Budae Jjigae (Army Base Soup) - Korean Spam and Kimchi Soup

Here it is.  The pinnacle of my soup making career to date!  If you could create a recipe that combines my love of soups of the world with my love of unloved ingredients, combine something I've never tried before and sprinkle a bit of military history on top (yes, I'm a history geek as well as a soup geek) it would look something like this unholy but delicious dish.

The story behind this soup goes as follows... A few weeks ago, I got a craving for Spam - I have no idea where it came from except that when I was a kid, every Friday in the summertime we had a salad that featured either Spam or Pek pork, nestled alonside limp lettuce, pickled beetroot and sliced boiled eggs.  Maybe I was feeling nostalgic for those days, or maybe I'd just been watching Monty Python, but regardless, my recipe seeking brain went in search of things to make and do with Spam, and it eventually lead me to South Asia...

East Meets West.  It's like an episode of M*A*S*H in tinned form

After the Second World War (and the Korean War too) food in Japan, Korea and the Pacific Islands - recently devastated by a harrowing but highly cinematic conflict - was in short supply.  Indeed, the only regular supply of it was often to be begged, borrowed or stolen from the American GIs  who were still around.  And one thing they had plenty of was Spam. And since then it has become something of a delicacy in the region, even appearing as Spam Musubi (a form of sushi featuring Spam)

This soup (or stew) is made entirely of ingredients that could be scrounged from GIs, hence the name Army Base Soup, but its the sort of thing I would have eaten as a student, if I'd had access to kimchi.  It might now exactly be fine dining, but I'm guessing it's as authentic as any recipe from any cook book on your shelves, and doesn't it deserve some look as much as the pulled porks, confit potatoes, cronuts and quinoa stuffed, organically sourced alpaca steaks of this world?

If you can get Korean hot pepper paste, that is more accurate than the chilli powder that I used, and the instant noodles should be added without their soup powder mix!

Ingredients
200g Spam
4 Hot Dog Sausages
100g Mushrooms
100g Kimchi
1 Small Tin Baked Beans
1 Large Onion
Spring Onions
Red Chilli Pepper
1 Packet Instant Noodles
1tsp Sesame Oil
1tbsp Minced Garlic
1tbsp Rice Wine
1tsp Chilli Powder
1tsp Fish Sauce
900ml Chicken Stock

Method
1. Bring the stock to the boil, add the sesame oil, garlic, rice wine, chilli powder and fish sauce. Simmer for 5 minutes and then remove from the heat and set aside for later

2. Cut the hot dog sausages into small pieces, slice the spam, wash and halve the button mushrooms, peel and finely slice the onion.  Place the ingredients in a pan, along with the baked beans and then add the stock.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minute.

3. Add the instant noodles and simmer for another 5 minutes, until the noodles are soft.

4. Garnish the soup with thinly sliced spring onions and red chillies.  Enjoy!

Cauliflower Cake, Lamb & Sesame Stirfry and more. A Week of Meals 003

Week 3 of the meal planning odyssey and to be honest I'm surprised that I've made it this far.  As far as new year's resolutions go, this has lasted twice as long as my other resolutions, go running 3 days a week (I'm blaming that one on the snow), cut down on the alcohol (I'm blaming that one on the fact it tastes too nice) and build a robot sidekick (I'm working on that one...)

So without further distractions, on with the list...

 Friday - Chickpea and Chorizo Stew

This one was a quick and simple meal as there are many more important things to do on a Friday evening, and I always like something a bit mediteranean every now and then.  This is a Nigella recipe, which made me inclined not to cook it as I really do not like her TV shows.  However, woman can cook, and this was rather amazing for something that took 15 minutes to prepare...

Should you wish to cook this (and you won't regret it), here is linkage

Sunday - Lamb and Sesame Stir fry

This was my pick from the book Mrs Soup chose, as per the rules of Recipe Club (Well, the second rule actually.  The first rule is do not talk about Recipe Clu... oh drat)  The book was 'What's Cooking - Chinese' by Jenny Stacey, and whilst it was nice, Im not sure how authentic a lot of the dishes are - alarm bells always ring when cook books don't include the name of the dish in the original language (or am I just being a food snob?)

Anyway, I chose it because I don't think I've ever encountered lamb on a chinese restaurant menu before, so I thought I'd give it a go.  It turned out nice, as George Formby might have said, if he'd eaten it...

Monday - Leek and Goats Cheese Tart / Poached Pears

Mrs Soup's pick of the week, from a book called 'Farmer's Market Cookbook'.  Because of another new year's resolution - i.e. the whole healthy eating thing, we swapped out the shortcrust pastry for layers of filo pastry - a tip that the Hairy Bikers did on one of their recent shows.  It made the whole thing a lot lighter and rather nice, although it could have done with some bacon or similar to give it a bit more kick.

Tuesday - Ezogelin Soup

This week's soup.  See blog post below

Wednesday - Cauliflower and Cheese Cake

The weekly veg box delivery left us with a couple of Cauliflowers which I had absolutley no idea what to do with, having grown bored of Cauliflower curry and Koftas, so I did what all sensible people do in the 21st Century - ask twitter.  I got some amazing suggestions, including fritters, making them into a pizza base and a tasty soup which may appear on the blog next time I have cauliflowers.

However, the one that caught my eye was a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi for a cake!  It was an experiment, to say the least, and I didn't have high hopes - especially with my aversion to all things baking related.  However, the end result was something of a triumph.  I highly recommend it if you have no idea what to do with the brain shaped vegetable lurking in your cupboard...

The recipe is here