Anyeong haseyo! Here is another Korean recipe I would like to share with everyone! Budae jjigae is a Korean fusion stew that incorporates American style processed foods such as spam, sausages and other things.
Budae is the Korean word for army base, and jjigae means stew. When the American soldiers first arrived in Korea, they must have missed or craved the everyday comfort foods that they had back home, so they brought with them baked beans, sliced cheese, sausages and spam, among other things.
Since the Koreans were of course at first not 'familiar' with these processed foods, they had to cook it in a Korean way, hence budae jjigae was born. Shall we take a look at our ingredients then?
To prepare the broth, I just boiled 2 dried shiitake mushrooms, and a tablespoon of powdered anchovies. If you have the whole anchovies at home, you can use that. Koreans make their broth using kelp, which is a kind of dried seaweed, plus the anchovies, but since I don't have it at home, I just used those two ingredients. If you don't want to make your own broth, you can just use chicken or beef stock.
For the seasoning paste, I mixed 6 cloves of chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon of hot pepper sauce, 1 tablespoon pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar, and 2 tablespoons water to come up with this paste. You can adjust the pepper flakes and hot pepper amount according to your tolerance of spiciness.
As you can see, I have sliced tofu, sausages, spam, the mushrooms that I used to make the broth, green onions, I even added rice cakes, and sliced pork that I pre-cooked. I also added cabbages so that it will have more vegetables.
If you have a deep pan, start arranging your ingredients. The first to go is one sliced white onion, about half a cup of chopped kimchi, yes, there is kimchi, the pork slices and the seasoning paste. You can substitute pork with bacon if you want. I also soaked some sweet potato noodles, the one they use to make jjapchae.
After that you arrange your other ingredients on top in a way that every ingredient is grouped together for a nice look, ha ha. After this, you can pour the broth. If you have a portable stove, you can cook the stew on the table itself.
The idea is to eat it while it is cooking, while everyone is talking and having fun. Plus, if the weather is cold, it is nice to eat the food while it is hot. Some add baked beans, I did not. They also put a slice of cheese on top, but I did not.
When the broth starts to boil, let it boil for a few minutes for the ingredients to be cooked and the flavors infused together. After a while, you add a pack of ramyeon on top and let it cook as well.
You can also add more green vegetables if you want, just to make the dish healthier since it is full of processed foods. But this sure is a hearty dish, which can be eaten with rice or as is, since there is already some noodles on it. Happy cooking and bon appetit!
For more recipes, you can go to this page.
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