Kimchi Chigae

Whenever I go to New York, I always make time to go to my favorite Korean restaurant, Kunjip.  And when I go, I feast on the free collection of tiny dishes and order the tofu seafood soup (I think it is the Soon Doo Boo Chigae).  I have no idea how to make that, but I recently found a very good recipe for Kimchi Chigae, and have been repurposing my homemade kimchi toward the cause.

The recipe originally came from norecipes and he has a much more attractive picture of this dish on his site.  I would strongly discourage you from omitting the miso or the butter; they add a depth of flavor to the dish beyond what I have found in other recipes I've tried.  The recipe below incorporates my adaptations, please go to the norecipes site for the original recipe.

Kimchi Chigae (adapted from norecipes)*

1/2 small onion diced
1 1/2 cup loosely packed kimchi
4 cloves of garlic minced
2 1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp dried ginger
1 Tbs cooking wine (shaoxing)
2 heaping tsp gochujang (Korean chili paste)
2 tsp miso
1 tsp soy sauce

8 oz silken tofu sliced into cubes
1 tbs butter

Heat a little oil in a small pot and add the onion. When onions are soft, add the kimchi and garlic. Saute until the mixture is very fragrant, then add the water, ginger, cooking wine, gochujang, miso and soy sauce, stirring everything together to combine.

Bring to a boil and add the tofu, turn down the heat to a simmer and let it cook for 20-30 minutes.

When you’re ready to serve, add the butter and give it a quick stir to incorporate. 

* I've never tried this with store-bought kimchi, but the dish is divine with my homemade kimchi.  I found it to be quite spicy without the addition of Korean chili flakes so I omitted that from the recipe.  I didn't add any kimchi juice because my kimchi was really flavorful already.  The original recipe also included pork, which I didn't have on hand, but I imagine it would be quite delicious.