I cooked: Kimchi jjigae (Kimchi stew)

I love eating Korean food. The first dish I ever tried in a Korean restaurant was kimchi jjigae. I instantly fell in love with it. There is just something immensely comforting about kimchi jjigae.

Kimchi jjigae or chigae is one of the most popular Korean meals. Known as the mother of all Korean stews, it is a spicy stew made with kimchi, onions, diced tofu, scallions, pork or seafood and is to be enjoyed with a bowl of hot rice.

We previously made a batch of kimchi and found that the kimchi has matured, so what better dish to cook than kimchi jjigae. The Unc often makes this in Germany and always mentions how easy it is; I love simple recipes especially now that I have two kids to look after. He shared this recipe from No Recipes that he uses. No Recipes is a really fantastic blog; beautiful photos and things that I would and could actually cook in my own kitchen. Can't wait to try more of his recipes! I found out later that Marc, the owner of the blog is also one of the finalist for Foodbuzz's Project Food Blog. Amazing!

Anyway back to the kimchi jjigae.. matured kimchi is great as it gives the soup a much stronger and flavourful taste. The more mature the kimchi is, the higher the content of good bacteria too. Apparently, the soup tastes even better when left overnight and enjoyed the next day as the flavours are even richer then.

Our kimchi has released a lot of juices (the red liquid), so it was perfect to be used in this stew. No Recipes suggested the use of miso as it adds an earthy flavour and a lot more body to the soup, and I have to agree. The soup tasted very different from what I've had in Korean restaurant's before. It was REALLY good. Without the miso, the soup tasted somewhat more diluted. He also suggests that a little butter is added right at the very end (not too early as it would make the soup oily) as it will thicken the soup and make it richer. Another alternative to butter is to add sesame oil, a tip which The Unc has passed on to me. I found this recipe to be fantastic; the soup was appetizing and hearty. We loved it so much that we just couldn't help licking our bowls clean.

Kimchi jjigae (Kimchi spicy stew or soup)

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 15 - 20 minutes

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp vegetable oil

200g lean pork, sliced thinly (You can reduce the amount of pork if you find this too much)

1 onion, sliced thinly

100g kimchi, sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed

100ml kimchi juice

550ml water

2 tbsp cooking wine (I used Shaoxing)

2 tbsp miso or doenjang (I used miso)

4 tbsp light soy sauce

2 tsp gochujang (hot pepper paste)

1 piece beancurd, cubed

2 stalks spring onion, sliced

1 red chilli, sliced

1 tbsp butter

Gochugaru (optional)

1. Marinate the pork with the Shaoxing wine.

2. Heat the oil in a small, deep pot and fry the pork, kimchi and garlic for 3-5 minutes. When the meat has browned, add the kimchi juice, onion, water, gochujang, miso and soy sauce, stirring everything together to combine.

3. Bring to boil and taste for spiciness. If you prefer your soup spicy, then add some gochugaru. I decided to omit the gochugaru as our kimchi was quite spicy.

4. Allow the soup to simmer for 10-15 minutes, then add the tofu and cook for another 2 minutes.

5. Add the butter right at the end before serving and give it a quick stir to incorporate. Garnish with the spring onions and red chillies.

Dinner in a jiffy

For a seafood version, you can substitute the pork with canned tuna (yes, it works!).

Breakfast, Brunch & Lunch @ Kedai Makanan dan Minuman Yulek, Taman Lensen, Cheras

*This restaurant is now called Restoran 1 Yulek, and occupies only 1 lot at same address.


One of the best things about living in KL is the abundance of good food. All you need is a little patience to try what all the restaurants have to offer and find one which suits your tastebuds best.

We love the fare offered at Kedai Makanan dan Minuman Yulek, from noodles to chicken rice to yong tau foo. We eat here, if not tapau (takeaway) at least once a week. A great place for breakfast, brunch or lunch.

One of my favourite from this shop is the char koay teow from the noodle stall. With plenty of wok hei (flavour, taste and essence imparted by a hot wok during stir frying), the noodles are served with copious amounts of chee yau char (lard fritters), beansprouts, see ham (cockles), prawns, egg and chives (Rm4.00 for small). The cockles are freshly shucked every morning at 6. I like mine with extra cockles and extra spicy (RM4.50). The taste of this plate of char koay teow is just right for me, we love it so much that we eat it at least once a week.

Delicious char koay teow

Baby C always gets her fix of fishballs from the same stall. The aunty from this stall is super friendly and always makes us feel very cheery first thing in the morning. Since we can no longer get the curry laksa from Asia Laksa in Seremban easily, the one we can get here is the next best thing. The soup is quite rich from the coconut milk, and is topped with pig's skin, smooth chicken, fat juicy cockles, tofu puff and beansprouts. Man, it's so hard to decide sometimes whether to have the char koay teow or curry laksa.

Mouthwatering curry laksa

Big bouncy fishballs (RM1 for 3)

There is another noodle stall here, serving mostly wantan noodles with various accompaniments such as dumplings, pork ribs, and braised chicken feet with mushrooms. I enjoy the wantan noodles with sui gau (dumplings) here (RM5.00). The noodles still retained its springy texture despite being tapau home. What particularly made this stand out is the use of minced pork as it adds extra flavour to the noodles. I find the dumpling so-so only as I cannot detect yam bean (sengkuang) so it lacks that crunchy texture the sengkuang imparts.

We have also tried the beef noodles (RM6.00) here and it was pretty decent. Served with wantan noodles, the bowl of beef soup came with lean meat, tripe, and beef balls. However, we still prefer the Seremban version!

The stall we frequent most is the chicken rice stall. Sometimes, we tapau as often as twice a week from this stall. Each time we tapau, we notice that the amount of chicken given has slowly increased (the beauty of being regular customers!!). There is another chicken rice stall nearby which uses a lot of MSG in their rice, hence we switched to this stall and we have never looked back since. The siew yuk (roast pork) is good on most days, I just love biting into the crunchy crackling skin. Even Baby C has given the siew yuk here her stamp of approval. The last time we tapau a pack home, she was supposed to share it with me but she ended up eating all minus one tiny piece of the siew yuk.

Chicken breast with siew yuk rice (RM4.80)

This is the herbal roast duck from the same stall that we tried on one ocassion. I do not like it as a matter of personal preference. On another occasion, we tried the roast duck and that was pretty good!

Shop frontage. Despite its name, the shop is in Taman Lensen and not Taman Yulek.

I think I am due a visit to Seremban soon to eat all my favourite food again.

Most stalls are opened from 6am til 2pm. Closed on Mondays. In the evenings, the place is turned into a seafood restaurant.


Price: Reasonable.

Location: Kedai Makanan dan Minuman Yulek, Jalan 2, Taman Lensen, 56000 Cheras, Kuala Lumpur.
GPS Coordinates: 3.073742, 101.74328