Andong Jjimdak

A dark soy-braised chicken with no chilli paste in it at all, its heat coming from whole dried chillies.

Chicken. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, oyster sauce.

Ingredients

For the braise

• 1 chicken, about 1.4 kg, jointed into 10
• 2 potatoes, in large chunks
• 1 carrot, in thick rounds
• 1 onion, in wedges
• 6 dried red chillies, whole
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1 piece ginger, 3 cm, sliced
• 600 ml water

For the sauce

• 150 ml soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons sugar or rice syrup
• 3 tablespoons rice wine
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

To finish

• 150 g glass noodles, soaked 30 minutes
• 4 spring onions, in 5 cm lengths
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. THE SEASONING IS SOY AND SUGAR WITH NO GOCHUJANG IN IT. Not a spoonful. This is the one braised chicken in the collection that is dark brown rather than red: the colour and the depth come from soy sauce reduced with sugar, and the heat comes from whole dried chillies steeping in it. Add chilli paste and you have made the dak galbi on this site instead -- which is a good dish, and is a different one.
2. THE CHILLIES GO IN WHOLE AND CAN BE LIFTED OUT. Whole, they give a clean background heat over forty minutes and you control it by how many go in and how long they stay. Broken or chopped they release their seeds and the dish goes fiercely hot and cannot be stepped back.
3. THE CHICKEN IS BLANCHED FIRST AND THE WATER THROWN AWAY. Five minutes at a boil, then rinsed. In a braise this dark and this reduced, the scum would otherwise concentrate into the sauce, and the sauce is most of the dish.
4. THE NOODLES GO IN AT THE VERY END, soaked but not cooked, and given four minutes. They drink the sauce, which is the point of them -- but in any earlier they turn to mush and thicken the pan into paste.
5. AND THE SAUCE IS REDUCED WITH THE LID OFF for the last ten minutes until it coats. Covered throughout, it stays thin and the dish is a stew rather than a glaze.
6. Chicken joints covered with water, brought to the boil and boiled 5 MINUTES. Drained, rinsed, and the pot washed.
7. Glass noodles soaked in cold water 30 minutes and drained.
8. The sauce ingredients whisked together.
9. The chicken returned to the pot with the 600 ml of water, the garlic, ginger and whole dried chillies, and the sauce poured over.
10. Brought to the boil and skimmed, then covered and simmered 25 MINUTES.
11. The potatoes, carrot and onion added. Covered and cooked 15 minutes more, until the potatoes give to a skewer.
12. THE LID OFF and the sauce reduced 10 MINUTES, the pieces turned once or twice, until it is dark and syrupy.
13. The chillies lifted out if the heat is enough.
14. The drained noodles added and cooked 4 MINUTES, turned through the sauce until they have taken up most of it.
15. The spring onions and sesame oil stirred in off the heat, sesame seeds scattered, and served from the pot with steamed rice as on its own page.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes