Steamed-egg Kimchi Jjigae aka Kimchi Stew

My Hainanese chicken rice was a great hit and I slowly gained confidence with Asian Home Gourmet's products. My 'food experiment' continue further and this time round I was making the Korean Kimchi stew with spice paste by AHG. Kimchi stew a.k.a kimchi jjigae in Korean is tangy and spicy in taste. The sourness and spiciness are mainly derived from the kimchi and fermented chili peppers.

You can create your own version of kimchi jjigae with the spice paste, by adding your favorite ingredients i.e. beef, seafood, vegetables, tofu. I wanted a lighter version of kimchi jjigae, so I added chinese cabbage, kimchi and steamed egg to my stew. My initial plan is to make a bowl of tofu kimchi jjigae. Since only bottled tofu is sold here (which I am highly skeptical to), I then substituted the tofu with homemade steamed egg. The steamed egg was rather soft in texture, so it can break easily. I would suggest you to reduce the quantity of water and steam the egg longer, so it gets harden.

My steamed egg broke apart when I transferred it to the stew. However, it did not impact the overall taste of my kimchi jjigae but instead enhanced the flavor of the soup tremendously. You may crack an egg instead, but trust me that the steamed egg does taste better, perhaps it provided a silky tofu texture.

The soup can be a way too tangy or sour to some, at least for me. So I added some sugar and 1/2 cube of chicken stock to harmonize the tangy taste. Check out the full recipe below.


Ingredients
1 packet Korean Kimchi Soup spice paste
1 onion (cut into bite-size pieces)
2 1/4 cups (500ml) water
1/2 chicken cube
steamed egg or tofu
Chinese cabbage
kimchi
scallion
sugar to taste

Directions
1. Bring water to boil, add onion and spice space, stir to mix well
2. Add cabbage, kimchi and steamed egg*
3. Reduce heat, add scallion and simmer without lid for 2 minutes
* You may use tofu, seafood or beef for this recipe.