jjigae

If it is cold out, I want to try their Kimchi jjigae, which is a big bowl of kimchi, tofu and pork soup.

Reading, Writing, Cooking and Crafting: Maru Kate 2008

If it is cold out, I want to try their Kimchi jjigae, which is a big bowl of kimchi, tofu and pork soup.

Archive 2008-02-01 Kate 2008

So they threw the meats into the recipe they knew best — jjigae, a common Korean stew — and coined the new soup budae jjigae, meaning "army-base stew."

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

So they threw the meats into the recipe they knew best — jjigae, a common Korean stew — and coined the new soup budae jjigae, meaning "army-base stew."

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

So they threw the meats into the recipe they knew best — jjigae, a common Korean stew — and coined the new soup budae jjigae, meaning "army-base stew."

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

But as South Korea climbed out of poverty in the 1960s and '70s, families in Uijeongbu became prosperous enough to open their own budae jjigae restaurants, and this helped lift the Spam-based stew to a place of respectability among other popular, traditional jjigae.

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

Given the history of jjigae, budae jjigae is a Johnny-come-lately because it wasn't created until the mid-1950s.

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

Koreans consumed gochu centuries before the Imjin War, they say, citing evidence in cookbooks as early as 850 A.D. that include gochu-like peppers — which predated the chili peppers from the New World through Japan — in recipes for stews resembling jjigae.

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

Most scholars agree that Japanese invaders brought red peppers to Korea during the Imjin War in 1592, and that Koreans began fermenting them in the mid-1700s to make gochujang — a gochu paste — and jjigae.

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010

The History Almost every Korean meal includes a jjigae or guk (soup) of some kind.

Uijeongbu's Army-Base Stew Geoffrey Cain 2010