Why hello there, and welcome to Kitchen Catastrophe, where Jon just doesn’t know when to quit. I’m Jon, and I don’t know when to quit. Specifically, after last week, where I made 5 recipes and reviewed two cookbooks, today’s post is covering two, very technically 3 recipes. Spoilers: the ‘cue in the title: that’s something we’ll have to cover as a “real” recipe some other time, but we’re covering it partially today for reasons that will become clear later. Anywho, if you want the recipes, click this link and skip a talk about grocery stores, culinary cross-pollination, and happy little accidents. For everyone else, let’s dig in.

The Past, the Pain, and the Pack

Just in case you missed our FB announcement, and this doesn’t get up in time, or if it DOES get up “on time”, to wring a little sympathy from you all, I did pull a muscle in my back on Sunday, so we’ll see how well I hold up whipping up THREE (really two) recipes for today’s post.

“Now Jon,” you interject. “why would you continue to pile labor on yourself, especially while in pain?” Well, the short answer to that is arrogance. That’s right, TAKE AWAY the pity, for this is a durance of my own devising. Specifically…I was basically thinking of making one of two recipes for today, and it turns out, neither of them is all that interesting/difficult on its own. Like, one can be done in 10 minutes with 4 ingredients, the other can be done in 10 minutes with like, 10 minutes of prep work. Further…neither of them is like, a meal. Well, that’s not strictly accurate: the two dishes I was thinking of making were kimchijeon and soondubu jjigae. Translated from Korean “Kimchi Pancake” and “Soft-Tofu Stew”. The former is like, a side dish, appetizer, or anju, the Korean food classification best translated as “bar food”.

Think of it as the Korean form of Tater-tots.

It’s just a pancake batter with diced kimchi in it. You can buy pre-mixed-and-seasoned batter formulas, meaning all you need is Kimchi, water, and oil. Have I done that? No, because going to an Asian market to buy said mix would be more effort than just making a proxy.

Soondubu-jjigae COULD be considered its own meal, though it is also technically also a side dish and an anju, though for a different alcohol. (There’s an element to anju that’s not really as codified in American drinking/culinary culture, where there’s an idea of specific pairings: like, certain foods are best with beer, or rice wine, or soju. Interestingly, all three of today’s dishes are in different categories, so that’s fun. We’ll talk about Anju and pairings on Thursday, because there are a LOT of technical terms to get involved.) Since it’s kind of a stew, you can make it as filling as you want depending on the ingredients you put it. On the other hand, jjigaes or juks are considered an essential part of a proper/formal Korean meal. They’re the miso soup before sushi, the bread plate at an upscale American joint.

Where the bread comes with its OWN napkin, ooh-la-la.

But…yeah, name-wise, the things just are what they are, and I can’t even really dig into them for interesting etymologies or histories: kimchi-jeon just means “Korean Wheat Pancake”, with jeons ( which is the word for wheat flour pancakes, I think based off the “field” interpretation of the syllable), being a type of buchimgae, or “little needles/pieces mixture”, a broader category of pancakes and fritters. Jjigae means like, “little steamed one”, referring to the fact that you make it by boiling whatever’s in it with specifically condiments. (the go-to is gochugaru/gochujang, but there are soy sauce, doenjang, and other varieties.)

There’s ONE interesting thing about soondubu jjigae, which is going to be useful as a kind of central theme to today’s recipes: it’s not, technically, Korean. Soondubu jjigae is like Spaghetti and Meatballs, or Corned Beef and Cabbage: it was made IN AMERICA by immigrants of a particular region, and then exported back to that region, and adopted.

Eat THAT, “authentic traditions”

Which is useful as a theme because it’s one of those things that really helps you calm down about trying to be “authentic” when cooking. Roy Choi mentioned that as a kid, his family tried to replicate kimchi with Sauerkraut and Tabasco, because they didn’t have access to the ingredients to make real thing. Obviously, you know, we don’t want to go to THAT much of an extreme, but it makes it easier for me to accept when I do things like say “Look, I don’t want to MAKE Bulgogi, so I’m just buying this tub of prepped meat from Costco.”

