This time, you’ll be making doenjangjjigae. Love to get this at the restaurants and figured it wasn’t too hard to make. After a little experimentation I cracked the code.

You’ll need;

Doenjang

You’ll find this at the Korean market. Also known as fermented soybean paste. If you don’t have a Korean market nearby, you can grab it at hmart.com or marry a Korean. It’s much easier to order online.

Zucchini

One large enough for ‘adult entertainment’. Cut it into circles, and cut those circles into 4ths. It’s courgette to you Brits. Why do you call it this? Oh, and why is eggplant called aubergine? Eggplant should just be called “terrible purple cocksucker”.

A few handfuls of shredded carrot

You can buy it already shredded if you’re prone to chopping away at your fingers on accident like I am. Add the fingertips if you are a sick puppy.

Green onion in large slices 

Just take the green onion and chop it in half, chop those halves in half and you’re good to go. You can even use scissors for this part. Especially helpful if you’ve already sliced your digits off and have only bloody stumps to work with. Don’t let the blood get in the soup.

Sliced tofu

If you like tofu or if you enjoy things that have zero flavor, character, or use. Insert joke about political party of your choice. 

A few handfuls of mushrooms

Washed of course. Traditionally calls for shitake but you can’t find those in the sweaty ballsack of West Texas.. plain sliced white mushrooms is what you’ll settle for. 

Diced green chili 

If you want it spicy. 2 or 3 peppers should do. Rub your eyes after you finish cutting them for an invigorating feeling. You could also use hot pepper flakes here I think. Those are great for Insufflation too… Go on and do a line. I’ll wait..  

A few decent sized slices of seaweed 

No larger than say a saltine cracker. 

Handful of bean sprouts and/or daikon sprouts

(I’ve had it with potato before but I don’t think it adds anything to the flavor and increases the cooking time so I leave them out. You can also add slivers of yellow onion if you wish. I’m not a big onion fan so I leave them out as well.) 

A pot

If you don’t have one of these, what the fuck are you doing reading this blog?

A spoon

Don’t use your heroin spoon for this.

A stove 

Make sure you’ve recently paid your electric bill. Go get a car title loan if your oven doesn’t work. Hell, it’s not my credit we are talking about. Got it? Ok, good. Better yet, be a real man and cook on gas. Hank Hill would be proud. If you also have a narrow urethra, this is your destiny.

Cooking

1) Get a pot. Fill it with water. Measure isn’t really important when you make this aside from the amount of doenjang. If your pot is too small for all of the vegetables listed below, use what fits and eat the rest later. If your pot is big and the soup still seems scant, add more next time. If you have no idea what you are doing and you are cooking this in the cat’s water saucer while wearing a cape and drooling like a rabid raccoon.. here’s some crayons. Go color in the corner. You’re a special little boy.. 

2) Put in about 6 tablespoons of the doenjang. Boil the water.. while the water is boiling, stir to make sure all of the doenjang dissolves. There will still be particles floating around no matter how much you stir. That’s ok. Just make sure there isn’t a big thick blob of it hanging out at the bottom. Remove from heat. Take a sip with a spoon.. if it tastes watered down like pop music (even if you’ve never tasted doenjang before, you’ll know) add 2 more tablespoons and repeat. Once you have the base set, 

3) Place all of the vegetables in the pot. Boil until the zucchini is tender. Remove from heat. Serve with rice. Rinse your eyes out. Chuckle at your foolishness for heeding my advise tit for tat. Open incognito mode on your browser and look at the image search for ‘tit for tat’ while the soup cools. HEY, PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR TROUSERS!

This recipie is only slightly modified from the EXCELLENT “Izakaya, the Japanese Pub Cookbook” 

Ok, what you need is;

Chicken

You can use any kind you like as long as it’s boneless. You can go skin off, skin on.. white or dark, doesn’t matter. When I make this I usually use an entire package of boneless skinless breast meat. Even if chickens don’t have nipples.

Soy sauce

You can buy some, or start hoarding packets from the Chinese buffet up the street. You’ll have to hoard a lot, though. 

Sake 

Aka rice wine.. don’t waste the good stuff on this, a cheap bottle of Gekkeikan will do. If you want to go a little higher class, any junmai will work. I tried making it with a nigori once and couldn’t tell any difference in the flavor. Thus, save the nigori to drink with your meal. 

Salt

You can steal this from the Chinese buffet too.

Potato starch 

This isn’t the easiest thing to find so corn starch is a decent substitute

6 green onions, chopped

Nice little circles. 

A mix of sesame oil and vegetable oil 

You cannot steal this from the Chinese buffet. Go buy it, you cheap bastard.

Cooking

1) Cut the chicken into bite sized chunks. Make sure to remove all fat. Have you ever had chicken fat? It’s fucking disgusting and smells like a corpse. 

2) Set 3 bowls aside. In one bowl, put salt. Bowl 2? Sake. Bowl 3 will be your soy. Coat the chicken in salt, and then move to the sake. Let rest 10 minutes. Drink some of the extra wine. If you have an iron stomach, I guess you could drink from the chicken bath but I’m not responsible for your salmonella death.

3) After 10 minutes, transfer to the soy. Set for 10 minutes. Drink some of the extra soy if you are so inclined (nasty bastard!)

4) Once everything has bathed and is ready for a night out on the town, dust in starch. Pretend the chicken is your gentleman’s area and the starch is talc. Enough to keep them from chaffing. Throw into a pan of hot oil (I mix vegetable and sesame because pure sesame is expensive.). Fry until a golden red, or until it tastes done. I have no idea what temperature to fry it at.. I have a gas range. Garnish with the green onion and toasted sesame seeds if you have any. Drain excess oil on your mother in law’s favorite shirt.

I usually serve this dish atop a bed of jasmine rice, which is atop a large bok choi leaf. I also garnish with fresh daikon sprouts. You can serve it however you like. Put it in a rusty hubcap for all I care. 

On this trip, you will learn how to cook various Asian cuisine favorites. Don’t get it twisted; these are actually really good recipes. I just get bored with the overly technical style of most cookbooks and cooking blogs. That, and obviously, I’m a bit of an asshole/miserable bastard.