Oh, good, because this next recipe I’m sharing showcases kimchi.
But first, two things:
If you haven’t yet jumped on the kimchi bandwagon, hitch up those skirts and jump.
If you’re toying with making it, but unsure how to use it, or if you’ll even use it, this recipe’s got you covered. Even if you don’t like eating straight kimchi [clutches pearls and swoons], you should probably make it anyway — just so’s you can make this.
Alright. Now for the deets.
Kimchi jjigae is a stew (jjigae means “stew). Which, to the uninitiated, sounds plain wrong — take a bright vegetable ferment and then kill all that goodness? It makes no sense!
Until you do it. Then it makes perfect sense.
See, you gotta understand: kimchi is not just a fresh ferment condiment — it’s also a ready-made soup mix. A ready-made soup mix! Add kimchi to soup and, BAM, you’ve just exploded your humdrum soup with vegetables, umami, salt, and briny acidity.
The general idea: saute aromatics with Korean red pepper. Add the same ingredients again, but this time in the fermented form of kimchi. In other words, you’re layering flavors. It sounds stupid simple — and it is — but it’s also wondrously rich, satisfying, and comforting, aka, soul food with a twist, and I adore it.
Kimchi jigae can be served over rice, or thinned with more kimchi broth or water for a lighter soup. Cook it low and slow for silky-tender vibes, or give it a brief simmer for fresh crunch. Pair it with pork, or go rogue and toss in some cubes of fried paneer. Since learning to make it, I’ve cranked this out at least three or four times, both with and without meat, and never the same way twice.
There are a couple special Korean ingredients — and they are worth purchasing.
Coarse gochugaru is Korean dried red pepper. It sparkles like sequins and fairy dust, and the heat is steady and punchy-deep (not hysterically sharp and piercing like cayenne). You can use a lot of it without making enemies.
Gochugang is a paste, and it’s not authentic to kimchi jjigae, but I often add a hefty squirt anyway — because it’s delicious and I can.
The green plum syrup (often called an “extract”) is optional, but I have been adding it to all sorts of things besides jjigae: seltzer water, sauteed kale, etc. It checks the boxes for both sweet and acid, so it comes in handy in all sorts of dishes, not just the Korean ones.
P.S. It’s slowly dawning on me that I may have a “Thing” for Korean food. I’ve never been particularly drawn to the flavors of Asian cuisine, but there’s something about the flavors and textures of Korean food that’s making my skirt fly up. Stay tuned.
If you’ve got some kimchi that’s slightly bitter, jjigae is a fantastic way to use it up. In the jjigae, the flavors meld and deepen, and any trace of funkiness or bitterness completely disappears.
Eric makes his jjigae with pork ribs. I’ve made it with leftover pork chops. Also, ground beef (or was it leftover beef roast? can’t remember…). Also, no meat. It’s good any which-a way.
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced 2-3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger 1 tablespoon butter (or olive oil) 2-3 cups of well-fermented kimchi, rough-chopped and juices reserved 1 heaping tablespoon coarse-ground gochugaru 3 tablespoons gochugang paste, optional 2 cups water pinch of salt 1 onion, sliced thinly into rings 1 tablespoon fish sauce 1 tablespoon green plum syrup (or extract) 3-5 green onions, sliced
Melt the butter and then add the ground gochugaru, garlic, and ginger. Saute for a minute, or until the butter is a pretty red. Add the gochugang paste, kimchi and its juices, 2 cups of water, and a pinch o’ salt. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
Sprinkle the thinly sliced onion over top, cover with a lid, and then let it simmer another 10-15 minutes, or until the onions are cooked through and they’ve released all their oniony juices into the stew.
Stir in the fish sauce, plum syrup, and another couple pinches of ground gochugaru. Remove from the heat, shower with green onions, and serve over rice.
Monday mornings while I mix scones, sheet out pastry dough, and wash dishes, I listen to podcasts.
Specifically, I listen to Fresh Air.
Wanna know what I love about interviews?
They are just conversations with people who have lived their lives, suffering and failing and trying, and then during a quick 45 minutes, we get to look back at the whole messy story and watch as an astonishing arc rises from the mundane.
Inevitably, the interviews give me new perspective on my own life. Like everyone else, I, too, don’t know where I’ll end up or what may emerge. This truth makes me feel both hopeful and grounded.
(Reading the John Lewis books about the Civil Rights Movement, I had the same sort of epiphany. Back then, people were doing what they needed to do — chaotically and incorrectly and without any guarantee of results — and then, over time, this Thing, the Civil Rights Movement, emerged. From where we sit now, the Movement seems like a given, but it wasn’t. Back then, the capital-M Movement was just lower case-m movement. In the midst of living, it’s all a jumble.)
Anyways, if you have a big cooking project coming up and need some interviews to listen to, here are a few goodies I’ve enjoyed recently.
Anna Deavere Smith asks incredible questions: How are human emotions captured in the rhythm of our language? How do the rhythms in which we speak reveal our internal disarray? She says that when people struggle to make sense of something, they often end up creating “gorgeous architectures of language” — isn’t that beautiful? (The audio clips of her theater monologues are stunning.)
This interview with The Atlantic writer Helen Lewis about masculinism, which is all about the belief that feminism emasculates men (because men apparently don’t feel strong enough to withstand the power of the feminine, I guess?), is a doozy. Interestingly, both liberals and conservatives have a right and wrong way to be a women. For the conservatives, the wrong way is to be a “small-breasted biddy,” as Reverend Douglas Wilson said (this year!). And for the liberals, there are the Karens — meddlesome women who insert themselves. In either case, the behavior is “wrong” primarily because the person doing it is female.
Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, a scholar of the N-word, speaks in a way that is deeply nuanced and challenging. If you’re anything like me, you may find the podcase requires some soul-searching and a conversation buddy. My advice? Tell a good friend to listen to it, and then go on a walk together to discuss.
When legal scholar Kimberle Williams Crenshaw was a kid, her parents expected their children to come to supper prepared to share something that they were thinking about or that they’d learned. In other words, meals weren’t places to shut up and eat — they were times to show up and share. (Kimberle often had to leave off playing with friends early so she’d have time to prepare what she was going to talk about at supper!) Kinda makes me wish I could redo our family dinners.
***
Bonus! The Netflix documentary about Martin Short is a cacophony of activity, grief, and laughter.
Eighty percent of living is failing, Marty says, without even a twinge of resentfulness. Once you accept that failure is a central part of life, it doesn’t sting as much.
