hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re diving back into our series dedicated to foods from TV and film with a shot at the sundubu jjigae from the FX series “The Americans.” For those unfamiliar, the stew that the Jennings family are eating here is a classic Korean kimchi and soft tofu stew, prominently featuring the Korean chili powder “gochugaru,” which is a fairly mellow form of spice (not unlike the chili powder found here in the states). Sundubu jjigae also leans very heavily into fishy and brine-y umami with its use of a dried kombu sea kelp and anchovy stock, not unlike the rabokki recipe that we did a few months back as well.

While our gochugaru certainly does give the stew a deeply red color that looks quite spicy, I honestly think that this is a bit of a mislead, and it looks a little spicier than it actually is. Lastly, the final note that I’ll mention is that a truly classic sundubu jjigae is made using a Korean dolsot stone bowl. Apart from being a super iconic part of how this dish is plated, it also allows to you cook the stew directly in the stove in the bowl that you’ll be eating out of, which (as we’ll see in a moment) ends up being a super important part of how our poached egg turns out. I don’t own a dolsot stone bowl, so I’m gonna run through my best approach to work around this today as well. Hope you try it.

The recipe will be out on December 24th, 2021, so bookmark the recipe here, bookmark the stream here, and pick up the ingredients below if you want to follow along and cook dinner with me.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cloves garlic

• 3-4 green onions

• 1lb (1 block) soft tofu

• 6-8 shrimp

• 1/2 cup kimchi

• 3 eggs

INGREDIENTS (sauce)

• 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 1 tbsp fish sauce

• 1/4 cup kimchi brine (or 1 tbsp each rice vinegar and fish sauce)

INGREDIENTS (stock)

• 1 sheet dried kombu kelp

• 1/4 cup dried anchovy

• 6 cups water