Lev Lazinskiy

Sundubu

I came home to make lunch today since Aosheng was sick and he beat me to it by steaming up a bunch of bao. I made a quick pasta dish and pesto out carrot tops like John Kung showed us. It was delicious.

On my way out the door back to WeWork Aosheng said “I want to eat Korean food tonight!”

We have a fridge full of fresh veggies, the CSA box has been fruitful. I could not bring myself to order out when we have so much food that will go to waste, but I had a better idea. Why not try to make Sundubu myself?

Every time we’re in LA or NYC we make sure to stop by BCD Tofu House and treat ourselves to their Sundubu. It’s always so comforting and delicious. Last time we even took a bus from Santa Monica for over an hour to get the soup. I’m excited to cut that trip in half once the subway extension opens up.

I picked the very first Sundubu recipe that I found on DuckDuckGo and it was amazing. I had half of the ingredients at home and the other half I picked up at Manila Oriental Market on Mission St which I discovered with Nathan just last week. I’ve been buy this market hundreds of times but never stopped in. I’m glad we finally did, its wonderful.

They had everything I needed except for the fermented salted shrimp. They did sell it, but the package I found said “best by March 2024” so I decided not too tempt fate. I also decided to elevate this dish a bit by making the fully flavored anchovy broth instead of just using water. I’m glad I did, it added a huge depth of flavor to the dish.

I had half a huge cucumber from the CSA box, so I made a version of this korean cucumber salad it’s not quite the same idea but it was still delicious.

I love this dish because similar to Mapo Tofu it makes tofu the star of the dish rather than just a meat substitute. People who don’t like tofu (I was one of them!) owe it to themselves to get a spicy and delicious mouth full of silk tofu in either of these dishes, instead of the soggy sad firm stuff they probably ate from Panda Express once.

Overall, it was a huge success. Aosheng was happy. We’re going to add this to our regular rotation because it was almost as good as BCD Tofu House and quite easy to make at home. Next time I’ll marinate the beef a bit more and add some MSG.

Huge thank you to Korean Bapsang site, the recipe was perfect and brought a ton of warmth and joy into our home and bellies this evening.