Kimchi Stew (Kimchi-jjigae 김치찌개) - AFF Korea Apr 2014

Time flies and it's April already! The theme for this month's Asian Food Fest is Korean. In the past, our family was never big fan of Korean cuisine and rarely dined at Korean restaurants. I think our initiation to Korean food was through Seoul Garden during our schooling days? Haha, those days all-you-can-eat BBQ buffet was so popular. But hubby swore off the place when he had a terrible stomach ache after dining there.

Subsequently, more Korean restaurants started to open shop in Singapore, but our exposure remained minimal. I guess because hubby used to hate kimchi. I'm ok with kimchi but more keen in the various banchan side dishes. Once in a while, we would go for Korean BBQ where hubby enjoyed the grilled meats whereas I the banchan.

Somehow during the past two years, hubby started to show more interest in Korean cuisine (influence of Korean drama?) and even started to like kimchi. O.O Nowadays, we dine at Korean restaurants occasionally and hubby is the one who orders the kimchi soup or stew.

So when I told him that this month's AFF theme is Korean, his very first order was Kimchi Stew. This is the first time he actually showed interest in what I cook for AFF :p

I started searching the internet for easy recipes and found the recipes featured on www.maangchi.com to be very comprehensive, quick and simple. Very surprised that Kimchi soup or stew is so easy to prepare at home, almost effortless!

Ingredients include kimchi, pork belly, yellow onion, hot pepper paste (gochujang), hot pepper flakes (gochugaru), sugar, sesame oil and spring onions (and tofu which I forgot to include in this picture). The Korean ingredients are readily available at Korean supermarkets and nowadays many major supermarkets also sell the basic ones.

Basically just cut up and mix everything together and cook on stove. That's all!

Kimchi Stew (Kimchi-jjigae 김치찌개)

Ingredients:

• 250g kimchi, chopped (the pack I bought is already pre-chopped)
• 200g pork belly, sliced thinly
• 1 yellow onion, sliced
• 1 tbsp hot pepper paste
• 1 tsp hot pepper flakes
• 1 tbsp sugar
• Water (about 2 cups)
• 1/2 pc tofu (I bought firm silken tofu from wet market)
• Sesame oil
• 1 stalk spring onion

Steps:

1. In a pot, put some chopped kimchi and juice.
2. Add pork belly, sliced onion, hot pepper paste, hot pepper flakes and sugar.
3. Pour water over the ingredients until all the ingredients are submerged.
4. Close the lid of the pot and boil for 10 minutes on high heat.
5. After 10 minutes, reduce to medium heat and cook for another 10 minutes.
6. After 10 minutes, add some tofu and cook for 5 minutes more.
7. Add splash of sesame oil and spring onion. Serve hot.

The kimchi stew tasted very yummy indeed, spicy, tangy, very appetising! Hubby loved it and lamented that I used too little kimchi and added too much onions. This is a perfect one pot dish that I will cook from time to time. I'm looking forward to cooking more korean dishes, in fact have already cooked kimchi fried rice and korean crispy fried chicken (both were oh-so-good!) which I will blog about soon!

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest: Korea, hosted by Sharon of Feats of Feasts.