Turns out I only took a picture of it AFTER we cooked it, so just bask in the browned glory.

That tub of meat was what really sealed the deal on this whole suite of recipes, by the way: when I went on my weekend trip back in the start of September, I ended up deciding to make Korean food for my meal, and tried barbecuing a tub of bulgogi. The results were good, though they produced a TON of char, and either I had particularly thin cuts of meat, or I SHREDDED it trying to move it around the grill, because Nate cooked this batch on our new griddle, and they were VASTLY larger. We’re talking “strips as long as my thumb” versus “sheets the size of my palm”.

But yeah, as mentioned, both Soondubu jjigae and kimchijeon are typically appetizers/sides, so getting a super-easy Korean entrée finally gave me the permission structure to make them. So let’s stop chatting, and start cutting.

A Messy Pasty Mise

Now, this is a bit of a “hurry up and wait” dinner plan, and also a set of recipes that’s going to set you up for success. Because today’s soondubu recipe is going to take like, 40 minutes, but in exchange, you can make it over a dozen more times in around 5 minutes. How? Through the power of PASTE.

Seen here, bagged and tagged.

Specifically, the recipe for Soondubu jjigae I’m using is taken from Aaron and Claire, because right now, they’re kind of a “get Nate and Mom to buy in for free” card. They trust them as a recipe source, so when I say I’m using their recipe, they accept it. However, I’ve seen at least 2 other sites use a similar format, which is: by pre-rendering a vegetable, meat, and spice base into a pre-cooked paste, you can freeze the paste and use it as an instant jjigae broth mix in the future.

And this recipe makes about 18-20 (I have genuinely lost count/the numbers don’t quite match up) servings of pre-made paste, because it’s easier to work at a larger scale for a lot of sauces. Like, there’s 2 tbsps of sesame oil in the recipe. If you tried to make 1/18th of that, you’d need 1/3rd of a teaspoon of sesame oil in the batch. There’s 1 cup of pork in it: you want to fry up 8/9ths of a tablespoon of pork?

At a certain point, it becomes so small, it’s MORE work.

So for ease of use, you make a reasonably sized batch of paste, and that ends up making a lot of servings. The only problem I have with the process is that you gotta chop a lot. You need 1 cup of thinly sliced green onions (that was one bunch, for me), 1 cup of diced onion, and 1/3rd of a cup of minced garlic, which my family instantly caved on and used pre-minced from the fridge. You want to cook your green onions and pork until the pork is starting to brown, and “the moisture is gone” (a worrying sentence, since, as I complained several times over the course of the process: “I can’t tell if that’s oil or moisture”). Then, add the onions, and do the same. Aaron implies that with the cooking of the onions, you’re in a “as long as you can” period: that the longer you cook it, the sweeter the onion will get, and the better it will be. I went until some of my green onion was turning VERY dark, and I feared it was blackening. Then in with the garlic, about 45 seconds for that, and then, in with the spicy paste.

Seen here, in the process of becoming paste.

While I was frying things, my mother and Nathan were building the spicy paste, a mixture of gochugaru pepper flakes, sesame oil, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, and soy sauce. The idea is simple: you mix all these together so the pepper flakes are moistened and less likely to burn when added to the hot oil. Mix it all up, stir, and just go until you think it’s done. Aaron does NOT give a time for it. We went…I want to say maybe 2-3 minutes.

Then you’ve got to let it cool down enough to bag up. So you’ve got like, a 10 minute window to relax. Once bagged and tagged, the recipe is actually super easy: you take 2 tbsps of the paste, ½ cup of water, and a tube of Soondubu.

Soon tofu. Very soon indeed.

Dubu is Korean for Tofu, and Soon denotes it as being a soft, unpressed variety. That’s why you only use a half-cup of water for enough stew for 3 small bowls: the tofu is going to leak a TON of water. Hell, when I cut the tube in half, it SPRAYED water.

At this point, if you wish to be fancy, you can add other ingredients to the stew. Shiitake mushrooms are popular, as are frozen dumplings: just boil until they’re cooked. You can do the same with clams, or seafood. We didn’t do it with anything else, because A: the frozen dumplings were all the way downstairs, and B: we wanted to explore the dish plain at first. You’ll learn how it turned out AT THE END.

