Korean · main

Gochujang Jjigae (Thick Chile Paste Stew with Pork and Potato)

Gochujang Jjigae (Thick Chile Paste Stew with Pork and Potato) reads umami 7.5, richness 6.0 and salinity 4.0 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Korean main, about 47 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 7.5 · Richness 6.0 · Salinity 4.0 · Allium 3.9 · Marine & Briny 3.8 · Funk & Ferment 3.8 · Heat 3.5 · Sweetness 3.2 · Herbaceous 1.9 · Warm Spice 1.8 · Smoke 1.8 · Earthy 1.6 · Sourness 1.1 · Bitterness 1.0

What's in it (14)

Time & effort: about 47 min (46 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 98.7 kcal, 3.8 g protein, 7.4 g fat, 4.9 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (6 steps)

  1. Make the broth: put the anchovies and kelp in the cold water, bring slowly to a simmer over 10 minutes, lift the kelp out the moment the water trembles, and give the anchovies 10 minutes more at a bare simmer. Strain. Kelp boiled hard turns slimy and bitter, and anchovies boiled longer than 15 minutes turn the broth muddy.
  2. It is worth being clear about the three words, because they are not interchangeable. A jjigae is thick, salty, cooked and served in one heavy pot in the middle of the table, and everyone eats out of it with their own spoon; it is a seasoning for rice more than a soup. A guk is thin and lightly seasoned, ladled into an individual bowl, and eaten every day beside the rice. A tang is a guk that has been simmered for hours on bones, and it is a dish in its own right.
  3. Render the pork belly in a heavy pot over medium-high heat for 5 minutes, until the fat runs and the edges brown. Stir in the gochujang, doenjang and gochugaru and fry them in the pork fat for 1 minute, until the paste darkens and smells roasted rather than sharp. Frying the jang is the step that separates a good jjigae from a red salty soup: raw gochujang stirred into liquid tastes flat and faintly of grain.
  4. Pour in 600 ml of the strained broth, add the potato and onion, bring to a hard simmer and cook 10 minutes, until the potato is nearly tender and has begun to cloud the liquid with its starch. That starch is what gives a jjigae its body.
  5. Add the zucchini and garlic and simmer 5 minutes, then lay the tofu slabs on top and simmer 4 minutes more without stirring, so they do not break up. The stew should be thick enough that a spoon dragged through it leaves a moment of clear pot bottom.
  6. Scatter the scallions and green chile over and take the pot to the table still bubbling, on a trivet, with rice and two or three banchan. Doenjang jjigae is its everyday sibling; this one is sweeter, redder and heavier, and in most households it is what happens when there is gochujang that needs using and a piece of pork belly in the freezer.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Keep reading: what umami, richness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.