I dropped the BF off at the airport today for his week-long holiday vacation which means…MEAT PARTAY! I made butakim, which is pork belly stir fried with kimchi. I also threw in some bean sprouts and green onion when the pork belly was almost done just because I like bean sprouts and green onion. They made the dish slightly more healthy too.

We picked up this kimchi at a Korean market the week before after looking over several packages of them. It comes in a sealed plastic bag, which is inconvenient if you don’t have empty jars around but convenient if you’re like us and have a couple jars just waiting to be used. This kimchi is one of the few at the Korean market that’s vegan — most of them have anchovies, shrimp, or some other seafood. After one taste of this kimchi, I didn’t miss any of the anchovies or shrimp. The flavor is fantastic: spicy, salty, and fermented with that almost carbonated taste. I don’t know if it helped or not, but I left it out for a full day after I brought it home before chucking it into the fridge.

I also made some miso eggplant to go along with dinner. For some reason, I didn’t think the butakim had enough vegetables in it to make a balanced dinner, which is why I made the eggplant as well. The miso eggplant was easy to make: throw bite-sized pieces of eggplant into a pan with hot oil, then pour in a cup of broth mixed with about two tablespoons of white miso paste. Let that simmer so that the eggplant gets moist and tender. Put in the chunks of king trumpet mushroom when the eggplant is almost tender enough to eat, simmer for another 5 minutes, and then serve. It’s great over rice.