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

Egg-in-a-Pepper

Oh so pretty outside today. We went to the French market along Wisconsin (a street right next to Georgetown). It feels so good to be done with exams and enjoy the outside like normal people! Nomm-ed on crepes, creole jambalaya, burgers, fries, macaroons and french bread :/ Yeah, that was too much food. Too weird of a mix. Upset stomach for the rest of the day. Ungh so much for being a glutton...

My interesting factoid of today is a little look into the future of food. Cloned animals with "leaner meat". First sheep ever cloned with "good fats" in China rather than "bad fats/ cholesterol". Apparently, the gene is straight from a ROUNDWORM that produces unsaturated fatty acids, which is better for you. I mean we have tomatoes with fish genes in them so we can freeze them... Are you ready to munch on some sheep-worm hybrid??

Last weekend, we decided to make something creative for brunch. We eat A LOT OF eggs. And we saw some great colorful peppers. But mostly I was browsing recipes and found egg bacon cups and avocado cups. And so why not pepper cups?? 

Beautiful, bright and derricious!

Egg-in-a-Pepper

Cooking level: Easy Peasy

Yellow, Orange, Green!

Ingredients

3 Bell peppers (or however many)

3 eggs

1/3 cup shredded cheese (sharp chedder or pepper jack)

1 tsp of any kind if herb

Salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 400F. We only used the bottom of the bell peppers. But you can also use the top part if you like.


In your cups, split the cheese, herbs, salt and pepper. Dried parsley, chili flakes works great. I'm sure chives would be very delicious and refreshing too.

I separated the egg whites while bubs mixed the cheese and herbs around and then plopped the egg yolk on top. Although, the next time I do this I think I'll put some egg white over the yolk so it doesn't dry out too much in the oven.

Stick those in the oven (it fits in the toaster oven!) for about 25-30mins or however you like your eggs.

Super simple huh?

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!