Recipe Of The Day: Soondubu Jjigae with Beef Minced and Mung Bean Vermicelli

I’ve been watching too much Korean dramas lately! As you can see, my love for Japanese and Korean dishes is getting stronger everyday. Have you watched Let’s Eat Korean Drama? To keep it short, the drama shows you people eating mouthwatering Korean dishes and one of them is Soondubu Jjigae. For that reason, I want to share this easy Korean spicy tofu stew – with my own twist. EASY, STRAIGHTFORWARD AND DELICIOUS!

I just want to let you know in advance that I’m not sure if this is the right way to do it. I’ve watched a lot of recipe videos and read recipes online. I find that this dish is really flexible, you can add pork, beef, seafood or keep it vegetarian. You can add more courgettes if you want, less mushroom, more Gochujang etc. You get the gist! So cook it, tweak it and try it. I’ve tasted this dish in a Korean restaurant in town and my recipe is pretty close.

Useful tip: Prepare and slice all the ingredients that you need.

It should be easy and straightforward from then on.

WARNING: This RECIPE IS EXTREMELY SPICY!

Soondubu Jjigae with Beef Minced and Mung Bean Vermicelli 

SERVES: 4 PEOPLE

PREPARATION TIME: 10 MINUTES

COOKING TIME: 10 MINUTES

©camerashake

If you’re like me, the first thing that I check in any recipe is the ingredient list. If the list is too long, I just stop reading it. But I assure you, once you get all the ingredients sliced, prepared and ready. It is fairly easy!

Ingredients:

• 200g portobello mushroom (cut into chunks – you can use any type of mushroom)
• 500g beef minced (this might be a lot for some but it was enough for us. you can also use pork slices if you want or adjust the amount of beef minced)
• 500g soft tofu (cut into thick small cubes -you can also use firm tofu))
• 4 red chillies (I wasn’t able to find Korean chilli flakes/powder – so I’ve used these instead -cut into smaller pieces not chopped)
• 1/4 cup red pepper paste – Gochujang (Asian store – you can adjust the spiciness)
• 1/2 cup soybean paste – Daenjang (Asian store – you can adjust this as well and add more later on)
• 1 courgette (cut into cubes – you can add more or even add turnip)
• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 large brown onion (if you want more onions, you can add more – cut in chunks)
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced / chopped)
• 2 stalks of spring onions (top it off with some more if it’s cooked and ready to eat – cut into long pieces like the picture below)
• OPTIONAL 50g mung bean vermicelli (we didn’t eat this stew with rice, I know, sad times. We stopped eating rice for 2 months now.)
• OPTIONAL 1 cup of beef stock (add more flavour to the stew)

©camerashake Gochujang and Doenjang

©camerashake Soft tofu

What to do:

1. Prepare and slice everything. You want to slice the ingredients quite chunky because you will boil them into the stew and you don’t want to slice them small and disappear.

©camerashake Onions, garlic and courgettes

©camerashake Portobello mushroom, spring onions and red chillies

2. Here you can see, 1/4 cup Gochujang and 1/2 Daenjang. Later on, I added another 1/2 cup Gochujang to make it spicier.

©camerashake Gochujang and Daenjang

3. Cooking time! Heat your pot and put 2tbsp of toasted sesame oil. Sautée the minced garlic into the pot until medium brown and put the onions. Cook for 1 minute and then put the beef minced or the meat that your using. Cook until the beef minced are fairly brown in colour. Add and stir your paste – gochujang and daenjang into the pot. 

©camerashake

4. From here on, you are basically just adding all the ingredients. Add the mushrooms. Stir and cover, boil for 2 minutes. Then, add the spring onions and soft tofu. Stir and cover, boil again for 2 minutes. OPTIONAL: This is where you’ll add 1 cup beef stock. Let it boil for 2 mins more.

If you have a stone bowl, you can transfer the stew and heat it up and serve.

©camerashake Mushrooms

©camerashake 2 stalks of spring onions

©camerashake Soft tofu

5. This is optional. I added 50g of mung bean vermicelli – put it straight into the pot and let it cook in the boiling stew. We didn’t eat it with rice but I made lots of banchan (Korean side dishes!).

©camerashake

Serve this comforting stew with rice and crack eggs on top and ENJOY! 

Here are the videos that I find useful when making this stew and also the side dishes that I’ve tried with this dish. I didn’t put any salt on my side dishes and substituted sugar with raw honey.

You can also check my instagram @sarahlalala for my quick video of this dish or click the   instagram link in my blog.