Sundubu Jjigae Made with a Generous Amount of MSG
Sundubu Jjigae Made with a Generous Amount of MSG
Every time I had tofu on hand, I wrestled with the same question.
Which tofu do I want today?
There were too many answers to settle it quickly.
Firm modubu for stews, braises, and the grill. Soft sundubu that dissolved the moment it hit your tongue. Silky yeondubu, tender and almost gelatinous, perfect with a drizzle of soy sauce as a side. The dense, pressed tofu the Chinese favored, made from thick soy milk. You could even dry the stuff into a snack.
Of all of them, my favorite was sundubu — the kind that melted in your mouth.
A single spoonful of it, so fragile it surrendered at the lightest touch of a utensil, brought a wave of contentment I couldn't explain.
Warm, freshly made sundubu simmered in anchovy-kelp broth — that was the cleanest, purest way to taste it.
Over snowy white sundubu, you scattered scallions, minced garlic, and toasted sesame seeds, then drizzled soy sauce across the whole thing. That alone made a meal.
Well-steamed tofu doesn't need heavy seasoning. The flavor of the ingredient itself is often enough.
On days when I couldn't be bothered to cook rice, I'd just mix sundubu with soy sauce and call it dinner.
Andrea always whined for meat on those nights, but what could I do? I was lazy.
Still, the absolute best way to eat sundubu was as a jjigae.
Pale white sundubu bathing in a crimson broth dotted with chili oil, a clear raw egg sinking into the bubbling earthenware pot — did I really need to elaborate?
"Hoo."
I savored the taste that rose in my mind before I'd taken a single bite, and sliced scallions and onion into fine pieces.
I set a pot over the flame and added two spoonfuls each of sesame oil and cooking oil.
Sesame oil deepened the nutty richness of the chili oil — the flavor ran far deeper than cooking oil alone could manage.
Chop, chop, chop!
I tossed the finely sliced scallions and onion into the heated pot and stirred.
Sizzle.
The sound of oil bubbling joined the warm, savory scent of scallions toasting. Juices seeped from the vegetables as they cooked in the oil, the sizzling growing louder.
"Andrea."
"Here!"
Andrea practically lunged forward with the ground Pog meat, as if she'd been coiled and waiting.
"...Fast."
"We're on the same wavelength now."
She grinned, eyes darting between me and the meat.
"You're not just shoving me stuff you want to eat, are you?"
"Wh— no! What are you implying? Surely you don't think I brought it because I selfishly wanted meat in the jjigae no matter what, do you?"
Bingo.
"Yeah. Fine."
I added her ground meat to the pot, now fragrant with scallion-infused oil.
Tssss!
The bright red meat browned, releasing Pog fat into the pan.
Vegetable juices, meat juices, cooking oil, and sesame oil mingled into a deeply savory aroma. The key was to stir-fry until all the moisture released from the meat and vegetables had evaporated.
That way, when the chili powder went in next, the chili oil would carry a far richer depth.
"Hmmmm."
The scent from the pot grew even richer. Little scorched flecks began appearing on the meat.
That's where the real flavor lives.
The Maillard reaction, the very root of deep, resonant taste. Once I added water and brought it to a boil, those browned bits would quietly enlist as key contributors to the savoriness.
When the onion turned translucent, I added the chili powder and quickly stir-fried it over low heat. Flame too high or pot too hot, and the powder would scorch, leaving a flat, acrid aftertaste.
The trick was to bloom the chili in the oil without letting it burn.
After the brief stir-fry, I added water.
Crimson broth, thick with chili oil, filled the pot.
Time for the essence of flavor.
Sugar, dark soy sauce, and — last but never least — the secret weapon: MSG.
MSG. The seasoning no Knight Restaurant could do without. It was said that half the good restaurants in the world would vanish if this umami-bomb of a seasoning disappeared.
Come to think of it... isn't MSG essentially the Thanos of the culinary world?
I chased the pointless thought away and finished the seasoning with salt and anchovy fish sauce.
If I had some clams, I'd have thrown those in too...
A real shame they weren't available.
No point complaining about what I didn't have.
I tasted the broth with a spoon.
Slurp.
"Kkhhh!"
Deep, rich umami and a spicy kick that snapped at the tip of my tongue, layered with the slick richness of rendered meat fat — the broth alone was already complete.
