Koreans usually have soup or stew when they eat cooked rice. The word jjigae, meaning stew, originates from the Chinese character “gaeng.” The letter gaeng is derived from a hieroglyphic depicting a big pot boiling mutton. In other words, jjigae is a soup dish with a lot of solid ingredients. Historical records show that bride’s wedding presents to the groom’s family included meju, or fermented soybean lumps, which is the basic ingredient for making soy sauce or soybean paste. This demonstrates that people often enjoyed soybean paste stew with cooked rice because doenjangjjigae helped digestion. So a lot of Koreans feel something is missing or even can’t have a meal served without a soup or a stew.

Main Ingredients :
(Serves 1)
Main Ingredients: 20 g soybean paste, 40 g thinly-sliced beef brisket, 2 g powdered red pepper, 7 g spicy pepper, 15 g brown oak mushrooms, 30 g summer squash, 50 g tofu, 15 g scallion, 20 g onion, 1/4 tsp ground pepper, 1 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp refined rice wine

Spices :
Ingredients for stock: 35 g radish, 5 g dried anchovies, 1 piece kelp, 11/2 cups water



☑ Tenderloin can replace thinly-sliced beef brisket. Other seafood such as shrimp and blue crabs can be put instead.
☑ When preparing broth, put radish and piece of kelp in the cold water from the beginning and bring to a boil.
☑ Remove the foam when simmering anchovy broth to get rid of fishy smell and cook savory stock.
☑ After dissolving the soybean paste, add the vegetable ingredients and simmer on high heat. When the stew boils, reduce the heat to medium high, then reduce to low heat when the ingredients seem to be cooked. Let it simmer for about 3-5 minutes.


Jeong Hye-jin: Professional Hansik Chef

- Head of Hansik Division from the Park Hyatt Seoul Hotel
-2007 Gold medal for creative hansik dish at the Seoul International Cooking Contest
-2009 Silver and bronze at the Battle of the Chefs held in Malaysia
-2009 Designated as the representative of Korean Restaurant & Tourism Association