Jjimdak (Korean Braised Chicken) 찜닭
Equipment
Wide shallow pot Use wide or large pot so all chicken and ingredients can be placed in one layer.
Get Jjimdak ingredients here!
Ingredients
- 3.5 LB Chicken one whole chicken cut OR your favorite parts, Bone-in, skin-on results in best flavor
- 1 cup Water
- 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
- 1/4 cup Brown Sugar White sugar ok
- 1/4 cup Rice Wine or white wine
- 1 Green Onion
- 4 Dried Chili Pepper optional but highly recommend using it
- 3 TBS Garlic minced
- 1 TBS Ginger minced
- Pinch Black Pepper
To add later
- 1.5 cup Water Just before adding veggies
- 290 g Potato 1 large or 2 small, cut into two-bite sizes, if two small they will break
- 100 g Onion 1 small, cut into chunks
- 100 g Carrot 1 small, cut into two-bite sizes
- 1 tsp Instant Coffee or Caramel Sauce (for colors only) optional, only if you want darker color
- 100 g Glass Noodle (Regular or flat) must presoak or preboil
For Starch Water to finish off
- 1 tsp Potato Starch or flour
- 1 TBS Water
Garnish
- 2 Green Onion sliced
- 2 Red Chili Pepper optional, sliced
Instructions
- IMPORTANT - Use wide or large shallow pot so all chicken and ingredients can be placed in one layer! This will help all your chicken to absorb the flavor and the liquid will boil down fast. If you change ingredient amount, you will have to change seasoning amount or cooking time. The most challenging part of this recipe is being able to get the feel of how much the liquid should be boiled down before adding noodles so that the chicken and veggies are not too bland or not too salty. You can also marinate chicken in seasoning the day before before adding veggies to make it easier to control flavor.
- Soak Glass Noodles in warm water for at least one hour (If not enough time, boil for about 6 min in boiling water and wash in cold water and drain)
- Wash chicken. For large piece, make incisions so flavors will penetrate easily. (You can parboil and wash chicken to remove gaminess if chicken is not fresh.)
- Place skin side down in a wide pot.
- Add all initial seasoning ingredients. Add only 1 cup (for default serving size) of water here because you want the chicken to absorb strong soy sauce flavor first. (Another option: You can also add all the water here and store in the fridge overnight so the flavor gets absorbed in the meat.)
- Bring to boil (took 7 min but may vary depending on amount and heat)
- Once boiling, keep cooking on high heat UNCOVERED for 15 min
- Add additional 1.5 cup of water, potato, carrot, onion. You can add 1 tsp of instant coffee for darker color (if you want restaurant style color).
- Bring to boil again (took 3 min but may vary depending on amount and heat)
- Once boiling again, cook on high heat UNCOVERED for another 15 min
- Flip chicken and make room for noodles
- Add noodles and cook on high heat UNCOVERED for 3 min (If you don’t have much liquid left, lower the heat)
- Add starch water and cook on medium heat for 3 more min
- Add green onion and red chili pepper before serving.
- If not eating immediately, take out noodles right away and store separately. Otherwise it will soak up all the liquid.
- The end result should be salty enough so you can eat this with plain rice. This is NOT a stew so there should be only a small amount of sauce at the bottom. Depending on the amount and heat, cooking time will be different so make sure you boil it down until there is good saltiness. If you feel like it's too bland, add more soy sauce and sugar gradually towards the end while tasting or use salt to finish.
Notes
Glass noodles: You can use regular or flat glass noodles. I like flat ones better but sometimes it's hard to find. Buy Korean glass noodles and read ingredients and buy ones with 100% sweet potato flour if possible.
For even better flavor: You can add all seasoning ingredients and water with chicken and marinate overnight. Then boil the next day. Then add veggies.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!