As you know, I love making dishes from around the world. You also know, I watch a lot of YouTube chefs. I have made many of their dishes. However, one chef that I have not made a dish from is Maangchi, a Korean chef. If you want spicy, her stuff is spicy. A lot of her recipes have gochujang, a Korean hot pepper paste. This stuff is spicy, but also a little sweet. It is an umami bomb. She posted a recipe for Spicy Braised Chicken, which was simple, but could also be made in the slow cooker. The original recipe is done in the oven, but I wanted to do two things: use my slow cooker and use up some meat in my freezer. So I dug around for a meat I could braise. I found a boneless pork loin. Not exactly ideal for braising, but it will work. I’m going to use that in place of the chicken. One thing I noticed about this recipe, it is NOT low sodium. This recipe was almost a day’s worth of sodium. However, the rest looks pretty good. The calories aren’t too high and I can easily add some veggies for bulk and vitamins. Here are the original stats:

Here is what I changed:

• I replaced the chicken with pork loin.
• I replaced the soy sauce with a low sodium variety
• I replaced the gochujang with a gluten-free variety
• I removed the added salt
• I added 8 red bell peppers to increase the vitamin A and C.
• I increased the potato to add more starch to the dish.
• I added celery to add bulk.
• I increased the servings from 3 to 20.

Here are the final stats:

Here is the final recipe:

Spicy Braised Pork Loin

Serve 20

• 5.5 pounds boneless pork loin
• ¼ cup milk
• 5 small apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly
• 60 ounces potato, peeled and cut into 1/2 to 1 inch thick bite sized chunks
• 2 medium onion (6 ounces), sliced
• 5 green chili pepper, chopped
• 10 green onions, cut into 1 inch long
• 8 red bell peppers, chopped
• 6 stalks of celery, chopped

For seasoning paste:

• 10 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
• 5 tablespoons hot pepper flakes
• 10 tablespoons hot pepper paste
• 10 garlic cloves, minced
• 5 teaspoon peeled ginger, minced
• 2 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

1. Add the pork loin to your slow cooker.  Add in the chilis, red bell pepper, onion and celery.  Mix the seasoning paste and add it on top.  Add in the milk and stir.  Cover with water and place on low for 8 hours.
2. Add in the green onion, potato, and apple.  Cook on low for 1 more hour until the potatoes are tender.