Cheonggukjang ✦

Cheonggukjang

What it is

Where doenjang is a year’s work, this is two or three days: cooked soybeans held warm around 40 C while Bacillus subtilis takes them over. The threads that string off a lifted spoon are poly-gamma-glutamic acid, the same polymer that makes natto stringy — the smell is the by-product of a very fast fermentation, not of age.

In the kitchen

Add it at the very end of the stew, off the boil, and leave the beans whole — long cooking drives off the aroma people make it for and turns the pot into ordinary doenjang jjigae. A heaped tablespoon per portion, stirred in and given two minutes covered.

Goes with

Silken tofu (kinugoshi) Gochugaru Kimchi Pork Garlic Spring onion Rice Zucchini

Same species

Natto

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