One of my favourite Korean recipes. Guaranteed if you follow my recipe, it will be better than most Korean restaurants. When I eat kimchi chigae in restaurants, I always wonder where the meat is, so my recipe loads up the pork belly so you get meat every time you take a spoonful of the stew. This dish is surprisingly expensive in most restaurants, but yet it’s so easy to make. One of the secrets with my recipe is that I leave the anchovies and kelp in the soup for an hour and a half, simmering. This allows a maximum amount of umami flavour into the dish after one and a half hours of simmering at a low heat. I remove all the kelp and anchovies from the stew. The other key tip that I have is that the soup should be simmering at a load of medium heat over one and a half hours. This allows all the flavours to incorporate with each other, and the pork belly stays nice and tender. A lot of recipes call for a hard boil and serve this within 20 minutes, but I’m telling you a slow simmer will get you that special flavor.

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups kimchi 
• 5 cups water 
• 7 dried anchovies 
• 7 pieces of kelp
• 4 thick slices of pork belly 
• 1 tablespoon gochukaru Korean chilli powder 
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce 
• 1/2 onion 
• 2 cloves garlic 
• 1 teaspoon sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil  

Directions: 

1. Remove black dried guts from anchovies. Add 5 cups of water to a pot and add in the anchovies and kelp and start boiling the water. 
2. Slice onions, slice pork belly into bite-size pieces, and dice garlic and add to the pot. 
3. Add 2 cups kimchi, gochukaru, soya sauce, sugar, and sesame oil. 
4. Let it simmer on low heat for 1.5 hours.  
5. Remove the anchovies and kelp from the stew. 
6. Then serve with rice.