Panny-Cake, Panny-Cake, Kimchi Brand

Next up was the Kimchijeon, and things went a little sideways while we were making it. Nothing too bad, but it probably affected the flavor. See, as mentioned, you can make this with nothing but pre-made mix and kimchi, but we decided to go a little fancier, adding some ground pork (since we already had to crack open a pound for the Stew), green onions, and seasoning for the meat and kimchi mixture…and that seasoning went rough. The first thing that went wrong was that we were supposed to use Gochugaru, Korean Chili Flakes. Which…since we’d just dumped a whole cup into the stew paste…

I don’t know how much more we’re going to get out of this bottle…

Then, we were supposed to combine a little extra kimchi brine, but all of our open kimchis were running a little dry. So instead, we hit the mixture with some gochujang and a bit of sriracha (For extra vinegar/spice), and hoped it all worked out, as we worked together the spices, pork, and 2 cups of chopped kimchi.

It’s hard to tell how red is red enough, you know?

To this mixture, we then added 2 cups of all-purpose flour, and a tablespoon of beef bouillon powder. Add some water, stir, and the whole mixture should fit about 1/3rd of an inch thick in a 12 inch skillet. In theory. Ours was NOTABLY thicker, and, being a dumbass, I didn’t think about flipping the pancake, so I put it in our high-sided skillet. (Editor’s note: I have, in re-checking the recipe for write up at the bottom, discovered the issue: this much batter is actually for THREE TO FOUR pancakes. We were supposed to only use around 3 ladles of the mixture, not the whole bowl. The batter can be cooked that day, or within 2 days of creation.)

So this is like, The Hulk of Kimchijeon.

So it was lucky that, by this point, Nate had already griddled the Bulgogi as Mom and I worked on the pancake. It’s another way to get Nate involved in cooking: just ask him to chop at the start, and grill something for 5 minutes at the end. Knives and Fire. 60% of the time, it works, every time.

Despite out mistake, it comes out looking pretty okay.

So, once the griddle was scraped clean of the seared-on excess sugar of the bulgogi marinade, we took out our plan, and flipped that sucker onto the flat-top. And 3-5 minutes later, we took it inside, and served the whole shebang: beef, stew and pancake, with rice and a small assortment of toppings/banchan: more kimchi, some soy-pickled chiles (which will theoretically be on the Patreon soon), and extra gochujang.

I like the way this shot frames all the food, but I don’t love the reflection in the soup, hence why I used a different pic for the thumbnail.

The results were perfectly fine: while we had some concerns on whether we’d cooked the pancake enough since it was thicker than intended, we didn’t find any raw pork, and no one had any digestive issues. Nor did the relatively high amount of chili powder affect anyone. As to taste: The Stew is fine, but it’s missing some depth from the version I’ve had before: Aaron suggests that many restaurants use beef stock powder or MSG, which might be the missing element. It’s not bad, but the missing element causes it to be a little flatter, and a little sharper. The bulgogi’s perfectly fine, it’s nice soft strips of marinated beef. The pancake is surprisingly unassertive: as Claire notes in the video, you kind of expect it to be spicier, because of the red color, but really not. In fact, I hesitate to say it tastes like much of anything. It really is just kind of a pancake with stuff in it. Now, maybe that’d be different with the proper ingredients (and proper balance of crispy outer layer to soft inside, not a THREE TIMES THICKER batch), but it’s not bad, just unremarkable. Everyone agreed that everything was fine. The evening was only marked by one tragedy: at some point, the remaining 15 servings of pre-made paste, packaged into bags, fell into a bag of Asian grocery products we keep near the stove, meaning it wasn’t moved to the freezer, and wasn’t discovered until Tuesday afternoon, so we had to throw it away. But that just means we get to tweak the flavors a bit, maybe add in that MSG/beef stock and see if it improves things.

THURSDAY: JON TALKS DRINKING, PAIRINGS, AND…YEAH, NO, THAT FEELS LIKE PREDOMINANTLY IT.

