Chicken Doenjang Soup
This is a riff on my mushroom doenjang soup recipe. With the added protein, it's more of a meal! If you have a Chinese or Asian market, try to find the pickled mustard stems (pic in recipe). They are really delicious and add depth to this dish!
Servings 10
Ingredients
- 1 Lb chicken thighs, bone in, skin off bake the skin for a great chicharron snack
- 4 cups water
- 1 tsp salt or one chicken bouillon cube
- 1 Tbl olive oil or neutral oil for sauteing veg
- 1 8 oz package cremini mushrooms, sliced white mushrooms are ok
- 1 med shallot, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 inches ginger, peeled and thinly sliced 1 Tbl ginger paste is fine
- 3 scallions, cut in half longways then into 1.5" pieces
- 1/4 cup Kikkoman Memmi soup base sub soy sauce
- 2 Tbl seasoned rice wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup Chinese cooking wine optional
- 2 Tbl mirin
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 Tbl Doenjang paste sub ssamjang if you like
- 1 Tbl Gochujang paste optional if you don't like spice
- 1 small package pickled mustard stems Chinese ingredient, optional
- 1 Tbl cornstarch, dissolved in water (slurry) optional, but adds thickness
- 1 lime, zest and juice
- Scallions, cut on bias for garnish
Instructions
- Put a large stock pot on high heat with the chicken, salt and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer for about 10-15 minutes while you prep the veg.
- When chicken is cooked and the water has reduced by about an inch, remove chicken and strain the stock into another bowl.
- When chicken is cool enough to handle, shred off all the meat from the bone and cut up into 1" pieces.
- Put stock pot back on med heat and add oil to sauté the veg. Add mushrooms, garlic, shallots, ginger and scallions and sweat until soft. About 5 mins.
- Add soup base, vinegar, wine, mirin, lime zest and sesame oil. Stir.
- Add doenjang and gochujang pastes and stir until dissolved.
- Add the shredded chicken, mushroom stems and chicken stock back to the pot and turn up heat to med high. Add cornstarch slurry if using. Bring to a simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Turn off heat and add lime juice.
- Serve with scallions as garnish.
Notes
As with most soups, feel free to add veg, rice or whatever you have floating around in the fridge. I often add leftover rice to this recipe. Peppers are also good in it. Soup is free form!