SoF- Kimchi Jjigae

I have not had the chance to post up my Kimchi making extravaganza, in fact, nor have I put up the Kimchi Tamale recipe and pictures.

You can all blame it on time, I have very little of it, the mistress is quite elusive with me. However, I have a lot of left over kimchi from six months ago. Its well fermented too! (Even after giving out 3 16 oz. glass bottles I have two spaghetti glass containers still full of kimchi!)

This time I thought if I am to experiment, it should involve kimchi again. That's when I stumbled upon Kimchi Jjigae on the Kitchen apartment therapy blog: the kitchn. But I changed it up to suite my taste.

I found a few recipes but they all seemed to be bland in taste and not hearty in consistency. However, I did find this, form the kitchn blog, and was able to chang it up, changes are in RED but it stays true to the Kimchi Jjigae I had in Diamond Bar Korean Resturant.

• 1 1/2 cups chopped whole baby daikon radish (in whole circles)
• 1 1/2 cups kimchi + the liquid from the kimchi jar
• 8 dried shiitake mushrooms
• Shiitake mushroom water (about four cups worth)
• 1 tablespoon whole dried shrimp (I used real frozen shrimp)
• Fish sauce, to taste (I love fish sauce, so I put a lot in - maybe 2 or 3 tablespoons?)(oyster sauce)
• About 1 cup of soy sauce (my kimchi was salty, so i used half cup of soy and half H2O)
  
• 1 tablespoon Korean red pepper paste (I used the spicy sauce)
• 2 cups sliced Napa kimchi
• 1 can of tuna (I replaced this with 1/2lb. of flap steak, cut into odd pieces left over frozen from my Jerk Steak Black Bean Chili recipe)
• 1 box soft tofu, cubed
• Hard boiled eggs for garnish
• Baby BoK Choy
• One Onion sliced
• I added a Udon noodle package
  

This is one hearty recipe. I recommend it as a main dish. It has lots of protein and very limited carbs. It also tastes better once settled. It has strong tastes, nothing is mild in this mug, the fish sauce also adds a certain kick that most people will find odd (odor-ous) but it is a key ingredient in making this Kimchi Jjigae and not just some other fish broth soup.

My way of going around putting this dish together.

1. clean your meat, cut it, get your shrimp if you are using real shrimp and prep all this and put it aside;
   
2. open up the shitake mushrooms, get your eggs put both of them together in a pot with four cups of water and start boiling, pinch of salt to make it go;
3. Get your daikon radishes chopped up in circles, put it in your larger soup pot, low heat, mix in your kimchi+sauce, throw your fish/oyster sauce, soy sauce, red pepper paste and let it simmer;
4. While those things are going, cut up your Napa Cabbage (fine thin slices, really finely cut) and bok choy (thicker cut, the only green thing that will remain green in the soup) and the onions.
5. Toss these into your large soup pot,
6. by this time the eggs and shitake mushroom should be done, DO NOT DISCARD the water from this, set it aside. While your mushroom and egg cool down, cut up the tofu into nice half inch cubes.
7. While the soup mixture has been boiling add your mushroom broth to the mix and put in the flap steak,
   
8. Then cut the shrooms into slices and drop them in with the Udon, as fine as you like eating them as well as the eggs.
   
9. I let it cook at this point for about 15 minutes. Everything above should have taken 15-20 minutes to do.
10. Come back take a look at the consistency, I like mine to be watery, so add water if its really thick and pastey, definetly if it looks like chili. At this point I would put in the shrooms, the shrimp and the tofu. Let it cook and 5 minutes later stir and leave for a bit maybe 5-7 minutes.

Your pretty much done. Grab a bowl, serve yourself some of it, put the hard boiled egg, sliced on top. Its a pleasent full meal! Please cook and tell me what you thought about it.