This weekend, I decided to try 된장찌개 - a staple Korean food that can be found in most restaurants throughout Korea, and my school cafeteria lunches as well. Translated 된장 (Doenjang) means soybean paste and 찌개 (Jjigae) is stew, making it soybean paste stew. Soybean paste has a strong, salty flavor, and is made by grinding and fermenting soybeans. This, mixed with some anchovy-kelp broth, spice, vegetables, and some form of a protein, makes for a satisfying and healthy stew.
Korean soybean paste comes in many varieties as well...so many that I ended up getting a kind I didn't intend to. I was aiming to get the plain original soybean paste, to practice making the stew totally from scratch and spicing it. However, upon opening the container it was clear what I had bought was not plain soybean paste ... so adding additional seasoning was unnecessary today. It was also difficult for me to find a small container of the soybean paste in the mart in my town. Since it is a common Korean cooking ingredient, it is often sold in huge bulk containers...enough to last me at least a year, and much more than I'd ever need. So when faced with buying some...I honestly had no clue which one to grab, and was limited to whatever was offered in a small sized container.
 |
| The ingredients - All of which I didn't use because this was before I realized I didn't have original doenjang |
The vegetables that I used in my stew included a potato, Korean zucchini, onion, and button mushrooms. Then I added tofu and shreds of beef as well. Other proteins work in the stew also though, such as clams and shrimp. I chose beef because it was the protein I was most familiar with and most confident handling in the kitchen.
Other than the fact that there are several ingredients to prep, including the broth, the stew itself isn't too difficult to make. Mainly once everything is prepped it is just a matter of mixing the ingredients together and boiling them for the proper time period. My first try wasn't perfect. There were some steps I couldn't follow exactly due to not having the proper kitchen tools (like when I added the soybean paste to the broth), but overall I think it was a delicious first try. A bit on the salty side and could have used a little more spice, but it tasted hearty and filling and broke my cycle of boring food. The other plus is that the recipe is for 2 people, and so I have leftovers and can enjoy the meal again after work without cooking! Hooray!
The recipe I was following can be found here at the Future Dish website.
Lastly - Here is a short mini-film of my cooking process.
