A Steamy Pot Of Korean Andong Jjimdak (Steamed Chicken)

Andong Jjimdak 2

Andong Jjimdak 3

It was December last year that I first visited the ‘Andong Jjimdak’ restaurant at the Raffles City place to eat this supposedly famous dish from Korea. My first thought when I saw the dish approaching was that the serving looked huge. It immediately reminded me of the Korean drama ‘Let’s Eat!‘ which featured the characters gobbling up similar such dishes (first episode). Apparently, the Koreans love eating from huge plates of meat and vegetable dishes as well as large bowls of soup and the like. Such communal practices are not dissimilar to our Chinese culture (think steamboat and yusheng).

The interesting thing about such Korean dishes is that they love to add sweet potato vermicelli into their stew and they almost always have a pair of scissors on stand-by, on their dining table, to snip them off into shorter strands for serving (and yes, that’s what they do to their barbecued meats as well). This is something the rest of the East Asians, including the Japanese and the Chinese, do not do; we love to slurp up all our food and noodles in their entirety. But, oh well, you do as the Koreans do when you visit the country, and so that’s what we did at the ‘Andong Jjimdak’ restaurant too.

Honestly, the taste of this dish (similarly named as the restaurant) is really close to the taste of the Chinese braised chicken. It was not difficult to fall in love with this dish at all. And the sweet potato noodles – oh how lovely it is to slurp them up and let them slide down your throat. They are amazing! You really need to try them out one day!

Ingredients:

  • Chicken: 1 kg, chunked or in parts
  • Rice wine: 2 tbsp + 2 tbsp
  • Sesame oil: 2 tbsp
  • Brown sugar: 4 tbsp
  • Light soy sauce: 1/3 cup
  • Dark soy sauce: 2 tbsp
  • Dried chillies: 7 pieces
  • Water: 2 cups
  • Potato: 3, quartered
  • Carrot: 2, sliced diagonally into large chunks
  • Green onion: 1 stalk, sliced diagonally into 5cm lengths
  • White onion: 1, thickly sliced
  • Sweet potato noodle: 1 packet (340g), soaked in lukewarm water for 30min
  • Sesame seed: 1 tbsp

Method:

  1. Rub chicken with 2 tbsp rice wine. Leave to marinate overnight in fridge.
  2. Heat sesame oil in wok.
  3. Add chicken and stir-fry for 2 min.
  4. Add sugar, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, rice wine and dried chillies.
  5. Stir to distribute sauce evenly.
  6. Add water. Cover with lid and bring to a boil.  Then leave to simmer for 10 min.
  7. Remove lid to add potatoes and carrots. Leave to simmer for another 10 min.
  8. Add green onions, white onion and noodles. Leave to simmer for another 2 min.
  9. Sprinkle sesame seeds over dish. Serve hot with rice.

Andong Jjimdak

Disclaimer:

  • As the other half is down with a bit of flu, I’ve decided to take out the dried chillies from step 4 this time. Will be back with a vengeance next time!

Serving:
6 persons

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