Kimchi Jjigae: Aged Kimchi Cooking

Kimchi jjigae — kimchi stew — demonstrates an important fermentation principle: aged, over-fermented kimchi that has become too sour to eat raw is the ideal cooking kimchi. The sourness that makes it unpleasant to eat cold becomes, under heat, a complex, deeply integrated acid that enriches the stew. This is the Korean application of the universal principle that fermentation creates cooking ingredients as much as eating ingredients.

Older, deeply soured kimchi cooked with pork belly (or tuna), tofu, and the kimchi brine in a stew that simmers until the kimchi softens and its flavours integrate completely with the pork fat and the broth.

• Sauerkraut and pork braise (European — same aged fermented vegetable and pork combination), Chinese suan cai yu (pickled vegetable fish stew — same acid-integration principle), Japanese kimchi nabe (s

Kimchi jjigae is the dish that makes aged kimchi make sense — the sourness that seemed like deterioration becomes depth and complexity when cooked. The pork fat, the kimchi acid, and the tofu softness are in complete balance. It is deeply satisfying in the way that only long-fermented, long-cooked preparations can be.