Korean Spicy Army Stew But A Tiny Bit More Healthy

This Stew Reminds Me Of The Days…

… when I wasn’t sober and drinking soju with my friends. My lifestyle has changed SO much since then (and my eating habits), so it was fun making this dish differently at this stage of my life and having it taste just as good! I replaced ingredients like spam, sausage, and ramen noodles with pork belly and mung bean noodles to make it easier to digest. I looked at the OG, Maangchi’s recipe and tweaked it a bit to make it more constipated-gal-friendly.

INGREDIENTS (2-4 serving) :

For the stock:

• 1 dried anchovy and kelp pack

• 3 strips of pork belly

• 5 cups of water

For the seasoning paste:

• 2 garlic cloves

• 1 tablespoon hot pepper paste

• 1 tablespoon of gochugaru (hot pepper flakes)

• ½ tablespoon of soy sauce

• 1 tablespoon of water

Rest of the ingredients:

• 1-2 ounces of mung bean noodles (make sure it’s not mixed with wheat/white noodles)

• 1/2 cup of cabbage, cut

• ½ ounces of enoki mushroom

• ½ of a medium onion, sliced

• 1 Korean green pepper

• 2 green onions, cut into 1 inch pieces

• ½ cup fermented kimchi, sliced into bite-sized pieces

• ½ - 1 pack of firm tofu, sliced

• 12-16 sliced rice cakes (I used brown, but white rice if fine too as long as it’s 100% rice)

DIRECTIONS (Total time: 45 minutes):

• Stock:

  • Pour 5 cups of water into a large pan or shallow pot

  • Place the dried anchovy and kelp soup pack into the pot and put on medium heat for 15 minutes. Cut up pork-belly into bite-sized pieces and keep it on for an extra 10 minutes.

  • Remove the pot from heat, strain, and set aside

• Seasoning Paste

  • Combine the seasoning paste ingredients (garlic cloves, hot pepper paste, gochugaru, soy sauce, water) in a bowl

• Arrange and Serve:

  • Put the cabbage, onion, green onion, and pork at the bottom of the pot

  • Add kimchi and seasoning paste

  • Add pork belly from stock, rice cakes, tofu, and enoki mushroom on the sides.

  • Add the mung bean noodles

  • Add the stock until it covers 3/4 of the ingredients and place on medium high heat over a gas burner. Wait until the ingredients cook and lower heat.

People usually eat this as it’s cooking and have a small bowl in front of them to take the soup and other ingredients to cook. It’s important to get the rice cake cooked to a certain consistency until it’s chewy — try to take it out at the right time!