Haemul Soondubu Jjigae - Seafood Soft Tofu Stew

My biggest regret this month is to miss the audition for the Spicy eating challenge at BCD Tofu House sponsored event at the Ktown Food Fest. OMgoodness, I would have totally owned it. But I didn't know there was an audition. I thought...I thought... ahhh. I missed my chance to win an iPad!! There were other contests like choco pie eating, but I can almost imagine choking down chocolate covered dry pieces of bread. bleh...

Anyhoo, I can make my own Soft tofu soup and eat it. Wuah wuah. Although, BCD's hot stone pot rice is soo fluffy and delicious. Something I can't make at home, unless I burn down my house.

Here's a short human body fact for today. I promise a more substantial, interesting and intellectual story next time...unless you guys really don't like reading too many words :p

FACT: 250,000 pores that exist on the soles of the feet secret almost 1/4 cup of sweat every day
Now I know why my feet smells like flowers.... :)

Haemul Soon dubu - Seafood Soft Tofu
Makes 2 servings

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!

Soft Tofu Soup (Soondubu jjigae - 순두부찌개)

Studying is so hard after coming back from spring break. I feel like a lazy bum. Sleeping for 8 hours a day, catching up with all my TV and just lying around doing nothing. We're in pathophysiology class and I'm obviously not concentrating and updating my blog! Also, I can't understand our professor...she sounds... Polish?? It sounds like she has a thick beard over her mouth :\

Since we have mucho amounts of time, we've been cooking up a storm! We're also planning to make some NY pizza in the near future. So look out for that. Although, we're still arguing about the use of whole wheat flour and low fat cheese. Bubz likes it fat and by that I mean 100% fat. Gross.

I'm glad I have cooking power over everything. Yea, I wear the pants like that :D
BOSS

Soondubu Jjigae - 순두부찌개
- Loosely adapted from Aeris Kitchen

Ingredients

Dashi broth

1. Big piece of kelp (dried seaweed)

2. 8 Anchovies

3. 2-3 cups of water

Starting to fry

1. 1 tbsp of oil (mix of sesame oil + olive)

2. 1/2 tbsp of minced garlic

3. 1/2 onion sliced

4. 1/2 tbsp korean chili powder (or more!)

5. Small palmful of meat (if you want/ or you can make it vegetarian)

6. 1/2 zucchini

7. 1 tbsp Yoondu (soysauce)

Soup stuff to boil

1. 1/4 cup kimchi + 1/2 cup juice

2. 1 pack soft tofu

3. handful of frozen seafood (or fresh, or optional)

4. 1/2 pack of enoki mushroom

5. 1/2 chili (optional for extra kick)

6. 1 stalk of green onion, salt (optional), pepper

7. EGG

Get out two pots! In one pot start the dashi broth by boiling the kelp, anchovies and water for 15-20 mins. Or if you're lazy like us and you don't want to wash another pot, you can do this stage when you start to add the kimchi, tofu to the soup. (I'll let you know).

In the other pot, heat up the oil, fry up the garlic and onion until fragrant. You can choose to add meat or not. We used a few slices of samgyupsaal (pork belly) but you can just omit that and keep it veg. Fry up your zucchini for 3 mins, add in your chili powder, and soysauce or yoondu.

Add your dashi broth that you've prepared or add in the ingredients for the dashi broth if you don't mind having fishes floating around. I use this sieve thing that I can just put in the pot and lift up. I'll post a picture of this later!

Anyway, after you add your broth, add in the kimchi and juice and boil for 3 mins. Add the frozen seafood (optional). Boil another 3min. Add in the tofu and chili. Again wait 3. Finally add in your mushroom and green onions. Add salt and pepper to taste!

And then.... crack in your egg. We like to do it while it's still boiling because we can't stand raw eggs.

But popping the yolk into the soup is sooo delicious. Enjoy with rice and ban chan!