<< Healthy cooking on a budget

By Lia Dun, 18, Senior writer, Marshall HS
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I got the idea to make kimchi chicken stew from watching characters make kimchi dishes on Korean soap operas. My family Googled how to make kimchi stew (with pork) in a clay pot. Cooking with clay pots is easy: you just have to put your ingredients in and turn the stove on. My family liked what we made the first time, and kimchi stew became a dish we make regularly. For L.A. Youth’s healthy cooking challenge, I used chicken because it’s leaner and less expensive than pork and added more oyster mushrooms because they’re supposed to have a lot of vitamins and antioxidants in them. This is a really easy dish to make because all you need to know is how to chop up the ingredients and then you just throw them in the clay pot.
—Lia Dun


Ingredients:
5 chicken thighs
1 ½ cups kimchi, a spicy Korean pickled cabbage that can be purchased at any Korean supermarket (There are lots of Korean supermarkets on Western Avenue between 1st Street and Olympic Boulevard)
15 oz. tofu
3 oyster mushrooms
2 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon of fermented soybean paste, which can also be purchased at any Korean supermarket
2 teaspoons of chili powder
2 teaspoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon canola or grape seed oil

For marinade:
2 tablespoons rice wine
2 tablespoon soy sauce or 2 T soy and ½ tsp sugar

Directions:
1
  De-bone the chicken thighs by cutting the meat off the bone. Keep the bones. 

2
  Cut most of the fat off the chicken. 

3
  Cut the chicken into strips about the width of your thumb.

4
  Marinate the chicken pieces and bones in the marinade overnight or for at least one hour in a plastic container in the refrigerator. The longer you marinate the chicken, the more flavor it has.

5  Cut the oyster mushrooms into 1/2 inch pieces. 



6
  Cut the tofu into 1-inch cubes.

7  Dice the garlic 

8  Mix the soy paste, soy sauce, and chili powder.

9  Heat the clay pot on medium heat for a minute. To test if the pot is ready, sprinkle some water in the pot. If the water sizzles, it’s ready.

10 Sauté the kimchi by putting it in the pot and moving it around with a spatula and chicken bones in the clay pot with the canola or grape seed oil for about five minutes until liquid starts to come out of the kimchi.

11 Take the kimchi out and put it on a plate (or turn the lid of clay pot upside down).

12 Put the chicken on the bottom on the claypot and place the kimchi on top of it.  Put the tofu, mushrooms, garlic, and mixture from Step 8 on top of the kimchi.

13 Put the lid back on. Wait until it comes to a boil (about 10-15 minutes).**

14 Take the pot off the stove, mix everything in the pot together and serve. If you want to pick the bones out, you can for presentation but most people don’t notice them.

** You don’t need a claypot. You can use a regular metal pot, but stir the ingredients while waiting for them to boil to prevent the ingredients from burning on the bottom.

Taste-testers said:
“This dish was well-made. I’m usually not a big fan of kimchi, but it tasted really good.” Jean Park, 16 Harvard Westlake

“The kimchi was really spicy, but delicious.” Gabe Andreen, 17, Pilgrim School

Other recipes:
Quinoa Salad | Broccoli Puree | Beef Stew | Vegetable Fried Rice | Sesame Chicken Salad