Soon doo boo Jjigae (soft tofu soup)

I actually find this recipe supper yummy!I made it last friday, my friend Irma came over for dinner and she said she was craving for soft tofu soup. i didn't quite follow the instruction.. I know being a scientist you meant to be able to follow protocols to the dots! but I figure a little bucket chemistry in cooking won't hurt. Here is the Original recipes, I took it from Mangchi's korean cooking blog.

Ingredients:

• 12 dried anchovies
• kelp (about 3 cm x 20 cm cut into pieces) half onion, 5 cloves of garlic, 3 shiitake mushrooms
  
• 50 grams of mince, 1 cup of mixed seafood,
  
• 2 green onions, 2 chili pepper
  
• 2-5 tbs of korean hot pepper flakes
• sesame oil, 2 tubes of soon du bu
  
• 4 tbs of fish sauce, and 4 eggs
• Salt, sugar and some magic powder

How to prepare the stock

1. Pour 5 cups of water into a pot and boil
   
2. I put the anchovies, kelp and garlic in one of those tea pouch before i put them in the boiling water so i don't have to worry about picking them out later.
   
3. Add half onion, 3 dried shiitake mushrooms, boil it over high heat.
4. Approximately 10 minutes later, lower the heat to low medium heat and boil it for another 20 minutes.
5. Set aside the stock, take out the mushrooms and chop them into small pieces.

Making the soup

1. Heat a new pot or if you are going to fancy you can use that earthen korean cook ware
2. Add a dash of sesame oil (you can use normal cooking oil but i love the smell of sesamee oil) and fry the mince until its brown.
   
3. Add 2 tbs – 5 tbs (1/4 cup) of hot pepper flakes and keep stirring for 1 minute. The trick to making good soon doo boo jiegae is not to burn the chili flakes (said Il soo's mom) at this stage you can add extra oil if you think you need more. I like spicy food so i added about 4 table spoon of chili flakes. NOTE: I used this particular chili powder because i have some left over form my kimchi making escapade on the weekend. You don't have to use this but I thought it was quite nice with this one compare to the fine ground chili powder.
4. Once it looked cooked add your mix seafood and mushrooms cooked for about 1 to 2 minutes.
   
5. Add your stock into the pot and season with salt, sugar, fish sauce and magic powder NOTE: You are probably wondering about the crazy magic powder... DUN DUN DUN...
   This is it! The magic Powder. I think They call it Dashida.. It makes everything taste good!
   
6. Add your tofu (you can break it in the pot or you can cut them before hand its up to you)
7. Boil for a few minutes then add Sliced chili, eggs, and sliced spring onions.
8. Drizzled with some sesame oil before serving

There you go! Serve with a bit of rice and Kimchi on the side! It was yummy specially in a rainy winter evening!

I don't have that fancy earthen cookware thing :(

Almost demolished