부대찌개 (Budae Jjigae) is a popular Korean stew made with an interesting ingredient - hot dogs! The first time I saw it, I thought it looked so weird, as many fusion dishes look. But actually, I really love it! The stew is spicy, flavored with 고추장 (Gochujang = red chili paste), which somehow works with the hot dogs! Budae Jjigae is a very versatile dish, so you can customize it to include whatever ingredients you love or have on hand. After trying this 찌개 (Jjigae = stew) in a restaurant where the food was cooked at our table, I had to make it at home!
Here's how I laid the ingredients in my largest pan (thanks Mom!). I used onions, kimchi, hot dogs, glass noodles, spicy peppers, pork belly, and fish cakes.
Then I added some stock (we LOVE beef bone broth) and the gochujang. Brought to a boil, then simmered until all the ingredients were cooked.
I also put some chunky tofu, which I used to hate! But coming to Korea has opened my taste buds to enjoying new things.
When it was done, it was so spicy, steamy, and just cozy-feeling.
We ate it with "purple rice", which is just white rice with a little bit of black rice mixed in our beloved rice cooker!
Look at all this kimchi! Not only did we bring home a lot of kimchi from the kimjang event a few weeks ago, but our 할머니 (Halmony = gramdma) also brought us this huge tub of it! My 어머니 (Uhmuhnee = mother-in-law) had a great idea to use some of it to make kimchi dumplings! In Korean, dumplings are called 만두 (Mandu).
First, we mixed some kimchi with tofu and ground beef to make the filling. We used our little food processor, but it ended up being too homogenized. Next time, we will just chop up the kimchi and mix it all together in a bowl.
Here is Seong filling the mandu wrappers, wetting the edge with water, and pinching the sides to make the "fan" look.
The finished mandu look so pretty! They are definitey worthy of Mukbang Monday.
After using up a whole pack of mandu wrappers and realizing that two people shouldn't eat two plates of dumplings, we decided to freeze half of them for later!
For dinner, we made a simple radish soup. In Korean, radishes are large and white, not small and red. 할모니 (Halmony = grandma) taught me how to shave the radish pieces and boil them in bone broth. The soup, called 무국 (Moogook) traditionally has actual beef pieces, but you do what you can! We also added thin white mushrooms and green onions. I boiled the mandu directly in the soup, which was kind of a mashup of Korean dishes.
In the end, the mandu was so flavorful because of the kimchi and the moogook was also a winner!
Finally, I hope this entertaining photo makes up for us not posting a Mukbang last week!