Korean Army Stew (Budae Jjigae)

I've seen many sharing photos of their Korean Army Stew (Budae Jjigae) and I've finally made a pot for a simple family meal after training my girl to take a little spicy food over the past months.

Budae Jjigae is a Korean-American fusion dish that originated during the Korean War. As food was scarce, many Koreans cooked this stew by using leftover ingredients like Spam, hot dogs, cheese and baked beans from the US Army with whatever else available and boiled in a pot of water/soup.

This is now a very popular Korean dish. Other ingredients like rice cake, mushrooms, kimchi, tofu, minced meat can be added to chicken or anchovy stock. 

However, for this round I did not use the chicken stock like the picture below.

Instead, I've used the mushroom powder below to season the stock. I liked using this as I can control the amount added.

It is common to add ramyeon (instant noodles) to this dish but I added egg noodles instead. It's all up to your liking. I think both are equally good!

Come join me for a sumptuous meal in this bubbling stew!

Korean Army Stew (Budae Jjigae)
Serves 3-4

Ingredients: 

1 litre chicken or anchovy stock - I used about 4 tsp mushroom powder to a pot of water instead

100g minced meat, marinated with white pepper, sesame oil and some soy sauce

3 hot dog, cut into smaller pieces

1/2 can spam - I used Ma Ling luncheon meat

50g button mushrooms, sliced

1 packet enoki mushrooms

1 tube egg tofu

1 cup cut kimchi

1 small can baked beans

3 cheese slices

1 tbspn gochujiang (korean chilli paste) - I went easy on this as my girl can't take too spicy food

1 bundle vermicelli, soaked till softened and then drained

1 packet ramyeon (instant noodles) - I used 2 bundle of egg noodles instead

Note:  You can also add other ingredients like cut leek, chopped onion, duk guk (korean flat oval rice cakes).

Method: 

1. To a pot of water, add mushroom powder and bring to boil. Turn off the heat and set aside. (If using chicken or anchovy stock, boil stock into soup pot. Then remove from heat and set aside.)

2. Soak and drain the enoki mushrooms and vermicelli.

3. In a shallow pot, arrange all the ingredients in a platter.

4. Add the prepared stock to the shallow pot and bring the soup to a simmer. Gently break the minced meat to smaller pieces with a spoon or spatula and also mix in the gochujiang (chilli paste) into the soup. Cover with lid and simmer the stew for about 10 minutes to cook all the ingredients.

5. After 10 minutes, add the egg noodles (if using ramyeon, leave out the seasoning) and let it cook for a few minutes.

6. Garnish with chilli slices and/or spring oinions if desired. (I omitted)

Thanks for dropping by. Do link back to LY's Kitchen Ventures if you have used any information published in this blog.