Vegan Korean Army Base Stew (Budae-jjigae) ๐ฒ
“Budae-jjigae(Vegan Korean Army Base Stew)” is a fusion style stew that is cooked with loads of American style processed foods and Korean sauces and ingredients. We often cook this hot pot dish on a portable burner and share the food at the dining table. In this way, you can enjoy Budae-jjigae warm until the last minute with your family or friends. Budae-jjigae is very satisfying and delicious. Also surprisingly easy to make (You just need to chop and slice some ingredients, that is it!).
Why is Army Base Stew?
“Budae” in its name means Army base in Korean. The reason why this dish has such a strange name is deeply related to Korean history. Soon after the Korean war when food was extremely scarce in Korea, people cooked this hot pot dish with the ingredients that could get from U.S. military base. They cooked the processed foods from the military base with some Korean ingredients they had such as kimchi, gochujang(Korean chilli paste) and so on. many popular Budae-jjigae restaurants are mostly located near the US military base areas in Korea like ‘Uijeong-bu’. And still, this food is loved by many Korean.
Vegan meat alternatives, “Omnipork Luncheon”
We cook “Budae-jjigae” usually with many types of processed foods such as sausages, minced porks and spam and so on. So I have not really thought about cooking this food as a vegan. But recently I found a vegan meat alternatives company, “Omnipork”. I used “Omnipork Luncheon” which is vegan and contains 0mg cholesterol, is rich in protein and provides dietary fibre, potassium and calcium. (Click here if you want to see more detail about Omnipork ) I was very excited about the fact that I could finally be able to make this vegan Budae-jjigae. “Omnipork Luncheon” did a perfect job for my vegan “Budae-jjigae”, just like the original food.
So if you’d like to try this vegan Budae-jjigae (Vegan Korean Army Base Stew), here’s my recipe for you ๐ง๐ฝโ๐ณ๐ค
Ingredients
- 3 slices Vegan Spam (Check the name)
- 70g kimchi
- 120g tofu sliced
- handful of rice cake
- 2 chilli sliced
- 3 cup water
- some leek sliced
- 1 pak choi
- 1 Enoki mushroom
- a pack of instant ramen noodle
Ingredients for sauce
- 5 cloves garlic crushed
- ยฝ tbsp soybean paste
- 4 tbsp Korean chilli powder
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp water
- ยฝ brown sugar
How to cook
- If the rice cake you are using is frozen suck them in the water for 10 mins before you cook
- In a small bowl add all the ingredients for sauce and mix well and set aside
- In a shallow pot, place all the ingredients nicely except the water and the instant ramen noodle
- Once other ingredients are ready, add the sauce in the middle of the shallow pot and pour the water in the corner of the pot
- Close the lid and boil it on medium high heat until the it starts to boil
- Once it starts boiling remove the lid and add the instant ramen noodle and reduce the heat to low
- When the instant ramen noodle is well cooked, it is ready for you enjoy with a bowl of rice ๐๐ค
Ingredients
Recipe
- If the rice cake you are using is frozen suck them in the water for 10 mins before you cook
- In a small bowl add all the ingredients for the sauce and mix well and set aside
- In a shallow pot, place all the ingredients nicely except the water and the instant ramen noodle
- Once other ingredients are ready, add the sauce in the middle of the shallow pot and pour the water in the corner of the pot
- Close the lid and boil it on medium-high heat until the it starts to boil
- Once it starts boiling remove the lid and add the instant ramen noodle and reduce the heat to low
- When the instant ramen noodle is well cooked, it is ready for you to enjoy with a bowl of rice ๐๐ค