Raw Bento

I’ve been a bit bored with my usual dishes — I typically live on this type of brekkie and this type of lunch, that are followed by lentil curries or soba noodles or quinoa pilafs. I chanced upon, Alien’s Day Out, over a year ago and constantly drooled over her pictures of vegan Korean nosh, which led me to explore veganizing popular Korean faves.

Besides making a raw bibimbap, I was excited to whip up some cooked vegan Korean fare. I spied a few Ja Jiang Myun recipes online and they looked very easy to make and the black bean paste that is used seemed harmless enough (ingredients are black bean paste, sugar, salt, corn starch).

Unfortunately, I got the wrong paste — not being able to read Korean and all. I got doenjang, a fermented soy bean paste that is like a pungent sister to the Japanese miso, instead so I set about finding a vegan-friendly recipe. An absolute classic, doenjang jijae, a spicy vegetable and tofu stew, caught my eye and I was happy with the results.

Recipe (in a clay pot or regular pot; serves two large bowls):
4 cups water
1 heaping tbs doenjang paste
1 zucchini, chopped
1 small potato, diced
1/2 white onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
6 shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 heaping tbs Korean red pepper paste or gochujang
1 drop sesame oil

Boil all ingredients in a clay pot if you have it (it helps to keep the heat in, I think) until the veggies are cooked. Serve over rice or noodles — in my case, I used brown rice pasta. They look very white, don’t they? I get them from Nissin, a foreign food supermarket 30 minutes away from my apartment.

And I didn’t have tofu so I left that out but it was yummy all the same. Anyway, you know how I feel about tofu, right?

My curiosity of Ja Jiang Myun wouldn’t let me rest so I went back to the Korean grocery store to get a small box of black bean paste. The sales assistant told me this brand didn’t have chemicals which I took to mean no MSG, so I happily paid for it and went home to make this…

For the recipe, I basically followed this one at Maangchi but left out the meat and potatoes. I used shiitake mushrooms, replaced the radish with turnip, and subbed thick rice noodles with brown rice pasta. I love her blog — she’s like a friendly Korean housewife who is a huge youtube star now.

My thoughts on my Ja Jiang Myun: could be saltier, but I think since I had a no-chemical paste, it could be that there is much less salt content. Next time, I might add some salt. I enjoyed it but frankly it was quite heavy due to the starch and it’s definitely not going to be a frequent meal in my dining room, unlike the lighter vegetable stew pictured above.

I also made a simple bean sprout soup but realized I made it differently from the traditional recipe (which requires kelp and salt). I wanted to make use of the doenjang paste so I put some in boiling water, added a dash of sesame oil, some chopped garlic, and a handful of bean sprouts. It was a bit plain-tasting so I added some shoyu for more oomph. It was actually a nice meal with different types of textures and flavours but a bit too heavy.

Next up, kimchi pancakes! They are called kimchijeon. I love Korean pancakes and thought they all had egg in it but I came across a simple vegan recipe at Maangchi’s blog and had to make it (the video is awesome).

Recipe:
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbs kimchi
3 tbs kimchi sauce
3 tbs onion chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 green onion, chopped (as a topping)

Mix the ingredients well and heat up a non-stick pan to medium heat with some olive oil. Pour the batter evenly onto the pan and let it fry for a minute. When the edges start to harden and darken, flip it over and fry for another minute.

It was so delicious and it appeased my Korean pancake fixation for sure. It was a bit salty for me so I might skip the salt altogether because kimchi is pretty salty to begin with. Yay for savoury vegan pancakes. These are so easy to make.

By the way, I didn’t eat all of these dishes at once! I made them over the space of an entire week but I thought a big-ass post on just Korean food would be fun.

I wouldn’t say these are the most healthful dishes but I realized I need to change things up a bit to feel excited about cooking….And I cannot sustain a super-healthy diet consistently without breaking down and needing to binge on something that is ultra-processed and junky like pizza and chips.

Perhaps, my journey to better health overall involves letting in a bit of less than ideal food once in a while to keep sane. For me, being puritanical about ingredients or being 100% raw chips away at my will power to be healthy.

Have you explored a new food lately that blew your mind?