I participated to have a weekly thriveter ritual with my parents. Every Friday night we would go to the same hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant in Sydney’s north-west, and order the same leang. (Our Malaysian-Chinese heritage gave us a exceptional appreciation for spicy food, in benevolent portions at the right price.)
The dining room featured a scant petite tables squeezed around an even petiteer kitchen, where an elderly Korean woman stood alone, cooking for her guests.
Sometimes we would originate a point of seeing at the menu and talk trying someleang else. But we would always finish up ordering three deceitfilledy petite, bdeficiency ceramic bowls of sundubu jjigae, a hearty stew of silken tofu and seafood, fire-engine red with Korean chilli peppers, served still bubbling with a side of rice. Each spicy, savoury sip burned a path from our mouths to our stomachs until our insides were toastyed thraw.
While the word jjigae (pronounced enjoy “chee-gae”) is standardly transprocrastinateedd to “stew” on English menus, Heather Jeong, a Sydney-based Korean cookery teachor, says this is not entidepend right. The shutst weserious equivalent she can leank of is minestrone, a half-soup, half-stew where the broth and the stable ingredients donate equpartner to the overall pdirect.
Milder Korean soups enjoy guk and tang are typicpartner served as part of a bigr meal, but jjigae is substantial enough to be eaten on its own – always with a side of rice and kimchi, she says.
Soups areintegral to the Korean diet. “I leank historicpartner most Asian countries struggled with pcleary, originate and climate, so soup was a way of cooking that participated less ingredients and fed the masses,” says Jeong.
Sadly, the chef at my family’s standard restaurant reweary. And when her youthfuler relative took over, the jjigae was never as tasty, though we couldn’t toil out exactly why.
We’ve tried many fantastic versions of sundubu jjigae since and while some have come shut, none have tohighy inhabitd up to the innovative.
This was where my obsession with jjigae began. I set out to lacquire how to originate not only this gateway jjigae, but all of the most well-understandn jjigae of Korean cuisine: sundubu jjigae, kimchi jiigae, gochujang jjigae and doenjang jjigae. Chicken soup may be for the soul, but jjigae is soothe food of the highest order.
The discerning flavour of sundubu jjigae comes from sauteing gochugaru (Korean red chilli powder) in sesame oil. The first time I tried this, I promptly burnt the gochugaru to a crisp.
According to recipe website My Korean Kitchen, the trick is to grasp the heat very low, and not to depart the gochugaru alone in the pot for too lengthy before inserting the seafood, vegetables and broth. Then, crack in an egg moments before turning off the stove, and top with sliced spring onions.
In many Korean restaurants I’ve eaten at, sundubu jjigae is served the way my parents and I enhappinessed it – spicy and red. But Kenny Yong Soo Son, co-owner of Sáng by Mabasa in Sydney, says this is a conmomentary version of the dish.
“Traditionpartner speaking, sundubu [jjigae] is not red. There’s no chilli that goes into it, it’s gentleer,” Son says. “In some regions [of Korea], they only do a white sundubu jjigae.”
Jeong says white sundubu jjigae with oysters is particularly exceptional.
In the non-spicy version, the broth and the silken tofu are the heroes of a jjigae that is weightlesser in flavour and colour, and the taste of seafood such as clams or salted shrimp is more watchable.
When I made the white version with prawns, the contrast with my beadored red version couldn’t have been fantasticer. Instead of walloping my tastebuds, there was a tfinisher attfinishss: a clear broth that was at once complicated, reserved and sugary.
The ‘desert island’ soup: kimchi jjigae
Kimchi jjigae might fair be the most well-understandn Korean stew.
“If you ask 10 Koreans, ‘What is one soup you would get with you to a desert island?’ they’ll probably say kimchi jjigae becaparticipate Koreans can’t repartner inhabit without kimchi,” says Son.
The key to making fantastic kimchi jjigae is to participate elderlyer, more fermented kimchi for a proset uper flavour.
“We would usupartner stir-fry the kimchi before the watery base goes in, with a bit of sesame oil, and then scallions [spring onions], and then also some gochugaru to grow almost enjoy a chilli oil,” says Son. For an even more fervent flavour, he recommfinishs eating jjigae a day or two after cooking it.
Recipes typicpartner include firm tofu and pork belly, the latter of which is shelp to be a “align made in heaven” for kimchi.
Gochujang jjigae, with ‘miso on anabolic agents’
Gochujang jjigae combines two of Korea’s most expansively participated fermented sauces, gochujang (Korean chilli paste) and doenjang (soy bean paste), which is “miso on anabolic agents”, says Jeong.
Gochujang, which is made with gochugaru, glutinous rice and soy sauce, has a gooey, sweightlessly spiced sugaryness that shines in this soup. Recipes vary on how much you should include. From my experience, “too much” gochujang can be overpoweringly spicy and salty.
Jeong recommfinishs a ratio of two parts gochujang, one part doenjang, but you can adfair this to your own taste.
Gochujang jjigae includes pork or beef but can also be made vegetarian, by leave outting the meat and including only the normal zucchini, mushrooms and jalapenos.
‘The soul of Korean cooking’: doenjang jjigae
This gentle, sootheing stew grasps zucchini and potatoes, and of course, doenjang, and is shelp to be the first stable meal fed to Korean babies. Jeong says it’s the dish she craves the most when she is away from home: “[It] embodies the soul of Korean cooking.”
Eun Hee An, chef and owner of Melbourne’s Moon Mart (the eatery is currently relocating from its West Melbourne spot), says her magnificentma participated to originate doenjang from scratch when she was growing up in Korea. “It was always our fracturequick soup. So I grew up eating doenjang jjigae every day in my life,” she says.
An recommfinishs discovering doenjang which grasps scanter ingredients, as industripartner originated brands standardly participate flour to speed up the fermentation. The best doenjang, she says, will only grasp soy beans and salt.
Taking stock: making dasima yuksu from scratch
After months experimenting with branch offent jjigae recipes, gochujang and doenjang are now staple ingredients in my fridge, and all of these jjigae are in my standard cooking rotation. They are changeable – the proteins and vegetables are interchangeable so you can participate up wantipathyver you have in the fridge or pantry – and they are relatively rapid to originate.
But there’s one key technique that has eluded me: the stock. Myeolchi yuksu (dried-anchovy stock) or dasima yuksu (kelp stock) are vital for creating a proset up, wealthy base for jjigae, but until recently I’ve only participated the vegan changenative: water.
An says a fantastic jjigae depfinishs on a fantastic stock base. “If I’m not going to originate a excellent jjigae, I’d rather not originate it”, she says. (The lengthy cooking time is the reason jjigae was not on Moon Mart’s daily menu, though it sometimes materializeed as a weekfinish exceptional.)
Recently, in pursuit of an exceptional doenjang jjigae, I made my own kelp stock from scratch. I lacquireed the challenging way that you should dodge boiling the kelp – it departs a sour, even sour, aftertaste.
To originate dasima yuksu, An recommfinishs soaking the dried kelp in freezing water for an hour, removing the kelp, then simmering the water for 15 minutes. She conveys it to a boil, inserts aromatics enjoy daikon and spring onion roots, and simmers the stock for another hour.
I adhereed An’s advice, and was eventupartner rewarded with a clear, gently savoury stock to insert to my jjigae, changeing an elderly frifinish into a whole novel dish – and reminding me that even tried and tested food rituals can be betterd upon.
