sound of the first bang and took forever to focus. Oh my goodness was it loud. Even with earmuffs I felt like I was going to go deaf. I'd like to say that I would have done better than bubs if I had my glasses with me haha. But I think I did pretty dece... if I say so myself (no shortage of confidence here).


We made Kimchi jjigae yesterday because the weather is so bloody cold. DC weather is so stupid >:( It was hot, then it's cold. Yes, then you're no...  ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ Just kidding, I'm not going to sing. But this stew is soo easy to make. Especially when you buy a huge tub of kimchi from the korean store and you think you're going to finish the whole thing. But in reality you never eat at home and always buy take out (#truelyfe). You must use old ass kimchi where the cabbage looks a little grey and it tastes really sour or else your soup won't taste very good. Trust me. You can also change it up and add seafood or meat or keep it really simple with neither. Enjoy!

Kimchi Stew 김치찌개

Ingredients
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
Palm size amount of meat (or none if you want to keep it veg)
1.5 cup OLD kimchi
4 tbsp kimchi juice
5 anchovies (or vegetarians use shiitake mushrooms for that umami)
2 cups water

1/2 zucchini
1/2 pack of firm tofu
1 pack enoki mushrooms
1/2 tbsp korean chili powder + serrano/jalapeno chilies (optional for some extra heat)
1 stalk of green onions

In a huge pot heat up the sesame oil and garlic and throw in your meat. We used pork belly (ssamgyup ssal), but you can use other scraps of meat like chuck, strips of pork. Throw in your kimchi to fry for a bit (makes it more fragrant) and add your water and kimchi juice. You can prepare the dashi water (anchovies and 2 cups water) before hand or just add the anchovies to the pot and you can fish them out later.

Oh also using old kimchi is KEY. It has to be sour!






While it's boiling chop up your zucchini, tofu into cubes, green onions and enoki mushroom. You can add your zucchini first because that takes a while to soften.


Add the korean chili powder and toss in chopped up serrano or jalapeno chilies for extra spiciness HMMm.

After maybe 15 mins of it boiling, add the tofu. Let it boil again and then add the enoki mushrooms and green onions.

You can taste the soup and you can adjust the saltiness with more salt or add kimchi juice.

Boil for another minute and then it's ready!