Jjamppong-sundubu-udong (Spicy Silken Tofu Jjamppong with Udon) · Park Eun-young

Cut the onion (100 g), aehobak (120 g) and shiitake (60 g) into bite-size pieces.

Trim the root end off the bok choy (180 g) so the leaves separate, and cut the daepa (30 g) into thick pieces.

Pull the oyster mushrooms (300 g) apart into strips along their grain rather than cutting them.

Set a wide pan over medium-high heat, add 4 tbsp of oil, and fry the minced pork (50 g), breaking it up, until it has lost all pink and started to catch and brown in places.

💡 50 g of pork in a two-portion pot is a seasoning, not a topping. Its whole job is to render fat and leave browned bits in the pan — which is why it needs to actually brown, not just turn grey.

Add the daepa and 1 tbsp minced garlic and stir until the garlic smells sweet rather than raw — about 30 seconds.

Add the oyster mushrooms, shiitake, onion, aehobak and bok choy and stir-fry until the mushrooms have wilted and given up their water.

Push everything to one side, add the 2 tbsp of fine gochugaru into the oil pooled at the base and stir it there for a few seconds until the oil turns bright red — then mix it through the vegetables.

💡 This is the single most important move in the whole recipe. Chili powder bloomed in hot oil gives a jjamppong its red gloss and roasted aroma; chili powder dumped into water just makes cloudy, dusty broth. Watch it closely — burnt gochugaru is bitter and unrecoverable.

Pour in the 1 L of hot water in two or three goes, letting the pan come back to a boil between each addition.

💡 Hot water, added in stages, is a wok-cooking habit worth stealing. Cold water dropped in all at once kills the pan's heat, and the chili oil you just built splits out of the broth instead of emulsifying into it.

Season with ½ tbsp salt, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tsp white pepper and 2 tbsp soybean essence, and let it boil a couple of minutes.

Taste the broth now, before the tofu goes in. Once 400 g of tofu is in the pot it will dilute everything, so it should taste a touch too strong at this point.

Drain the sundubu of its packing liquid, slide the whole block in, and bring it back to one rolling boil — 한소끔 — breaking the tofu into big soft curds with the edge of a ladle.

💡 Break it coarsely and stir as little as possible. Silken tofu shatters into grit if you work it, and the big soft curds sitting in red broth are the point of the dish.

Divide the cooked udon (190 g) between two deep bowls.

Ladle the jjamppong broth over the noodles, spooning the tofu and vegetables on top rather than burying them, and serve immediately while the broth is scalding.