MONDAY: LET ME GET BACK TO YOU ON THAT.

Here are the

Recipes

Soondubu Jjigae Paste

Makes around 2 cups

Ingredients

4 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons lard (optional)

1 cup green onions, thinly sliced, both white and green parts

1 cup ground pork*

1 cup diced white onion

1/3 cup minced garlic

1 cup gochugaru

1 tbsp sugar

½ tsp MSG (optional)

2 tbsp oyster sauce*

2 tbsp fish sauce*

¼ cup soy sauce

2 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp mirin** (I forgot this while making the first batch, because it’s the only ingredient that didn’t have a parallel in the other recipe I was consulting.)

Ingredients marked with an * can be replaced if a vegetarian or vegan version is desired: replace the pork with ground/finely chopped mushrooms, and the oyster and fish sauce with kosher salt (or create your own mixture) Ingredients with ** can be replaced if creating a halal version, replacing with a mixture of rice vinegar and honey

Preparation

In a work or high-sided skillet, heat the vegetable oil and lard (if using) over medium-high heat. Add the green onions and pork, and fry, stirring frequently, until pork has rendered fat, and moisture is mostly gone. (to check, splash some of the oil/liquid up the side of the wok/skillet: water will run down faster than oil, which will “stick”) Add onion, and also fry until moisture is gone.
While Pork and onions are frying, combine all ingredients between gochugaru and Mirin in a bowl to form a spicy paste. Add garlic to the pork-onion mixture, and stir-fry for up to 1 minute, then add the spicy paste. Cook, stirring CONSTANTLY to ensure the pepper flakes don’t burn, until aromatic and fully incorporated, around 3 minutes.
Remove from the heat, and let cool. Portion into around sixteen 2-tbsp portions. 2 tbsp is used for one “pot”, which can serve 1 as a light meal, or up to three as a side/appetizer.

Quick Soondubu Jjigae

Ingredients

2 tbsp Soondubu paste

½ cup water

1/8th tsp MSG or beef stock powder (optional)

1 twelve-ounce tube soondubu (or other soft silken tofu)

Other ingredients as desired

Salt and additional water, to taste.

1-2 eggs (optional)

Thinly sliced green onion and/or Korean chili peppers for topping (optional)

Preparation

In a small saucepan or ceramic cooking vessel, over medium-high heat, add the water and paste. Stir until paste is fully broken up, add MSG/stock powder if using. Bring to a boil.
Once boiling, add soondubu, breaking down with your spoon slightly, and other ingredients, if using. Return to a boil.
Taste and balance with additional salt or water as necessary. Just before serving, add eggs, if desired, and green onion/peppers. If not using a vessel with high heat retention, baste the egg with the boiling broth roughly 10 times. Serve still bubbling.

Kimchijeon

Makes one batch of batter, enough for THREE TO FOUR pancakes. (each pancake can serve 1-2 people)

Ingredients

¼ cup green onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp chili peppers, thinly sliced (optional)

2 cups “well-fermented” kimchi (the kimchi should be notably sour. If you’re worried it’s not sour enough, you can add up to 1 tsp white vinegar to the mix)

200 g of ground pork (optional, if you want to keep the dish vegetarian)

1 tsp sugar

3 tbsp kimchi juice

2 tbsp gochugaru

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tbsp Beef (or vegetable) stock powder

2 cups water

2-8 tbsp vegetable oil

Preparation

In a large bowl, chop the kimchi into bite-sized pieces with a pair of kitchen shears. (this will make clean-up easier). Once to your desired size, add in the pork, green onion and peppers, sugar, kimchi juice, and gochugaru. Stir thoroughly, to break up pork and season all components. Add flour and stock powder, and water. Stir to combine, being sure not to over-stir and create too much gluten.
Heat 2 tbsps of oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2-3 ladles of batter, stirring/spreading to fill pan. Fry pancake. Once edges are dried, shake pan to see if entire pancake has lifted from the pan. Once it has, and the bottom has crisped to golden-brown, flip with a spatula. Cook 2-3 minutes on the second side, and transfer to a serving plate. You can repeat process with remaining oil and batter if desired, or set aside for later.