Spicy Miso Beef Stew

This spicy miso beef stew is called Doenjang Jjigae in Korean. It is one of the most traditional Korean foods one can find along with Kimchi. The Korean miso paste called Doenjang is the key ingredient of this soup.

Doenjang is produced with dried soybeans that are boiled and stoned-ground into fine bits. This paste is molded up into big blocks similar to bricks, which are called Meju. These blocks are then put out in the sunlight and let it mold and therefore the fermentation process begins. This mold to the soybean is a type of vacteria that is good for health, similar to the ones used in the fermentation process of milk to produce yogurt. This Meju is one stinky piece of block. I remember as a child, I hated the smell of it whenever my grandma made those meju and hung them along the fence. So after these meju blocks are sun dried, they are placed in a warmer place to speed up the fermentation. Later these meju blocks are put into large opaque pottery jars with water and salt. For a month, they are being salted inside the jar. The meju blocks are finely crushed and mixed with water into a paste. Once fully salted, put more salt on top and then the cover of the jar is removed and replaced with a thin net to screen debris and insects from entering. Then now the mixture of exposed in the sunlight for 40 days for a full fermentation process. Now I remember when I was a child, my grandpa used to run outside and cover up these opaque pottery jars to prevent rain from entering into the jar. They were really serious about their Doenjang.

But seriously, making doenjang at home is not as realistic in modern days when people live in cities and apartments. Although if you're gungho about keeping the traditional flavor of Korean cuisine, homemade Doenjang is the best tasting condiment for many Korean dishes, most people give up the opportunity cost of this traditional flavor for a easy lifestyle. I am one of the latter people maybe because I am still young but also because I live in a student apartment. I cannot imagine hanging up stinky meju blocks outside my windows.

You can buy a pack or a container of Doenjang from a Korean supermarket. In English, it is a miso paste but that is somewhat overally generalized because there is Japanese miso paste that is quite different from the Korean miso paste. You need to buy the Korean miso paste in order to prepare this dish.

Ingredients: 2 tsp Doenjang, 1tsp clambase, 1tsp minced garlic, 1tsp red pepper powder, zucchini, enoki mushrooms, serrano chili peppers, red chili pepper, onion, potato, firm tofu, and beef



1. Boil water. I bought this traditional Korean earthen bowl from a Korean supermarket for making stews.

2. Add a tsp of clambase. Often, by adding clambase, you're adding more deep flavor for the soup broth and enough sodium so that you won't need to add salt later. Some Doenjang Jjigae uses fresh manila clams with shells instead. If you have some, use them.

3. Add 2tsp of Doenjang to the mix.

4. Now chop all your vegetable ingredients including tofu/beef before adding to the soup.


5. Add beef, potatoes first. After 2 minutes of boiling, add the rest of the vegetables.

6. After another 2 minutes, add tofu and sprinkle some red pepper powder on top and let the boiling soup cook it along with tofu. As a final touch (20 seconds before turning off your heat), add chopped green onions.

This is the final version of Doenjang Jjigae. Enjoy!

Sukiyaki Hot Pot

Sukiyaki is a Japanese style hot pot consisting of meat (usually thinly sliced beef), or a vegetarian version made only with firm tofu, slowly cooked or simmered at the table, alongside vegetables and other ingredients, in a shallow iron pot in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and mirin. Before being eaten, the ingredients are usually dipped in a small bowl of beaten raw eggs.

Generally sukiyaki is for the colder days of the year and it is commonly found at bōnenkai, Japanese year-end parties. There is a Japanese saying that says when you and your friends eat out of a same pot, your bond with them will become stronger. Let's then invite our friends or disfunctional family members and eat Sukiyaki together.

Ingredients: dried Shitake mushrooms, cabbage (preferably Chinese cabbage), thinly sliced beef, Japanese sweet potato noodles (konnyaku: jelly style noodles contained in a plastic bag with water), firm tofu, fish cake, Enoki mushrooms, bell pepper, onion, green onion, regular button mushrooms, eggs, soy sauce, salt, chicken base, mirin, brown sugar, sesame oil, ginger powder

1. Put dried Shitake mushrooms in warm water and let if soften up for 30 minutes.


2. Take all your ingredients out of your refrigirator. :)

3. Chop all the ingredients into small pieces.
This is Enoki mushroom. Cut off the dirty root part and throw it away.
Firm tofu

Fish cake (Oden)
Put them on a single dish and bring it next to the pot.

