Kimchi Jigae (Kimchi Soup)

Been craving for Korean food lately, Korean BBQ, pancake, cold noodles and many more. Made some Kimchi maki-zushi the other day, I love the Korean style sushi too. First tasted it few years ago, made by a Korean classmate's mom.

Korean stews are also my favourite dishes, both spicy and non-spicy. When living in Sydney, I always ordered kimchi soup whenever we visit a food court located in Chinatown. Yes, Korean food in Chinatown. Korean food can be found easily in Sydney CBD, and another suburb where many Korean migrants living there.

When cooking this soup, the house smelled kimchi and garlicky. It reminded me of the smell at subway stations in Seoul!!

Ingredients (2-3 servings):
200g pork belly, sliced thinly
1 small onion, sliced
200g kimchi
1 box silken tofu, cubed
Korean bean thread noodles, soaked (optional)
1 pack enoki mushroom (optional)
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 slices ginger, minced
1 tbsp cooking oil
100ml kimchi juice
600ml water
1 tbsp cooking wine (I used shaoxing)
1 tbsp gochujang (Korean chili paste)
1 tbsp white miso paste
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp gochugaru (chili flakes)
2 stalks spring onion, cut

Methods:

1. Heat oil in pan, stir in onion, garlic, and ginger. Cook until the aroma is released. Add in pork and cook until it is almost done.
2. Add in Kimchi, and continue to cook until it is fragrant.
3. Add in cooking wine, gochujang, soy sauce, gochugaru, kimchi juice and water. Bring to boil, then simmer for 15-20 minutes.
4. Add in tofu and bean tread noodles, cook until noodles is softened.
5. Place miso in a small bowl, dissolve it with some hot soup then add in.
6. Add in enoki mushroom and spring onion. Bring to boil.
7. Once boiled, remove from heat and serve warm with steamed rice.

Notes:

1. Add more kimchi if desired.
2. If gochujang is not available, replace it with some spicy bean paste (dou ban jiang) and reduce the amount of miso paste.
3. This soup is not very spicy (hot) to me, add more chili flakes if prefer spicy soup.
4. I used erringi mushroom instead of enoki mushroom.