Tag: doenjang

Seafood Doenjang Jjigae

Seafood Doenjang Jjigae: Korean Soybean Paste Stew with Mussels and Shrimp

Seafood Doenjang Jjigae
🇰🇷 🍲 🍤 🌊

Korean Soybean Paste Stew
With Mussels and Shrimp

This seafood doenjang jjigae builds layers of flavor from a simple base of fermented soybean paste, dashi, and a touch of gochugaru. Doenjang is a traditional Korean fermented soybean paste with a deep, savory, slightly earthy character—similar in function to miso, but generally more assertive and rustic.

It forms the backbone of many Korean stews, bringing both saltiness and complexity in one ingredient. “Jjigae” simply means stew in Korean, and it refers to a category of hearty, simmered dishes served bubbling hot at the table.

Onion, shiitake, and daikon simmer first, softening into the broth, followed by tofu and zucchini, which absorb the savory depth as the stew develops. A small splash of rice vinegar at the end brightens everything slightly without pulling focus from the earthy, gently spicy broth.

What makes this version especially weeknight-friendly is the seafood. The shrimp go in straight from frozen, and the mussels are already fully cooked, so there’s no peeling, cleaning, or extra prep required. Everything comes together in the pot in minutes, making it an easy way to serve a deeply flavored Korean-inspired seafood stew without advance planning or extra fuss.

Seafood Doenjang Jjigae Recipe

Continue reading “Seafood Doenjang Jjigae”

Doenjang Adds Umami Notes to Mashed Potatoes

Doenjang 된장 Mashed Potatoes Butter, Roasted Seaweed, Gochugaru, Sesame Seed, Black Pepper

Doenjang 된장 Mashed Potatoes
Butter, Roasted Seaweed, Gochugaru, Sesame Seed, Black Pepper

Umami is the savory taste and round mouth-feel imparted by glutamate and nucleotides found in certain foods. Doenjang, that funky-chunky-fermented-aged Korean soybean paste, has an exceptionally robust umami profile.

In 1908, a chemistry professor at Tokyo Imperial University was intrigued by the complex flavor and deliciousness of dashi, a simple Japanese soup base made from seaweed. Upon investigation, Dr. Kikunae Ikeda was able to isolate the principal flavor ingredient of kombu (the kelp used to make dashi). Using classical chemistry procedures he identified this substance as glutamic acid.

Glutamic acid is a type of amino acid, which are the building blocks of proteins. Bound with minerals such as sodium, potassium, or magnesium – glutamic acid becomes glutamate, a salt. It is the salt form of glutamic acid that elicits the taste. Following Ikeda’s glutamate discovery, other foods were determined to be sources of umami, and that the process of fermentation forms and releases amino acid and nucleotide compounds as well.

Doenjang is made from dried soybeans which are boiled and stone-ground into a coarse paste, then formed into blocks called meju and allowed to ferment with the help of warmth or sunlight and bacteria. One to three months later, the blocks are placed in large pottery jars and covered with a very salty brine as the fermentation process continues.  At the end of the long process the liquid is filtered off, this liquid is Korean soy sauce called ganjang, and the remaining solids are our salty-earthy-complex-umami rich paste with a pungent aroma – called doenjang.

Doenjang 된장 Mashed Potatoes Recipe

Continue reading “Doenjang Adds Umami Notes to Mashed Potatoes”