Spinach Dwenjang Gook - 시금치 된장국

There's no denying the fact that my son is a Korean kid. His two favorite things to eat are 1) miyuk gook and 2) spinach gook. I think he could eat those two every day if he had to.



Wash a bunch of spinach. Be sure to wash it very thoroughly. You would be surprised how dirty spinach is.



Drain the blood from some beef stew meat.



Then pour the water down the drain, squeeze all the blood out, and add~ 1 spoon red pepper powder, 2 spoons minced garlic, 4-5 spoons gook ganjang, 2 spoons sesame oil, and a dash of pepper. Stir and stir away until the meat is all done.



Then go ahead and add as much water as you would like. Just leave enough room to add all the veggies later.



After the soup starts to boil, I add 1 spoon of red pepper paste and 5-7 spoons of dwen-jang.



When the dwenjang starts boiling, add the spinach.



I'm lazy and don't like to do dishes, so while the spinach is getting ready to boil, I prepare the bean sprouts in the same bowl the spinach was in. I like to buy this brand because it's all precut~ all I have to do is wash it well.



I use this kind of tofu (the whole thing).



At this point, I had to transfer to a bigger pot, because I eyeballed it incorrectly and it was starting to overflow. Oopsie.



I also like adding mushrooms. Any kind of mushrooms is fine. Usually I add normal white mushrooms, but didn't have any today. I dug into the fridge and found some Enoki mushrooms and thought, why not?



While everything is boiling, I prepare the final touch. Green Onions. I try and always keep precut green onions on hand to make things speedier. But today I decided to add some large green onions (dae-pa) also since I happened to have some sitting inside the fridge.



After the soup cooks for 30 minutes or so, throw in all the green onions......as much as you would like.



At this point, do a taste test. If it tastes bland, add more dwenjang and gook ganjang. It's really all up to you. That's what I love about Korean cooking~ all you need is a roadmap and then it's up to you to make it your own!



Spinach Dwenjang Soup.  If you have little ones eating this, you can go easy on the red pepper paste and powder without compromising the overall taste.  Munchkin has been eating spicy foods forever so this doesn’t bother him.  His favorite chips are Flaming Hot Cheetos.  =P