4. Boil water.

5. Using soy sauce, mirin, chicken base, sugar, sesame oil, salt, and sugar, you are not going to make the soup base.

For my version with 3 cups of water, I added 1 table spoon of chicken base.

4 tablespoons of mirin and soy sauce. Keep tasting until it's right.

Add little bit of salt, ginger powder, 2 table spoons of sesame oil and sugar. Make sure you keep tasting until it tastes right to you. Some people like it sweeter, some people don't, for example.

6. Now put those ingredients into the soup base once it heats up.

This is the picture of Konnyaku, a Japanese sweet potato noodle bag. Make sure you put all the juice inside the bag into your pot as well.

If you go to an Asian market, you can easily find those thin cut beef slices. Some are even labeled as Sukiyaki beef. If there is none in your neighborhood, you can ask your butcher at a market to slice them for you or try to slice them yourself at home. When you do it, make sure you slice it when the beef is semi-frozen so it will cut easily.

So once you add them all, organizing them section by section (good presentation always makes your food more appealing regardless of the flavor... before eating at least that is.)

Keep heating up the pot until the ingredients are fully cooked, especially the beef.

For the raw egg side dish, you put an egg in a small bowl and beat it.


Then dip your beef or other ingredients into your raw egg before eating.
I'm sure some people do not find this appetizing. It's perfectly fine. In that case, you can use Japanese sesame sauce and vinegar sauce. For vinegar sauce, which is called Sambai-Zu, it is used for dipping vegetables. You mix with 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 talespoon of rice vinegar, and sugar. For sesame sauce, which is called Gomadare, you mix with 6 tablespoons white sesame seeds, 200 ml dashi, 5 tablespoons sake, 1 tablespoon mirin, 1 teaspoon sugar, 3 tablespoons soy sauce.

Bibimbap

Bibimbap is the most famous Korean dish. In literal translation, it means mixed rice. You're basically mixing the rice with variety of vegetables (stir fried but sometimes with fresh vegetables) with sauce and sesame oil. It is quite healthy and delicious and I believe that's the reason why it became so popular in America especially among health conscious and trendy eaters. Few weeks ago, chef Mario from Iron Chef Show cooked Bibimbap in a stone bowl and amazed many people.

1. First, you need a carrot, zucchini, Shitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, beef, and spinach.

Sesame oil will be used for cooking these vegetables.

2. For carrots, you can either use them fresh or cooked. I heard it's better to eat them fresh because cooking destroys their vitamins. However, I decided to cook them for the taste. Personally I do not really like the taste of raw carrots but it's just me.


3. Then cook zucchinis. Use sesame oil also and just cook them for 1-2 minute until they're cooked.


4. For spinach, you want to boil them for 30 minutes to soften them up and pan fry them for another 30 seconds. You can skip the pan frying part if you want to.



5. You want to boil the bean sprouts for 30 seconds as well. Even though you could've skipped pan frying part for spinach, I recommend that you pan fry the bean sprouts with sesame oil for at least 30 seconds.


6. Ideally, you want to use Shitake mushrooms below. But because of the cost, you can substitute with other mushrooms. That's probably what I should do next time too since I spent a fortune on these mushrooms at a market. Slice them and cook with sesame oil.



7. For beef, you can use rib eye, loins, ribs, ground beef or steaks. Just make sure you slice them very thinly while it's still semi frozen. When fully defrosted, it will be hard to slice them thinly as it loses any strength of the tissues.

Use sesame oil to cook.
Then add 2 table spoons of soy sauce.
It will become similar to Bulgogi like the picture below although Bulgogi recipe is more complicated than just sesame oil and soy sauce.

8. Finally, you need to fry an egg. You can also use just the yolk for Bibimbap but I do like eating the white part as well. I cooked sunny side up in medium heat because later the yolk will be an important part of the mixing.

9. Now serving. Put rice into a bowl.

Place the fried egg over the rice.
Then pick out those vegetables that you stir fried earlier and throw them over the rice as well.

Yeah I organized them nicely for photography purpose. You can do that too if you have a guest to impress.

Now you need to make a spicy dressing which you will use to mix the rice and the vegetables. It's spicy and sour dressing called "Yangyum Jang" in Korean.

Use the red pepper paste, tea spoon of minced garlic, 2 table spoons of apple juice, tea spoon of sesame oil, Chinese hot mustard, and sesame seeds.


Put the dressing on Bibimbap and sprinkle sesame seeds over as a garnish. Enjoy!