Kimchi Soup

Serves 4
Total time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:
2 filets pork loin
2 cups Asian rice cake slices, photographed below (NOT American rice cakes!)
6 cups chicken broth
4 cups kimchi
4 eggs
2 tablespoons gojuchang (Korean red pepper paste)
3 tablespoons mirin
1/2 tube extra-silken tofu, about 6 oz
Vegetable oil
Salt and pepper
Optional: toasted sesame seeds and minced scallions to garnish

1) Toast the rice cakes in a dry large pot at medium-high heat. Stir them around occasionally, but allow them to blister and develop little brown spots, about 5 minutes. Remove from the pot and reserve.

2) Cut the pork into thin slices and season with salt and pepper. Coat the bottom of the soup pot with vegetable oil and heat it until a piece of pork sizzles when touched to the oil. Sear the pork for 2 minutes, stirring once, then remove from the pot and reserve.

3) Pour the chicken broth, and kimchi, along with all the kimchi juice, into the pot and bring to a boil, then keep at a simmer,

4) Stir in the gojuchang until dissolved. Add the pork, rice cakes, and mirin. Make sure to keep the broth at a simmer, then spoon off tablespoon-size globs of tofu into the pot. Then, crack the eggs into the pot one at a time. Don't stir. After two minutes, the eggs should be poached and the pork, rice cakes and tofu will be heated through. When serving, search for the eggs carefully so you don't break them! (They will sink a bit when cooking.)

Toasting the rice cakes

Reserved rice cakes and pork, plus tofu at the ready

Everything in!

Et voila

This is an inauthentic soup. I sorta just took all my favorite Korean soups and combined them in one tasty experiment. Don't be turned off by the weird ingredients. They are all standard items that can be found in Asian or Korean grocery stores, or possibly even your regular grocery store's Asian food aisle, if you are lucky enough. Items like rice cakes, kimchi, mirin and gojuchang will all keep for a crazy long time, at the ready whenever you feel like revisiting these flavors. In fact, the main ingredients you need here are really only chicken broth, kimchi, and mirin. Whatever else you add is just a matter of mood and what you have in your fridge. Dream big!

One could also be so bold as to add a few spoonfuls of gojuchang any time one makes basic chicken soup, and that alone would make for exciting times.

Last but not least, this is the ideal soup for a cold! Really opens up those sinuses.