An Asian touch to the New Year

For people from Asia, I am sure you are very very familiar with the name Budae jjigae, ('Troop Stew').  Which is basically cooking a number of ingredients, like SPAM, SAUSAGES, PORK and VEGGIES in a Korean kim chi soup base.  And towards to the end of the meal, we cook a package of Korean instant noodle with the soup.

I tried it once in Seoul, Korea and is real delicious! Living so far from Asia now made me crave for Asian food, and especially in this freezing weather, it is nice to have something hot cooked in front of you.  Surprisingly, it is easy enough to get what we need from China Town and Japan Centre at Piccadilly.

Ok, so what was in my pot?  Sliced pork, spam, dumplings, Chinese leaf lettuce, cauliflower, assorted mushrooms, tofu and vermicelli.  We made this for a dinner party with my sister-in-law and her boyfriend.  And they totally LOVED it!

Here is the recipe if you would like to give an Asian twist to your next dinner party!

Ingredients - serves 4

1 bottle  Kimchi hot pot sauce 

200g of sliced pork fillet (chop is just fine, is to your liking)

1 can SPAM (or luncheon meat), sliced

50g vermicelli noodles - soak in warm water for 30mins before use

10pcs dumplings

half Chinese leaf lettuce, sliced

half cauliflower 

150g firm tofu, sliced

 200g assorted mushrooms

1 garlic finely chopped

1 onion chopped

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp pork bulgogi marinade

1 slice of cheese

1 package of Shin Ramen

Firstly, in a pan, heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil and cook the garlic and onion until golden brown.  Fry the pork with bulgogi marinade until 60-70% cooked.

Pour in the kimchi hot pot sauce - dilute it according to instructions on bottle.  Now carefully put all the ingredients in the pan, lay them out nice and pretty.  Bring the soup to boil and remove from fire. 

Serve the pot in a camping stove, so you can keep the pan cooking while you eat.  Right before you dig in, put a slice of cheese and dig in once it has melt!

Save the best for last

Towards the end of the meal, cook the ramen in the soup!  YUM!