The Quintessential Korean Comfort Food.

Hey Reader,

When I think of Korean comfort food, my mind immediately goes to jjigae or stew. Whether it's kimchi jjigae or soondooboo jjigae, there's nothing quite as soothing as a bubbling ddukbaeggi of spicy broth, crammed with veggies (i.e., potatoes!!) and tofu. Of all the Korean stews out there, though, the most ubiquitous of them all is undoubtedly doenjang jjigae or Korean fermented soybean paste stew.

Wow. That's a mouthful.

But a really delicious mouthful!

If you've dined at a Korean restaurant before, then you know what I'm talking about. Doenjang jjigae is often served as a side dish to many "main courses," particularly Korean BBQ. It's often the "warm course" following a bowl of buckwheat noodles (naengmyeon). It's almost never served as a dish in and of itself (you'd never order doenjang jjigae as your main), but somehow, it often finds its way onto the table anyway.

Doenjang--Korean fermented soybean paste--has a long long history. It's been around for thousands of years, dating back to the Three Kingdoms Era in Korea's ancient history. It is a paste derived from yellow soybeans, an innovation born out of the need for cheaper and more available sources of protein. Over the millennia, the pungent, savory flavor of doenjang has found itself in so many Korean foods and condiments. Soy sauce, for example, is the byproduct of doenjang--the amber liquid that is excreted during the fermentation process. Gochujang, the spicy Korean chili paste that everyone's loving right now, is actually a mixture of gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) and doenjang. Many of the small plates of vegetables crowding your Korean dining table are seasoned with a tablespoon of doenjang (see Kale Moochim in my first cookbook).

And, of course, doenjang is the main component of doenjang jjigae or doenjang stew.

Doenjang is a relative newcomer to Western palates when it comes to Korean condiments. Those of you who love gochujang or miso will likely recognize the strong umami wafting from the jar of dark brown paste. For those of you who've never had doenjang or gochujang before, I often liken doenjang to a very concentrated version of miso. Miso is, after all, also a paste derived from fermented soybeans. But I'd think twice before calling doenjang "Korean miso paste." Korean people take pride in doenjang being their own, unique flavor agent, one cultivated over thousands of years and, more importantly, a food that existed long before the Japanese occupation (1910 to 1945). Moreover, the fermentation process is quite different, producing pastes that are as varied in flavor as they are in texture and color.

Still, like I said, if you've had miso before (like miso soup), doenjang will likely taste familiar to you. It is salty, sharp, and a little funky (like cheese). Doenjang is great as a broth enhancer, kind of like bouillon paste. It also helps to thicken broths, so they can form the basis of a hearty stew. Finally, like gochujang, it can be served on its own as a salty dip for crudite or your lettuce wrap (this version of doenjang is called "ssamjang").

Doenjang jjigae or doenjang stew is fairly modern, relative to its star ingredient, coming onto the culinary scene in the mid-18th century. Over the past couple hundred years, though, there have been dozens and dozens of iterations of this eponymous stew, ranging from meat-heavy to totally vegetarian to crammed full of seafood. I think part of the reason for this is because doenjang jjigae has always been viewed as a humble dish, one that defies the conventional structure of a "recipe" and resides comfortably within the confines of the home kitchen. Korean moms and grandmas can take whatever liberties they choose, tailoring the stew to their families' tastes and predilections (more potatoes please!!), in the same way they do for kimchi and kimbap (word to the wise--do not ever refer to kimbap as "Korean sushi" for the same reason we discussed above).

It is for this reason that I sometimes get annoyed with the excessive gatekeeping that has been erected around ethnic cuisines, like Korean food. I read a particularly enraging Reddit thread yesterday about one of my favorite Times food writers (Eric Kim), in which posters lambasted Kim for a purportedly offensive take on gukbap (literally translated, gukbap means "soup rice" and refers to a very old school dish of, you guessed it: soup and rice). Complaints ranged from "he uses olive oil" to "a tomato?!?" to "this looks disgusting." Laced heavily in the subtext, though, was that Kim's admitted "takes" on traditional Korean dishes revealed, at best, an insouciance for the unwritten rules of Korean cooking, or, at worst, a contemptible sidling to whiteness, a cow-towing designed to collect a few crumbs of power at the cost of his "authenticity."

Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to this as a vegan (so many Korean Americans continue to believe that vegans can't be "real Koreans"). And that's the thing--as a vegan, I can't simply rely on the way my mom and grandmas and aunts prepared my favorite Korean dishes. I have to do the research on doenjang. I have to understand how it is made. I have to know why and where and how it fits into the Korean dining table--not just because I have to defend its so-called "authenticity," but because my veganism is, fundamentally, a human choice. However, the more and more I study the history underlying Korean food, the more and more I discover how impossible it is to construct a stable boundary around "authenticity." While foods, flavors, and methodologies are almost always steeped in stories, it really is the story, the human experience around those foods, flavors, and methodologies, that bestows the honor and respect the concept of "authenticity" strives but ultimately fails to produce.

Kim, too, does all the digging one might expect of an investigative journalist, and always attaches a very human story to each of his recipes. I can hazard a guess that none of the faultfinders read a word of the beautiful essay documenting the history of gukbap and its role in Korean culture, all of which would be far more edifying to their so-called legitimacy than the inclusion of sesame oil or the exclusion of a freaking tomato.

This Week's Recipe Inspo.

Spicy Doenjang Jjigae.

The Results Are In...

THANKS to ALL of you who weighed in on the new book cover!! In case you didn't see, the majority of you (63%) voted for the Budae Jjigae! My publisher agreed and the cover will look very similar to what you see below!! Pre-orders will be available in the near term, so please keep your eyes peeled for that!!

Take My Meal Planner For A Spin.

Thru the end of February, get $20 off a yearly membership to my meal planner, The Korean Vegan Kollective, with code TKVHEALTH (enter the code at checkout). Dive in here and learn more here.

Parting Thoughts.

Months ago--what feels like a lifetime ago--I wrote a parting thought on doenjang jjigae and the comfort it brought me after I lost my dog. That is what certain foods can do--they can remind you of home, they can stir the embers of resilience, they can help you remember who you are when so much of the outside world threatens to unravel you.

I wrote about this on Election Day.

Since then, a lot has happened. The running joke, of course, is that we've all lived many years since the opening bell of 2025 and 2028 feels like it cannot come soon enough. In all candor, I worry what the state of things will be when that time arrives. What if we have been so weakened by division, polarization, and the normalization of silence that we are not equipped to do the work necessary to save ourselves? In the meantime, climate change continues to barrel ahead, especially now with an administration keen on removing the minimal barriers that had been put in place with the hope of keeping it in check and to give humanity a collective breather.

In 2016, I was moved to go meatless because it was the one big thing I could do at home to lighten my footprint on this planet. I reasoned that however easily I could dismiss the other arguments for adopting a plant-based diet, I couldn't ignore the planet and every living soul on the planet. The breadth of that moral responsibility was so overwhelming, that the idea I could do something about it simply by giving up meat was actually quite liberating. It was a relief.

But that is a personal relief. And however compelling the statistics in Cowspiracy, my individual at-home choices simply cannot contend with the Goliath of systemic, political, and economic ostrichism. We are running out of time to correct the wrongs saddling our country and species and I worry that the moral arc has too far to go before it reaches justice.

Grim thoughts, indeed, as a parting message today. When I feel this way, I always end with a commitment to love those I love with all my heart, to press them closely to me until I can breathe in the scent of their living, the pungent perfume of their pain and joy and ambition. Because these things, these moments between now and when the curtain closes, these are the things that make it all worthwhile.

Wishing you all the best,