This was exactly what sundubu-jjigae was supposed to taste like.
To get this flavor without MSG, I'd need sagol bone broth as a base...
Even then, it'd be nearly impossible to match. That was why people called MSG the crystallization of modern cooking.
There's no substitute.
Chicken stock? Beef dashida? All MSG-based seasonings.
For naengmyeon broth, beef dashida beats pure MSG — but that's a project for another day.
Naengmyeon. I could make that someday too.
I cranked the heat and brought the broth to a rolling boil.
Into the bubbling liquid went the pure white sundubu I'd prepared that morning. The pale tofu plunged into the red, dyeing itself crimson as it simmered.
I took a fresh spoon and cut the sundubu into rough, generous chunks.
Bubble, bubble.
While the sundubu cooked, I sliced scallions and hot peppers into thin rounds.
"Now for the final touch."
I brought out an earthenware pot and set it onto the Flare Range.
Whoosh!
The flame caught, and I filled the pot with the finished sundubu-jjigae.
As it began to boil, I scattered minced garlic, the freshly sliced hot peppers, and scallions over the top for color.
"That smells wonderful, Master," Bldi murmured, appearing beside me and sniffing the air as if drawn by the garlic alone.
"Almost done."
Just before the jjigae boiled over, I cracked a raw egg straight into the bubbling pot.
I set the furiously boiling earthenware pot onto a trivet on a tray.
"Are the side dishes all set?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then take these out."
The finished sundubu-jjigae frothed and churned inside its earthenware pot.
Jjigae really did taste better in a ttukbaegi.
Andrea hummed to herself as she carried the tray out and began setting tables. Bldi watched, then tried to muster her own initiative.
"I, I, I can do it too! Hup!"
She bit her tongue mid-sentence, quivering from the effort of forcing herself forward. She'd made a mistake while pushing herself too hard.
This bocchi vampire still couldn't face people without stumbling.
"By the way, are you okay staying up this late?"
"I, I'm fine. I'll—I'll just eat and then sleep..."
I considered warning her that eating right before bed made you fat, but a vampire's body clock probably worked on its own logic.
The truth was, as the sun climbed higher, Bldi was visibly wilting. She looked like she might tumble over tray and all.
"I'll take this. Just bring the water cups and spoons."
"Ah... yes, sir..."
I placed a sundubu-jjigae in front of Riman.
Inside the black earthenware pot, crimson broth boiled fiercely. Pale sundubu danced amid the violent bubbles in the chili-oil broth, topped with green scallions and cheongyang peppers for a bright contrast against the deep red.
The bowl of white rice beside it completed the image.
"Please, taste it. This is what you'll be producing, Riman."
"You mean this soup?"
"No. The seasoning that gives the soup its flavor."
"The seasoning..."
Riman's gaze fixed on the jjigae.
"Take a bite. You'll understand."
"Thank you for the meal."
After a moment's hesitation, Riman brought his spoon to the jjigae.
"It's hot. Take it slowly."
Hoo, hoo.
He blew on a spoonful of broth until it cooled, then slurped it into his mouth. His eyebrows climbed higher the longer he savored the spicy liquid.
"Huh?"
His eyes found mine.
"This... this is..."
"Well?"
"It's... unbelievably good. That strange, magnetic flavor that follows the heat and clings richly to your mouth... it's nothing like anything I've ever eaten."
He scooped up another spoonful of broth and drank.
"Ohh."
More exclamations, each one tinged with genuine discovery.
"What kind of seasoning did you use? This is truly... wonderful. There's not even that much meat in it, yet the deep meat-broth flavor is so pronounced."
"That's the power of the seasoning."
"What did you call it?"
"MSG."
"Ahh..."
He turned next to the pale sundubu.
"Ah! Hot, hot!"
Riman had rushed, and now he gasped, having scalded the roof of his mouth.
"I told you it was hot. You need to be careful."
"Hhaah, hhhheh, hoo..."
He flailed helplessly, and Andrea handed him a glass of cold water with an expression that said she'd seen this coming.
"Beginners always fumble like that."
She gazed at the thoroughly scalded Riman with something like pity.
"Still, it's delicious. Once you eat the tofu, that rich meaty depth in the broth lingers so beautifully."
