Korean · Soup
Kimchi Jjigae
- Easy
- 35 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with ferment tang with real depth behind it, richness that coats and comforts, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 2 cups very ripe kimchi + juice
- 200g pork belly, sliced
- 1 tbsp gochujang, 1 tbsp gochugaru
- 300g tofu, thick slabs
- Scallions, onion, 500ml water or anchovy stock
The skills inside
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · fish · soy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Fry pork belly until its fat runs; add kimchi and fry 5 min more. 5 min
- Add pastes, water, onion; boil hard 15 min: jjigae likes violence. 15 min
- Tofu slabs in gently for the last 5.
- Scallions; serve volcanic with rice.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Salted water & the float test 188 recipes
- The water was salted before anything went in, and tasting it confirms it: seasoned on the tongue, with the salt dissolved rather than sitting on the pot floor.
- There is enough water, hot enough, that the pot returns to its boil quickly after the food goes in and never stops moving.
- Where the dish uses the float as its signal, the signal is obeyed: the pieces rise and they come out then, not several minutes later once something else was finished.
- Nothing is stuck to the bottom of the pot or welded to itself, and the water has not thickened into a cloudy sludge.
- Drained on a bite rather than on the clock: resistance at the centre, with no chalky raw core.
Where it goes wrong The pot was too small and the water unsalted, so it never recovered its boil: the food sat in slack water, went gummy at the surface, and comes out bland in a way that no sauce afterwards can fix.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Cold barley tea (boricha)
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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