Snug Slug Activities

I tried making Korean Corn Cheese several months ago. It was nice, but I found it a little too sweet for my taste. It reminded me of creamed corn with cheese, and was fine, but not something I would eat regularly.

It did, however, lead me down a very interesting path last night. I started making supper with no plan or thoughts other than “this chicken needs to be cooked before it spoils.”

With a burst of inspiration as I stared at the bags of corn in the freezer and some creativity, I created what I am calling Korean Corn Cheese Pasta.

It doesn’t taste like Korean Corn Cheese, so I don’t know if it’s the best name, but I really enjoyed eating it so I wanted to write down what I did before I forget.

The amounts are a bit of a guess, I cook more with my soul than with measuring spoons.

Ingredients

2 chopped Chicken Breasts

5-6 cups Water

1/2 Tbsp Chicken Base (I use a brand called “Better Than Bouillon”)

1 can Coconut Milk

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 Tbsp Gochujang

1/2 Tbsp Minced Onion

1 tsp Minced Garlic (Could have used more)

1/2 tsp Black Pepper

1/2 tsp Paprika

1/4 tsp Sage

1/4 tsp Thyme

1 tsp Sesame Seeds (Again, could have used more)

1 Tbsp Flaked Dried Seaweed

12 oz bag Frozen Corn

1 box Ditalini

1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil (Any oil would have been fine, this was what I had on hand. Coconut oil would be really good if you wanted to enhance that flavour.)

1 1/2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour

2 cups Mozzarella Cheese

What I did

I started by putting the chicken in a pot with the water and chicken base over medium heat. Cook until the chicken is starting to look white on the outside but is still raw in the middle.

Add the coconut milk, soy sauce, and all the spices. Bring this to a slow boil, stirring occasionally.

Add the seaweed and corn. If you use frozen corn this will cool your water back down a little bit, you’ll need to give it a few minutes to come back up to a boil.

Add your pasta and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add oil and flour and continue cooking until pasta is desired doneness.

Turn off heat and stir in cheese until melted.

Serve and enjoy!

My thoughts and notes

You can cook the meat beforehand and that would be absolutely fine. I think this would also be really good made with ground or smoked sausage.

Don’t let the gochujang scare you, this dish is not hot.

You can leave out the seaweed and/or sesame seeds if you want. I added the seaweed to give it some umami, mushrooms would also be good for this. The sesame seeds I hoped would give it a little nuttiness, but they got a little lost, I will try adding more of them next time.

I liked the ditalini, but my resident food critic thought it would be better with shells. I think that any pasta you want to use is fine.

I am not sure how I feel about thickening it with oil and flour, I’m not sure that it was necessary. The main reason that I did it was because of my brother (the aforementioned critic). He has some sensory issues and hates things that are soupy so I thickened it just in case. I think next time I will try using a corn starch slurry instead, but if you don’t mind a thinner sauce you can skip that step entirely and I think it would be fine.

Conclusions

I ate two bowls. I probably shouldn’t have, but it was so good I couldn’t help myself. I ate it again for breakfast this morning too.

Even the boy liked it, he wants me to make it again. Since he refuses to eat half of the dishes I make I call this a huge win.