Andrea closed her eyes as she tasted, then spooned some sundubu-jjigae over her rice and mixed it gently.
"Try some of that stir-fried miyeok stem too."
"I—I don't want that."
"Why not?"
"I'm not good with vegetables as it is, and now you want me to eat seaweed from the ocean?"
"I don't get your taste."
It was a delicacy in its own right, too.
Riman took another bite of the sundubu-jjigae and looked at me.
"Sir Lucas... this is genuinely delicious."
His mouth had to be stinging from the burn, but he kept eating the scalding-hot jjigae without hesitation.
"And you said this was made with that seasoning?"
Riman bit his lip, visibly moved as he stared at the sundubu-jjigae.
He was genuinely stirred. He'd tasted many broths in his life, but it had been a long time since he'd encountered a dish that drew out meat flavor so deeply. Long ago, before he'd lost his reputation, he'd sampled a beef stew at a high-end restaurant that had carried a similarly dense meat aroma.
But that stew had borne the telltale heaviness of meat simmered for hours — a certain cloying grit on the palate.
This sundubu-jjigae, by contrast, felt lighter and cleaner, yet still carried that sticky, concentrated richness. And the soft sundubu washed away whatever lingering heaviness might have formed before he even noticed it. He loved that interplay.
Not even that much meat in it, either. Only small flecks of ground meat adrift in the broth.
Impossible. How is this possible?
He was no culinary expert, but he knew this was extraordinarily difficult to achieve. As hard as making powder from water without using fire.
When Lucas and the staff told him it was even better mixed with rice, Riman followed their lead, cutting the tofu into the rice and stirring it together.
It was delicious.
The starch from the sticky rice soaked up the seasoning and danced across his tongue.
And when he broke the Coco egg yolk and ate it with the broth — he couldn't stop the exclamation that escaped him.
That only made it more astonishing.
How could such humble ingredients deliver a taste on par with the capital's finest dining?
He found himself smiling. Every bite tugged at the corners of his mouth.
He didn't mean to smile, but the upturned corners of his lips wouldn't stay put.
Did he actually place some kind of hypnosis on me? Why can't I control my own feelings?
"...What kind of sorcery am I facing here?"
Riman smiled helplessly as he considered the question.
The man who held Master Homero's blueprints. A man whose cooking skill rivaled that of an imperial chef. A man who kept an elf as a mere restaurant worker. A knight distinguished enough for Camilla herself to acknowledge him.
What is his real identity?
Riman studied the man across from him. Utterly unreadable.
And the fact that he'd offered Homero's blueprints so freely... who did that? No one handed over Homero's blueprints lightly.
Homero, once the greatest alchemist in the world.
And what the great alchemist left behind wasn't a weapon to swallow continents, nor a summoning circle, nor an explosive spell — just a flavor enhancer...
Which meant this humble seasoning had seduced the taste buds of the retired Homero himself. Having tasted this broth, Riman finally understood why Homero had made these blueprints his final work.
He wanted to keep eating.
The food this man called MSG could produce. More of it. Different versions. He'd wanted to taste that flavor again and again.
They said a spirit who died with a full stomach held no grudges.
Riman understood now.
I want to keep eating too.
He wanted to taste more dishes than this. A yearning surged inside him: he wanted this Sir Lucas before him to use the sorcerous seasoning called MSG to create a wider and ever more delicious array of food.
And that yearning was stronger than any desire Riman had felt in his entire life — stronger than the impulse that had driven him into the ruinous gambling that destroyed him.
Dopamine detonated inside his skull.
It was, perhaps, the entirely natural reaction of the first human to experience MSG.
Gulp.
Before he knew it, he'd swallowed. The saliva that slid down his throat carried the residue of MSG and spices, stoking his appetite all over again.
"How is it?"
"De, delicious. Truly delicious. I think I understand now why Master Homero wanted to build this machine."
The sundubu-jjigae really was that good.
"Hahaha, I'm pleased to see you appreciate the flavor of MSG, Riman. Eat plenty. There's more jjigae where that came from."
At Lucas's kindly words, Riman felt an involuntary shiver crawl down his spine.
Why? The gently spoken offer sounded to him like a promise that the more he ate, the more would be extracted from him in return.
"Th—thank you. Ha. Ha. Ha."
His stomach lurched.
Surely it was just his imagination. Right?