Kimchi Chigae

 Here's a quick drive by post to showcase my attempt at making kimchi chigae from our Korean friend's verbal directions. Kimchi chigae is the tofu stew you often see at Korean restaurants. I don't like this dish but this all started when I told said friend that I bought a jar of kimchi which was labeled "13-16 months" old. I thought it would be like a good aged wine. The friend alarmingly said, no no, the older ones are to be used in kimchi chigae and not as a banchan. Well I had a little bit left in the jar and not wanting to die from a fermented napa cabbage death, I used that bit to make kimchi chigae.

 The directions were quite simple: 

1. In a pot, put kimchi, some of the liquid from the kimchi jar, Spam pieces, enough water to cover the contents, about a table spoon of gochujang (red pepper paste)
2. Add chopped onions, green onion stems
3. Cover with lid and boil
4. After about 20 minutes, add tofu
5. Boil for another 5ish minutes
6. And this is my personal touch, turn off heat, remove from stove, add an egg. Serve on top of rice.

 Alternatively, you could follow Maangchi's video.

I bought the big pack of fingerling potatoes from Costco. You know the one with 3 different colored potatoes that look deceptively small but take a long time to finish. We still had so much left that I decided to make Maangshi's potato banchan too.

Maangchi's directions here.
I didn't have corn syrup so I replaced it with maple syrup. I used brown sugar instead of granulated sugar.

Both the recipes turned out pretty good. The potatoes were excellent. The kimchi chigae was good and tasted like the restaurant version but still has not won me over on this dish. I guess I just don't like cooked kimchi. Spam was an easy, albeit fatty, protein option but I suggest making it with pork belly like Maangchi's recipe. The Spam flavor in the soup was good but it meant the Spam itself was boiled out and flavorless.