1. Ingredients for Budae-jjigae
- Major ingredients: Kimchi, ham, sausage and cheese
- Secondary ingredients: Spices (welsh onion and chili pepper) and other ingredients (ramen noodle and sliced rice cake)
2. Taste evaluation
-Spicy: :★★★☆☆
-Salty: ★★★☆☆
-Sweet: ★☆☆☆☆
-Sour: ★☆☆☆☆
3. Introduction to Budae-jjigae (Spicy sausage stew)
Koreans enjoy eating Jjigae, soup with chunks of ingredients and deep flavor.
Among so many of them, I’ll introduce you Budae-jjigae with unique origin and taste.
Budae-jjigae refers to ‘Jjigae made with meat provided by the U.S. army bases.’
There used to be a large-scaled U.S. army base in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do, during the Korean War in the 1950s. This base especially was storing various supplies for the American troops.
Then their major supplies started to be distributed outside the base including hams, sausages and cheese.
At the time in Korea, nobody knew how to cook hams and sausages since they were very exotic ingredients and someone started to put hams, sausages, and cheese in one pan that became Budae-jjigae.
Hams and sausages were obtained only through the U.S. army base so that the stew was not available in other regions of Korea but only near the U.S. army bases.
However, hams and sausage started to be produced from the 1980s in Korea that it got famous all over the country and became a popular cuisine for all of Koreans today.
It shows us the pain of Korean people who are so poor and they had to cook with illegally obtained ingredients from the U.S. army base.
Canon EOS 550D | f/4.0 | iso 2000 | 2011:12:15 17:35:29 | Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode | 41mm
Budae-jjigae is a fusion cuisine, which is made by boiling Kimchi soup (Kimchi-jjigae) with hams, sausages, beef chunks, cheese and canned beans.
As a Korean traditional cuisine, it is rather neat and plain than cheesy.
You might have a doubt how this most Korean style food, Kimchi-jjigae, and cheesy ingredients like hams, sausages and cheese would taste like.
But I can tell you that it is enough to be called one of Korean traditional cuisines because it suits most of Korean people’s taste.
Well-fermented Kimchi is sour and refreshingly spicy.
Kimchi removes the greasy taste of processed foods as it is harmonized with tastes of meat, sweetness and saltiness of hams and sausages.
And when you add cheese at last, spicy soup becomes soft and flavory.
Now Budae-jjigae is available everywhere since there are so many restaurant franchises throughout the country.
Foreigners will be able to enjoy Korean Kimchi-jjigae more easily when they try Budae-jjigae.
4. Kinds of Budae-jjigae
There’s no special kind for Budae-jjigae and there’s just one regular one.
But you could find the similar cuisine called Johnson-tang in Itae-won, Seoul.
The food was originated in 1966 when the U.S. President Johnson visited Korea. It’s spicy Jjigae with hams in it but it does not have Kimchi like Budae-jjigae.
Although there’s only one type of Budae-jjigae, you could add various ingredients like ramen noodles, glass noodles and sliced rice cakes.
Canon EOS 550D | f/4.0 | iso 2000 | 2011:12:15 17:35:56 | Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode | 32mm
5. How to enjoy Budae-jjigae even more
Koreans eat Jjigae served with rice. Budae-jjigae is not an exception so they eat it with rice.
But instead of eating rice and soup separately, I want you to put a spoonful of ham, sausage, Kimchi and soup on the rice and mix them before you eat them.
It’s how you should eat this Korean traditional fusion cuisine with a long history.
And don’t forget to put add ramen noodles.
Ramen noodles soacked in spicy and flavory soup would taste so good and special.
Kimchi-jjigae is for older people who prefer Korean style food, and hams and ramen noodles are for young people who prefer global cuisines.
Budae-jjigae is the one that has everything in a pan that everybody can enjoy and I bet that you’ll fall in love with it if you try it.
Canon EOS 550D | f/4.5 | iso 400 | 2012:09:05 17:17:43 | Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode | 20mm
