Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tuna Kimchi Jjiggae or a Hangover Dish from the Can


This duo-post is a dream for any food esthete: pancakes hidden as butterflies, paper-cabbage-kimchi in a jar and all linked by telepathy :) Can't take my eyes off these delicate and metaphoric pictures. Can you?

Tina, illustrator of the newest pretty Korean cookbook claims to like tuna kimchi jjiggae. That reminded me of the two tuna-cans that I have set aside since a year. I love them so much, the ones preserved only in olive oil from the Italian groceries. If you get hands on them and have fermented kimchi ready, you can make the simplest but perfectly glorious dish: dump both in a pot, bring to a boil and serve it with rice. That's it*.

It's a great recovering dish after a hangover (which almost never happens to me :)) for it is strong in flavors, invigorating and demands zero dexterity to make.

Although tuna involves difficult issues I will keep allowing myself to those cans once or twice a year - reserved for this favorite kimchi jiggae of mine. And because this dish is screwed anyway in regard to sustainable cooking principles, I might serve an artificial shik hae as desert. Be warned though that the canned drink never comes up to the homemade one!! 

*Additional notes on making kimchi jjigae: originally it is a stew so it should be cooked with additional water and more ingredients to taste
The version described here is a bit eccentric. It is less soupy, more oily and like kimchi fried rice it can be mixed and eaten in a single bowl :)

Cook tuna, kimchi and some kimchi juice around 10 minutes until cooked thoroughly. The cooked kimchi should be tender. A good kimchi doesn't demand additional condiments to cook with but add a little sugar when it has got too sour. At most one little tuna can will be sufficient for one cabbage of kimchi.









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