I’m still in Korean mode and have some wonderful home-made kimchi to use. A visit to a delicious Korean restaurant in Victoria (Lime Orange) proved that most Korean food is improved with a little meat. Having eaten virtually none for weeks, I went out and bought some pork belly, after I researched online to get a perfect recipe. This is called Dwaeji-kimchi duruchigi and is a scrummy blend of unctuous chilli flavours (best to get the gochujang sauce if you can) with a soupy sauce. Koreans would dip extra Chinese cabbage leaves in it, or add extra rice, which is what we did. This is also very esay to do!

Serves 4

• 500g pork belly (or chicken, or beef), cut into ¼ inch thick bite size pieces
• 1 tsp salt
• 2-3 cups kimchi chopped
• 2 tsps plus 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 medium size onion, cut into chunks
• 4 spring onions, cut into 1 inch long pieces
• 1 small carrot, sliced
• 1 small bunch of enoki or shitake mushrooms, trimmed and washed (about 1 cup)
• Lettuce or inner part of Chinese cabbage leaves, washed and drained (optional)
• One sunny-side-up egg per person (optional)

Seasoning paste

• 2 tbsp gochujang paste (Korean hot sauce)
• 2 tbsp pepper flakes/gochu garu (Korean if you can)
• 2 tbsp rice syrup or sugar (optional)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp water
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ tsp ground black pepper

Method

• Combine seasoning sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
• Heat a large wok with sesame oil and add pork belly with the salt and stir fry about 20 mins until the fat is well browned and has released into the wok. The pork should no longer be pink.
• Add the kimchi and cook for 10 minutes or so.
• Now add the seasoning sauce with the carrot, spring and white onions and a couple of cups of water to cover the mixture. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
• Finally add the mushrooms and a dash of sesame oil and cook for a further few minutes.
• Sewrve in bowls with rice! It’s traditional to add a fried egg, but we didn’t…enough protein for one meal!