What's for eats?

Welcome to a new year of the Recipe ReDux and to kick off 2013, we are talking food trends. This month we have been asked to pick our favourite new food trend and use it in a soup, stew, one-pot meal or Crock Pot recipe.

If you Google “Food Trends 2013” you will see that every man and his dog has an opinion on what is going to be hot for 2013. So to pick my trend I headed to Weber Shandwick who publish an annual food trend report “which reveals sentiment about Australian food culture from more than 1,000 consumers and leading taste-makers from around the country including food editors, chefs, food bloggers and nutritionists.” What makes their report even more special is that one of its 1,000 contributors is our very own ReDuxer – Emma Stirling!

I decided to go with Weber Shandwick’s prediction that:

“South American and Asian flavours will boom in Australia in 2013, with Korean, Wagyu and Peruvian restaurants; spicy food from northern China; and Kimchi – a fermented Korean dish made of vegetables – showcasing a wider range of flavours. Mexican foods and flavours will also continue to boom, becoming an essential part in any Aussie kitchen.”

That certainly gave me a wide range of ingredients and dishes to choose from. So I narrowed it down to Korean food and Kimchi, finding two recipes online from No Recipes and Serious Eats that I used in a ‘mash-up’ to make my Kimchi soup. And if you didn’t think this soup was already on trend, it also contains an ingredient that featured in last year’s Food Forward report – gochujang, which is a spicy Korean red pepper paste (I did have to go to an Asian grocer to buy this).

I can highly recommend this soup if you have a head cold or blocked sinuses! I didn’t make mine overly hot spice-wise but there was definitely enough heat in the broth to clear your head! It has a lovely spicy, sweet and sour taste and the pork could easily be left out if you wanted a meat-free version.

Kimchi Soup

Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Serves: 4

Ingredients

200g pork, very thinly sliced
1 small brown onion, very thinly sliced
1 ½ cups kimchi, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cup kimchi juice
2 cups water
½ cup chicken stock, plus ½ cup extra
¼ teaspoon dried ginger
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons gochujang
2 teaspoons miso paste
2 teaspoons light soy sauce
200g silken tofu, cubed
1 spring onion, thinly sliced

Method

1. Put a large saucepan on the stove over a high heat
2. Add pork and onion and cook, stirring occasionally for five minutes (note that you don’t need any oil in the saucepan as the natural juices from the pork will render out)
3. Add kimchi and garlic and cook until fragrant
4. Add kimchi juice, water, stock, ginger, rice wine vinegar, gochujang, miso and soy sauce and stir until combined
5. Bring soup to the boil, then taste to determine if it needs extra heat. If so you can add some chilli flakes at this point
6. Add tofu then turn down the heat to low and let the soup simmer for 45 minutes or until the pork is tender. You may need to keep an eye on the liquid level and add the extra chicken stock if it is getting low. Just remember it will dilute the spiciness if you do.
7. Just prior to serving stir in the sliced spring onion
8. Serve immediately on its own or with some rice

Check out what my fellow ReDuxers think is going to be big in 2013 via the link below.