Sundubu jjigae is a dish we made and ate at the fantastic Sobaan cookery class we took in Seoul earlier this year. I love all forms of soup, stew and broths and if they have a spicy kick, well, all the better! It was no surprise that I loved this dish.
The weather has turned this week and today I had the heating on full blast because I just couldn’t get warm. I decided it was time to recreate Sobaan’s dish and you know what? It was super easy and really tasty. If you’re heading to Seoul and want to try Sobaan for yourself, you can book on Airbnb – tell Anne I sent you!
This sundubu jjigae recipe uses clams but they are a little hard to get hold of here and seeing as I had some mussels in the freezer, I decided to go with those as they needed using up and I don’t like to waste food. Perfect!
Ingredients:
Serves 2
- 500g Mussels or clams (in their shells)
- 400g soft tofu
- 1 red chilli
- 1 green chilli
- 1/2 an onion
- 2 finely diced cloves of garlic
- 2 tsp mirin
- 1 tbsp Sesame oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp Gochugaru (Korean red pepper chilli flakes)
- 1 spring onion & sesame seeds for garnish
Method:
- Finely slice the green chilli, onion and spring onion.
- Heat a saucepan and add 1 tbsp sunflower oil. Once hot, add the garlic, Gochugaru and fish sauce. Stir well.
- Add the onion and green chilli and stir.
- Add the mussels, 200ml of water, mirin and tofu.
- If the mussels are raw, add a lid and allow it to boil on a medium heat for 5 mins or until the shells have opened. If the mussels are pre-cooked, you don’t need to add the lid.
- Break the eggs into the stew, add the red chilli and allow the eggs to cook.
- Before serving, drizzle with sesame oil and add a sprinkle of spring onions and sesame seeds.
As is tradition, we ate this sundubu jjigae with rice (made in our Korean rice cooker no less!) but sadly not the amazing banchan selection we had with Anne at Sobaan. If you don’t want rice, perhaps eat with a hunk of crusty bread. Not authentic but arguably perfect for mopping up the broth.
If you’ve been reading Gingey Bites for a while, you’ll know how much I love Korean food. Here are some of my other recipes:
- Kimchi jjigae – another fantastically warming stew, this time with pork and kimchi
- Mat kimchi – an easy first recipe for kimchi
- Prawn & kimchi mandu – cheats easy to make dumplings filled with kimchi and minced prawns
- Pajeon – Korean style savoury pancake
- Korean style Welsh lamb – a tasty marinade recipe for your next Sunday roast lamb.
