Dakdoritang!

Hello everyone!

As you know, my Grandma is here, and as one reader so correctly pointed out, Korean grandmas are incredible cooks!  =)
Whenever she's here, she always asks us what we would like to eat, and the answer never fails to be her famous Dakdoritang.  I have tried my hand at making Dakdoritang before, and though my friends were nice enough to tell me that it was yummy, I know that the only reason they say that is because they've never tasted my Grandma's.  haha

So this time, when she was cooking, I documented the process in the hopes that perhaps I'll be able to recreate it someday.  It was rather difficult because she doesn't follow a recipe, and nothing is ever measured out, but I did my best to approximate the quantities of everything..  Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients
chicken thighs (she used boneless)                      1/2 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup wine (red or white)                                    2 Tbs agave nectar (or honey)
2-3 carrots                                                             2 Tbs sesame oil
2 large potatoes                                                     2-3 Tbs red pepper flakes
1 onion                                                                   1-2 Tbs red pepper paste
2 Tbs garlic (minced)                                            1/2 cup water
1 Tbs ginger (minced)


Recipe

Start by cleaning the chicken.  Wash it once, then cut off all of the skin and fats.

Then, pour 3/4 cup of wine over the chicken (we used red, but she said white is just fine) and let it sit while we prepare the vegetables and the sauce.

Cut up the carrots, potatoes, and the onion like so.  I'm sure there's a cooking term for how they are cut, but I'm just going to let the pictures speak the cooking language for me.  haha

We only used 1 carrot because it was a huge carrot, but you can add as many (or few) as you desire.  I personally love how the carrots taste in this dish, so I'll probably add 3-4 carrots when I make it later =)

Now for the sauce.  

Add 2 Tbs of minced garlic and 1 Tbs of minced ginger.  (We had previously minced them and put them in the freezer so we don't have to constantly be mincing these.)

Add 3/4 cup soy sauce, 2 Tbs sesame oil, 2 Tbs Agave nectar (or honey), 2-3 Tbs of red pepper flakes, 1-2 Tbs of red pepper paste (depending on how spicy you want it to be), and 1/2 cup water. 

mix until it becomes.... sauce looking...  haha

Then, pour the chicken, the vegetables, and the sauce into a large pot and mix it all together.  

She used her gloved hand to do the mixing.

Close the lid, the cook on high heat for 25-35 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked and the vegetables are tender.

Make sure to go every 5-10 min and mix it all around.

and then VOILA!   The best Dakdoritang ever!  =)

Enjoy with a hot bowl of rice  ;)

I hope the directions were not too difficult to follow. Thanks so much for stopping by!

--Janny