🥘 Doenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew)

jyleen21 · CC0

A daily stew of fermented soybean paste with tofu and courgette, made from paste aged a whole year.

Doenjang is made by boiling soybeans, pressing them into meju blocks, drying them and steeping them in brine for months. The Chungcheong countryside around Sejong still has houses that ferment their own, with rows of earthenware jars in the yard. The stew itself is simple — paste, tofu, courgette, potato — but its flavour depends entirely on that family's jar.

Flavour: Gently salty, fragrant with fermentation

Ingredients

Doenjang paste
Tofu
Courgette
Potato
Green chilli