Growing up, my grandmother would make this dish for us very rarely. While the name gamja tang, or “potato stew,” suggests that the majestic spud is the star of the show, in actuality the main component of gamja tang is a big piece of pork shoulder. I think this is why my grandmother rarely cooked this dish—pork is tricky to cook with and it often left our kitchen smelling a little…funky. When I decided to go plant-based, I was excited to recreate this dish so that it truly lived up to its name by restoring the potato to its rightful place as the star!

　　

Ingredients

Serves 3 or 4

　　

For the broth

4 cups vegetable broth

　　1 teaspoon sliced fresh ginger

　　2 sliced shiitake mushrooms

　　1 onion, julienned

　　1 dried red chili

　　2 tablespoons doenjang

　　

For the sauce

6 cloves garlic, minced

　　3 tablespoons gochugaru

　　1 tablespoon gochujang

　　3 tablespoons “Fishy” Sauce

　　¼ cup roasted wild sesame seeds (also called perilla seeds)

　　1 teaspoon sesame oil

　　

For the stew

3 Yukon Gold potatoes, halved

　　1 cup bean sprouts

　　2 scallions, roughly chopped

　　5 to 6 perilla leaves, roughly chopped

　　2½ ounces (70g) sweet potato vermicelli (about 1 handful), cooked according to package directions

　　1 tablespoon sesame oil

　　

Step 1

Make the broth: In a medium Dutch oven, combine the vegetable broth, ginger, mushrooms, onion, chili, and doenjang. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until you have a lovely aromatic broth as a base for this stew, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

　　

Step 2

Fish out the mushrooms and slice them, then return the slices to the broth.

　　

Step 3

Meanwhile, make the sauce: In a small bowl, mix together ½ cup water, the garlic, gochugaru, gochujang, “fishy” sauce, and wild sesame seeds.

　　

Step 4

Make the stew: Add the sauce, potatoes, and bean sprouts to the broth and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes.

　　

Step 5

Right before serving, add the scallions, perilla leaves, sweet potato vermicelli, and sesame oil.

　　From The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes From Omma's Kitchen © 2021 by Joanne Lee Molinaro. Reprinted with permission by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.Buy the full book from HarperCollins, Amazon, or Bookshop.