Jung Eun Chae caused a sensation when she opened her tiny Brunswick apartment to six diners per night, four times a week, with a waiting list that exploded to more than 8,000 people. She was named Gourmet Traveller’s best new talent for 2021, and one of The Age Good Food Guide’s chefs of the year, thanks to her medicinal style of traditional South Korean cooking using from-scratch ferments and handmade sauces, enzymes, vinegars and kombuchas.
Her restaurant Chae was awarded two hats in the Good Food Guide for two consecutive years, in 2023 and 2024. She has since moved to semi-rural Cockatoo on the outskirts of Melbourne with her husband Yoora and their labrador, where she continues to operate her six-seat restaurant. Her debut cookbook, Chae, is an essential guide to Korean slow-food, featuring 80 recipes and foundations presenting traditional Korean technique with native Australian produce.
Here’s how to get the most out of Chae, according to Jung Eun herself.
The inspiration for Chae was sharing how to make home-made Korean traditional ferments.
The main thing I learnt writing it was that the book was the culmination of the entire team’s hard work and effort.
Something that might surprise you about cooking Korean food is the groundwork for preparing traditional Korean ferments requires extensive preparation time and storage space.
The easiest recipe in the book is gyeran jang – or marinated eggs in soy sauce.
And if you like to challenge yourself, you might try all of the Korean traditional ferments introduced in the first half of the book.
If this is your first time cooking Korean food, try pat bingsu – red bean shaved ice: a sweet dessert that’s everyone’s favourite.
And if it’s your one-hundredth time, have a go at all the traditional condiments introduced in the first half of the book to elevate your Korean cooking.
If you’re into, say, Korean stews, you might just buy the book for the yugaejang, or spicy beef soup.
If you could take one thing away from Chae, I hope it is the satisfaction of creating your own Korean traditional ferments to add a personal touch to your cooking.
Chae: Korean Slow Food for a Better Life (Hardie Grant Publishing, RRP $60) is out now at excellent Victorian bookstores, including Hill of Content, Readings and Books for Cooks.