Making Soup

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1. My soup: Budae-jjigae

The meaning of Budae-jjigae: a compound word for soup and army has a historical meaning. It is a dish using spam and sausage imported from US military bases as main ingredients immediately after the Korean War (Wikipedia contributors, 2020). Started with an American influence, today Budae-jjigae is one of the most popular dishes in South Korea to all ages and genders. Interestingly, this soup is cooked by mixing spam, sausage, and vegetables

with a spicy sauce.

2. The reason for choosing this soup

There are two reasons I select this soup. Firstly, it is because my kids love this soup. Of course, this is spicy, but it can be controlled by the amount of Gochujang sauce and the type of seasoning for kids or foreigners. Secondly, I chose this because of nostalgia for my home country. As the COVID-19 situation persisted for a long time, I could not go to South Korea for a year and could not see my parents at all.

I still miss my parents and grandmother so much; for these reasons, I cooked this soup while thinking of them.

3. Workstation

Set up workstations, sanitary tool, and equipment

4. Ingredients & Equipment

Ingredients (Yield: 4 servings, Follow the cooking order)

Kimchi 400g

Gochujang (Hot Pepper Paste) 46g,

Chicken stock 600g,

Coldwater approximately 500g

Pure pork sausages 189g,

Spam 170g,

Onion 164g 1 pc, sliced into 6cm(length) x 0.6mm(thickness)

Garlic 35g, crushed 2 cloves

Soft tofu 454g, 5cm(width) x 5cm (length) x 1cm (thickness)

Green onions 58g 3 pcs, sliced into 2cm(width) x 1cm (thickness)

Noodle 110g,

Sweet potato noodles 85g,

Green pepper 5g, chopped 1 pc (according to preference)

Salt 3g, Black pepper 3g

Equipment

Stockpot, wooden spoon, fine Mesh

5. Recipe

1. Wash all vegetables and ingredients thoroughly and prepare

2. Trim & Cut vegetables

Onion

Green onion

garlic

Green pepper

3. Cut the spam and sausages and blanch them in boiling water for about 30 seconds to remove impurities

Spam

Sausages

4. Cut kimchi and Tofu.

Preparation of all ingredients

5. Put the chicken stock made in culinary class, kimchi, and hot pepper paste in the stockpot and boil together

6. After boiling, add the spam, sausage, and onion in turn.

7. Add crushed garlic for more flavor

8. Add tofu and green onions and simmer for a while.

9. Add sweet potato noodles and noodles (omit it depending on your preference, or you can choose only one); cook the noodles within 5 minutes to prevent them from swelling

10. Season for taste: salt, black pepper, and green pepper according to the preference

11. Serve: final plating

6. A sensory evaluation

The appearance of the completed Budae-jjigae looks red and somewhat spicy; also, it looks rich with various ingredients and two types of noodles. The flavor is very dark and robust because it is mainly based on chicken stock, not salt. In Korea, its base is mainly Korean-style white beef bone broth. However, I use the chicken stock I made during the culinary class this semester for its exotic savory and robust taste. Its texture is soft and chewy; specifically, the combination of chewy noodles and plump sausage and spam creates a very addictive taste. Note, noodle must be eaten first, immediately after cooking before the noodles swell. In addition, basically, my soup tastes best when eaten with rice than itself. The taste of the soup is moderately spicy, and it has a deep savory with the base of chicken stock and hot pepper paste sauce. It may be misunderstood that it will be very spicy because of its red color, but you can adjust the spicy level according to the amount of red pepper paste sauce. Technically, I taste this soup with my family, and that day was my daughter's birthday. She wanted this soup from me for her birthday lunch, and all my family ate it deliciously.

7. Reflection

Since this soup is cooking while taking pictures, it took a little longer than usual. My total cooking time took an hour, but it is relatively easy and simple to prepare ingredients or cook. Today I chose two types of noodles to taste both to my family, but it seems that the chicken stock for two types of noodles was a bit lacking. as a result, I had to add chicken stock again in the middle; therefore, next time I will have to prepare enough chicken stock. Also, it is a soup that you can add various ingredients according to your preference. For example, if mushrooms, beans, or cheese are added to it, the flavor will be deeper; cheese is an ingredient that adds flavor instead of removing the spicy taste of this soup. Likewise, spam or sausage can be substituted with pork or beef and omitted. However, if all meat were omitted, more types of vegetables and vegetable stock would be needed. Even if there is an allergy, it can be replaced in this way.

In conclusion, I was happy to be able to eat spicy soup while thinking of my parents in Korea on my daughter's birthday!

References

Wikipedia contributors. (2020, July 27). Budae-jjigae. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:42, October 7, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Budae-jjigae&oldid=969844590

I want to be a good chef