Kimchi stew with drug eggs
Okay, yes, I have been on Instagram reels again and the Koreans have found me. I am very wary of cooking stuff inspired by Instagram because I have done this before and it’s always been disgusting. But I got sucked in to this and I’m glad I did because it was actually really good.
“Drug” eggs are hard-boiled eggs marinated in soy and spices overnight. They soak up the flavours of the marinade and are addictive, it’s true. You can keep them in the fridge for days and ravage them when you need a tangy snack.
Drug eggs
Hard boil eggs for 7 minutes and run under cold water then peel. In an appropriate-sized tupperware put half water and half soy, mirin, rice vinegar, garlic cloves, chilli or chilli oil, sesame oil, sesame seeds and chopped spring onion. Maybe some fish sauce? The quantities don’t especially matter just slosh it all in, then drop in the eggs and leave for six hours or overnight.
Kimchi stew
1 pint chicken stock
A big dessert spoonful of kimchi
1 head of bok choi
1/2 brown onion, sliced thinly as you can
handful of edamame beans
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of mirin
1/2 tablespoon of rice vinegar
a few drops of fish sauce
1 heaped teaspoon of gojuchang paste
1 In a saucepan, put the gojuchang paste and drained kimchi into a pan with the brown onion and some oil and let this cook for about 5 minutes.
2 Add the edamame beans and shredded bok choi, (this plant has fibres that are nature’s answer to nylon and you will choke on it if you don’t shred it), and cook this for another 5 minutes. Now add all the sauces - fish, soy, mirin, vinegar - and the chicken stock and heat this up and bubble it until it looks like a stew. Or maybe a soup.
3 At this point you can add in some rehydrated shiitake mushrooms if you like, or some enoki, (but enoki is not a thing you will have casually knocking about), some dried seaweed - I use seaweed salad from Clearspring - or some tofu. Basically this is a very wholesome brew and you can use it to mainline all sorts of radically healthful things that you like the look of.
4 I cooked some udon noodles separately and to plate up I dropped the noodles into a bowl, ladled over some liquid and then added in some kimchi and the mushrooms. I split a drug egg and put it on the side, then garnished with chopped spring onion and sesame seeds. It was great.
Drug eggs sound delicious. Do you peel them before soaking? Sorry if I’m being dense x
I make something a little like this but really is a completely trashy version. It's like asian comfort food, perfect for a hangover and also if you have v little time. Take your favourite packet of instant noodles, boil them in a pot as usual but for the last minute, break an egg into the noodles and baste it with the noodle water. You can also add in some sliced mushroom/chinese cabbage/anything that doesn't take ages to cook and then take off the heat, decant into a bowl and top with chopped spring onions, toasted sesame seeds and a drizzle of crispy chilli oil. Honestly it takes no more than six minutes and a tiny bit of chopping and is absolutely delicious (if entirely bad for you because UPF...). I WILL make these healthier noodles though as I LOVE kimchi.