Kimchi Stew
napa cabbage and daikon kimchi
Many of the recipes in the Momofuku cookbook have recipes within recipes and the Kimchi Stew is no exception. I’m not complaining, I think it’s actually kind of fun to fit all the pieces together. Putting the pieces of the Kimchi Stew together is fast, if you have all the right ingredients on hand.
rice cakes, roasted onions, roasted pork shoulder, kimchi, green onions, carrots
This stew is like no other stew. The ingredients are pre-cooked and there isn’t an absurd multi-hour stewing process. You do simmer for a while for the flavours to meld together, but by no means do you stew.
simmering stew
I was a little worried because I’m not the biggest kimchi fan, but this stew converted me. It doesn’t have an overwhelming kimchi flavour, due to the mirin. The mirin tempered the sourness of the kimchi and the resulting flavour was sweet and slow-burn spicy.
mmm, rice cakes
The texture of the quickly stewed kimchi was perfect: the napa cabbage and daikon had that pickled kimchi flavour and were melty and yielding. The smokiness of the soft pulled pork was contrasted with the crunchy green onions and carrot garnish. The rice cakes were gelatinous goodness.
so nice we took the photo twice!
This is a stew you want to eat with rice. It’s hearty and filling on its own, but it’s even better with rice. Sometimes you just need that plain accompaniment to compliment the flavours even more. There’s something so comforting about a savoury dish with plain. sticky, short-grain rice. It’s a cozy, warming, feel-good meal. I’m definitely making it again.
i heart kimchi stew
Kimchi, I was wrong about you, I’m so glad you’re in my life.
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Wow, I’ve just discovered your blog and I am absolutely in love with it! The kimchi stew looks sooo good. It reminds me of Julie Powell’s “Julie/Julia Project” but it’s even better because it has pictures. Good job!
Thanks Gabe, you’re too nice! The kimchi stew was really good.
This looks fantastic! You’ve inspired me to buy the book. Love your pictures, too.
Cheryl,
Thanks, the kimchi stew really blew my mind. The book was worth it for that recipe alone!
I was just reading your blog yesterday, I loved your post on Heston Blumenthal’s bolognese!
What a cute posting. You have inspired me to make this.
Liz,
You should make the kimchi stew, it’s really, really good!
I made this stew for my cooking club, we each took a recipe from his cookbook– I am not sure what you mean about it being fast! The broth alone took 10 hours (yes, you read that right), and involved roasting pork bones before they went into the pot. Then there was the caramelizing of the onions and roasting of the pork shoulder. I wimped out when it came to making the tare (roasting a ton of chicken wings to create an authentic Japanese bbq sauce) and used his substitute suggestion.
It was delicious but a ton of work!
Did you not make much of it from scratch? The broth was incredibly involved but tasted like heaven; perhaps you bought it? I am so spoiled by how great the ramen broth was that now I’m hesitant to buy a grocery store version (and I live in LA, where there are tons of great Asian markets.)
Tory,
It was a lot of work, but I had already made the ramen broth and the pork shoulder for the Momofuku ramen recipe. Since I had the ingredients on hand, it was pretty fast to make the stew. My ramen broth took about 12 hours to make, but like you said, it was totally worth it. You should make the taré next time you make the broth, it really adds a depth of flavour to the broth. If you’re interested, I’ve made the broth twice. you can check it out here and an easier way here.
Hey, there. I just borrowed the Momofuku cookbook from the library and this is the first recipe I tried. I didn’t do evdrything (pork shoulder, ramen broth, etc.) from scratch, but my small attempt was enough to convince me that it is worth doing the real thing!