Welcome to Hungry Gopher, Gopher is hungry for braised chicken.
This is an original dish of mine inspired by Thai curry and anchored by traditional
Korean soy bean paste.
This braised chicken dish is a great Sunday,one pot meal, that cooks down slow,
and makes for great lunch boxes during the busy week.
So let’s get it started!
First, we’ll need one whole organic chicken cut into pieces.
Ask your butcher to cut the chicken for curry.
My butcher did a wonderful job.
The pieces are about 2 inch/4cm big.
You can use larger pieces if you want, but the benefits of using smaller pieces are a
shorter cooking time and also it helps release the nutrition from
the bones into the broth more easily.
Next, let’s saute the chicken first.
Start by adding 1 Tbsp of virgin coconut oil to the pan over high heat.
We’ll make one layer to begin, so we can lightly brown this for about 5 minutes on
one side, which will give us extra flavors.
And turn these when you see light brown color at the bottom.
Then I am going to add the rest and cook this over high heat for about 10
more minutes until the all color is turned.
While that’s cooking, let’s make the sauce.
We’ll need 4 Tbsp of Korean fermented soybean paste
aka deon-jang.
Deon-jang is a staple Korean condiment that’s widely used from a dipping sauce to seasoning
stew.
Think of it of as a Japanese Miso but with a more pungent flavor profile.
Make sure to check the ingredients when you purchase this to avoid harmful food additives
and preservatives.
I’ll put a link to my online shopping recommendation and more info about “deon-jang” on my
website at hungrygopher.com.
Add this to 1/2 cup of red wine and freshly ground pepper.
If you prefer not to use alcohol, use water instead.
Mix this well together.
And let’s see how the chicken is doing, looking good and smelling wonderful.
Let’s add in our sauce.
Give it a good stir and take care to scrape the bottom of the pot, so all the brown bits
get incorporated into the sauce.
That’s the flavor party right there.
Let this cook over high heat until it comes to boil which will take about 5 minutes.
The beauty of using fermented condiments such as deon-jang is that they provide
such a depth of flavor to the dish instantly, without much effort.
Now that’s boiling.
Lower the heat to medium.
And let’s add 1 can of organic coconut milk to the pot and give it a good stir.
Cover this and continue to cook about 20~30 minutes until the chicken is cooked.
While that’s cooking, let’s prepare the vegetables.
We’ll need 2 large Korean sweet potatoes, aka goguma.
Goguma is a common ingredient in Korean cuisine.
Cut them into 1 inch/ 2 cm thick wheels.
I have started seeing them increasingly more at conventional grocery stores and farmer’s
markets b ecause their nutritional value have been praised
more recently.
These are pale in color compared to yams.
They are dense and woody when raw, but they cook down to be very soft and sweet.
If you cannot find these guys feel free to substitute whichever sweet potato you can
find.
Next, we’ll roughly chop 1 large onion and 3 carrots.
And...
your choice of green vegetables.
This is a perfect dish to utilize any seasonal green vegetable.
I use whatever green vegetables I can find at my local farmer’s market for this dish.
Collard greens, cabbage, bok choy, water morning glory aka ong choy just to name a few.
Today, I’m using a combination of these beautiful spring morning glory and bok choy.
Roughly chopped these.
Water morning glory is a common green vegetable in East and Southeast Asian Cuisine.
It’s tender and mild and imparts a wonderful
freshness to the dish.
So give it a try if you can find it in your locale.
And Finally, a handsome amount of fresh basil.
Now that all the vegetables are ready.
Let’s check on the chicken.
That’s looking great.
All the pieces look well cooked.
So let’s add in the Korean sweet potato and continue cooking for another 10 mins
until they are cooked.
I’ll show you what to look for to check the doneness of goguma.
We’re adding our ingredients in order of how much time they need to cook.
Cooking in stages like this will result in everything being cooked just right.
Let’s check on the sweet potato.
Use a chopstick to poke it through.
When it goes through with a little resistance, add the carrots and onions and continue cooking
until the carrots are cooked to your liking.
It’ll take about 8 minutes.
Now, we’ll add the rest of the vegetables - except the basil, and continue cooking for
another 4 minutes.
After 4 minutes, we’ll turn the heat off, and add in our basil.
Give it a stir and taste it for salt level.
It needs a little salt.
Yum - Let’s see how we did!
It’s my favorite time in the show -- time to taste
Mhmmm -- the combination of all these subtle flavors meld into a wonderful harmony.
The creamy potato with sweet notes and underlying
umami of the soybean paste.
What a delight!
Try this recipe and let me know how it goes, For more videos like this, subscribe to my
channel and sign up for my newsletter, right here
Remember Guys, Eat Real, Be Real Thanks for watching….
I’ll see you next time!
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