Dahk Doritang (2) (닭도리탕)

When I started this blog, I felt zero pressure. I was doing it because I'm a big food lover and because I wanted my sister to be able to recreate some of our favorite dishes while she was away at college. I didn't really have an audience, besides my sister, and it was just a fun hobby.

Fast forward 3+ years and I'm still having a good time. Once in a while, I get slightly stressed out because I feel like I don't have much inspiration. But, I remind myself that blogging is supposed to be my stress reliever and I calm myself down. Then, I get hungry and I'm inspired again. I guess that's the great thing about maintaining a food blog. I like to eat so I'll always have something to write about.

Today, I'm revamping my dahk doritang recipe. I have a super old dahk doritang (spicy stewed chicken) post. It's a good recipe but I make a slightly different variation now so I thought I'd update it. Besides, that old post is pretty ugly so I'm excited to share this prettier version. I love doing these updates. I like to see my own growth, both in recipe creativity and food photography. It's another fun aspect of blogging.

Ingredients [serves 4]:
1½ to 2 lbs. chicken (I like thighs but you can do drumsticks or breast or a mixture of meat)
3 to 4 potatoes, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
3 to 4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped (or any variety of spicy pepper you like)
3 tablespoons hot pepper paste (gochujang)
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes (gochugaru)
¼ teaspoon sesame oil
1 cup water
+ scallion, chopped
+ sesame seeds

Start by chopping up the garlic, peppers, onions, and potatoes.

Grab a wide and shallow pot. Chuck in the chicken, vegetables, and all of the sauce ingredients (soy sauce, hot pepper paste, sesame oil, hot pepper flakes, sugar, and water. Give it all a good stir and then cook over a low heat with the lid on, simmering for 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.

Remove the lid and then turn the heat up to high. Cook for about 10 minutes until the sauce is thickened and reduced.

I decided that I wanted to plate up the dahk doritang over some noodles so I boiled a little bundle of jjol myun.

I grabbed my serving dish, piled in the noodles, poured in the dahk doritang, and then garnished with a sprinkle of sesame seeds and scallions.

It got served at the table alongside a few other side dishes. Dahk doritang is great. The sauce is slightly sweet, salty, and spicy. The chicken is tender and flavorful, as are the potatoes. By the way, this is one of those dishes that's just so much better the next day. If you can plan ahead, I would recommend making this a day ahead, leaving the chicken to sit in the sauce overnight, and then warming it up when you're getting ready to eat it. The sauce will have really soaked into the meat and potatoes.

Looks good, right? As a Korean, red foods always look super delicious because I assume they are spicy dishes.

Here's the recipe page: