With a rich, flavorful, spicyhot broth and the delicious complement of lots of light, healthful, and nutty tasting soft tofu, soondubu jjigae (pronounced SOONdooboo TCHIgeh), literally "soft tofu stew," is becoming an increasingly popular standalone Korean dish.

As with most jjigae dishes, this stuff is usually served screaming hot in an earthenware pot with a raw egg served on the side to be cracked into the bubbling hot mixture and left for a few minutes to cook in that superhot residual heat before digging in.

While it helps to have an earthenware pot if you happen to like your soups and stews almost unbearably temperature hot in true Korean fashion, you don't need one to make this dish. A small heavy duty stainless saucepan or enamel coated cast iron pot will do just fine.

This recipe includes pork, but if you've ever had soondubu jjigae at a restaurant, you know that you can get beef, seafood and vegetarian versions as well. You can easily substitute the pork in this recipe for an equal amount of other protein. If you're doing a seafood version (smaller shrimp, clams, and pieces of squid or baby octopus work well), you might like to add your protein halfway into the cook time rather than at the beginning in order to avoid overcooking it.

You can easily double the recipe to serve 4.