Budae JJigae - Korean Army Base Stew

Budae Jjigae is a Korean stew 'invented' during the Korean war when meat and food in general were scarce. The Koreans used Spam, sausages, baked beans, cheese and anything else they could get from the US army base combined with other Korean traditional ingredients like Gojuchang (red pepper paste) and Kimchi to make this stew.

To be true, I had never heard of this stew until a few days ago when I came across this blog. I thought that the stew looked very interesting, combining instant ramen with spam, sausages and even cheese! I am not a big fan of spam, used to like sausages but now it's not that big anymore for me, that's why I decided to make a 'healthier' version of Budae Jjigae without the spam and sausages, but with the cheese. I guess I was just finding some excuses to make a bowl of instant ramen again, since I had forbidden myself to eat instant noodles for some time...;).

Budae Jjigae Serves 1
1 package Korean instant ramen ( I used Shin Ramyun)	240
550 ml water	0
3 mushrooms	12
1 medium egg	70
1 tbs kimchi	10
50 g organic Tofu	53
1 leaf Nappa cabbage	1
1 sliced organic smoked cheese	89
4 slices bellpepper	1
1 tbs chives	1
1 tbs Gojuchang	??
TOTAL	477 calories per serving

What to do:

• Bring the water to boil. Add tofu, mushrooms, nappa cabbage and gojuchang paste. Simmer for 1 minute.
• Add the ramen noodles. When it's 'al dente', tranfer the stew into a bowl.
• Decorate with bellpeppers, boiled egg, cheese, kimchi and chives.
• Serve with rice!