Can't Be Korean Soon to Be Soup (A Play on Sundubu Soup)

By: Rinshinomori
Oct 23, 2008

I love Korean sundubu jjigae or suundubu chigae soup. I love it so much that I can eat it practically everyday with different combination of ingredients I have on hand as long as there is some silken or regular tofu (can't use firm Chinese style tofu for this). It is normally made with sliced pork and clams along with soft tofu, garlic, kimchi, green onion, kochugaru or kochukaru (Korean style crushed red pepper powder). This is not an authentic version - it is a very mild tasting without the added sliced pork or clams. You can certainly make this vegetarian and not add meatballs or egg on top, but I like to add whatever I have available in my refrigerator or freezer, such as meat balls, spinach, zucchini, etc to the soup. This soup really needs the Korean crushed red chili pepper powder known as kochugaru/kochukaru, but if you cannot locate it, you can certainly crush either Korean, Japanese or Thai red chili peppers in a pinch. I have added a picture of the bag of Korean kochugaru/kochukaru I use for making this soup in one of my photos. This is such a mild version of sundubu that almost anyone can eat it and you don't have to be a Korean to enjoy. I normally use some Japanese dashi or dashida (Korean beef version) to this, but to make it more compatible for vegetarians, I omitted. Normally jjigae and Japanese nabe soups are cooked in earthen pots on top of the burner. But, you can certainly use a small pot large enough to hold the ingredients with a lid.