Kalguksu Jjimdak · Jachwi Yori Sin

Pat the chicken thigh dry and set a wide pan over medium-high heat.

Lay the thigh in skin-side or fat-side down and let it brown without touching it, about 4 to 5 minutes, until the underside is properly golden.

💡 Brown it whole and cut it after. A whole piece holds its juice through the searing; chopped pieces leak it into the pan straight away.

Turn it and brown the other side too. It does not need to be cooked through — it goes back into liquid shortly.

Lift it onto a board and cut it into bite-size pieces.

Slice the onion and cut the green onion on a slant while the pan cools a moment.

Pour the 600 ml of water into the pan — it should hiss and lift the browned residue off the base.

💡 Scrape that residue up with a spoon. It is concentrated chicken flavour, and it is the reason this tastes braised rather than boiled.

Add the noodles from the packet, its soup powder, the gochujang, the sugar, the gochugaru and the minced garlic.

Stir until the gochujang has dissolved and no red clumps are sitting on the surface.

💡 Break the paste up against the side of the pan. A lump of gochujang that never dissolves means one salty mouthful and a bland rest.

Return the chicken to the pan and boil the lot for 5 minutes over medium-high heat.

The noodles soften and the broth thickens noticeably as their starch comes out — this is what turns a soup into a braise.

Add the onion and green onion and keep cooking until it looks like jjimdak: the sauce clinging to the chicken rather than pooling around it.

Check a thick piece of chicken is cooked through — no pink at the centre — and taste for salt before you serve.

💡 Soup sachets differ in salt. Taste before reaching for anything else; there is a whole packet's worth of seasoning already in there.

Serve straight from the pan while the noodles still have some bite.