Chicken Soojaebi, a home-kitchen plate

We were contacted by Lisa from Korean American mommy blog and she invited us to post a dinner idea for her “Around the world dinner” on Korean food.

Her blog is awesome, full of good recipes for both Korean and other cuisines. We are happy to participate to show you the Korean version of chicken and dumpling. Before we start we are going to show you something pretty.

These are juices from carrot, parsley, and beet. We just puree them in the blender with little bit of water. Aren’t they pretty?

Yup! We are going to add them to dumplings. The dish is called Soojaebi. Don’t let the # of ingredients in the recipe discourage you. It is actually direct and unfussy to make. With addition of these nature food you will be glad that you are feeding your loved ones with something pretty, and tasty at the same time. It is fun to make with kids, too.

Oh, by the way, you can use any vegetables that are rich in colors… pumpkin, spinach, purple potatoes, red cabbage, kale, etc. They all work great. Let people see the true colors of nature!

Chicken split breast w/ bones, radish, onion, garlic, carrot, parsley, beet, potato, zucchini, flour, red chili flakes, Korean soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Whew! Did we include everything this time?

First of all, juice your chosen vegetables with some water, each separately.
FYI, we filtered the carrot puree in a coffee filter to get smoother juice. We didn’t filter the others.

Prepare 3 mixing bowls. In each bowl, mix in 1 cup of flour, pinch salt, and the juice of one vegetable.

We added about 1/3 cup of juice and mix with fork, and then knead with a hand for 1 minute and form a ball shape dough. No need to be exact consistency but do not make them too sticky (more like bread dough consistency).

♪♫ ” we see your true colors shining through…” ♪♫
You can use right away but cover with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. It gives dumpling nicer texture. Meanwhile, let’s make stock.

“May we take your coat?” Politely ask chicken to get her skin off.

Cut up radish, onion, garlic and have them bath with chicken. Nothing like a hot spring in winter… Don’t you agree, Mrs. Hen? BTW, don’t skip the radish in the stock. It gives nice flavor in the soup.

After about 30 minutes she is well poached. Keep the stock, discard everything except Mrs. Hen.

Shred her and set aside.

Make sauce to go with Soojaebi. Just combine Korean soy sauce, Korean chili flakes, garlic, green onion, sesame oil and sesame seeds. Green chili is an optional.

Cut potato and zucchini into 1/4″ thick slices.

Bring the stock back to boil, add chicken, sliced potato, and zucchini slices.

Take out the three gorgeous girls from the fridge and give them some squeeze.

If you have little people at home, have them do the tearing job for you. They think it is play dough… They can even roll out the dough and cut out with cookie cutter if they want. You know, if they make, they will eat. Kids are funny that way.

Or just tear directly over the pot when the soup is boiling. They cook in no time, but you gotta work fast. Try to stretch out the dough thin and tear off.

Boil for 1-2 minutes, done! Serve the soup with sauce since the stock has no seasoning in it. If you need to serve this to young ones, just add Korean soy sauce with sesame oil and some green onions.

Cabbage kimchee or radish kimchee salad is steady side dish (banchan) to serve with.

Make sure you serve with the sauce. Just drizzle around the soup and mix.

Our bonus post today! A side dish to go with Soojaebi!

It is called 무우생채 (moowoo-sangchae), short radish Kimchee salad. Very direct and short to make. The recipe will follow below.

Soojaebi once was a humble food. When rice was hard to harvest, meat was scarce right after the Korean war, everyone had to eat plain Soojaebi.

Our parents won’t eat the plain one because it reminded them the harsh days of their young life. But we are changing the recipe to upgrade. It is no longer humble, it is fancy now for the time of abundance.

A colorful meal that taught us the lesson, “Abundance is, in large part, an attitude.”

• Yield: 4
• Prep: 20 minutes
• Cook: 30 minutes
• Total: 50 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb Korean radish or Daikon radish
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp Anchovy sauce or 1 1/2 tsp fish sauce
• 2 Tbsp Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)
• 1/2 tsp sugar, optional
• 2 tsp garlic chopped
• 2 tsp sesame seeds
• 1 green onion chopped

Method

1. Peel the radish and thinly slice them. Julienne the slices into 1/8"sticks. Place the radish into a bowl, toss with salt and let it sit for 10 minutes. You will see some water extracted from the radish. Rinse them with water and drain.
2. Place the radish in a bowl again and add the rest of the ingredients. Toss well until they are well incorporated. Serve as side dish. They can be kept in the fridge for 1 week.