🔥Andong jjimdak with instant coffee in the sauce. Yes, coffee

Korean here, and I'll say it first: most home jjimdak is too sweet. This one from 10000recipe's home ranking is still on the sweet side, but it has one trick I respect. A stick of instant coffee goes into the soy sauce base. It takes care of leftover chicken smell and gives that dark brown color without needing caramel sauce.

The author made it for her parents, and her dad said it beat the restaurant version. 3 servings, about an hour, plus 1 hour soaking the noodles and 30 minutes soaking the chicken. Ingredients 1 whole chicken, cut up (size 7, the small kind) 1 handful dangmyeon (sweet potato glass noodles) 2 large potatoes 1 onion 1/3 carrot 1/3 cucumber 1/2 daepa (big green onion) 1 chili 4 paper cups water 13 tbsp jin-ganjang (regular soy sauce) 5 to 6 tbsp mulyeot (corn syrup), the list says 5 and the steps say 6 3 tbsp sugar 1 tbsp caramel sauce (optional) 3 tbsp minced garlic Black pepper, 3 shakes 1 stick instant coffee 3 tbsp mirin or soju Rice-washing water or milk, for soaking the chicken 1. Soak the noodles in cold water for about an hour, or they stay tough.

2. Carrot in flat rounds, onion in big chunks, cucumber on the diagonal, green onion finger-length. Potatoes in thick rounds, soaked in cold water 10 minutes so they don't fall apart.

3. Rinse the chicken and soak it in rice-washing water (or water with milk) for 30 minutes.

4. Rinse again, put it in a pot with water and the mirin or soju, bring to a boil on high and take the chicken out as soon as it bubbles.

5. Empty the pot. Chicken back in with 4 paper cups of water and the soy sauce.

6. Add the instant coffee and boil 10 minutes on high.

7. Sugar in, stir for a minute, then the mulyeot. Skim off the foam.

8. Potato, carrot, cucumber and onion in, stir gently. Then garlic, pepper and caramel sauce. Lid on, 10 minutes on high.

9. Green onion, chili and the noodles go in for exactly 2 minutes 30 seconds. Not eating right away? Add the noodles later, they drink all the sauce.

Cucumber in jjimdak is the part people will fight about. I think it's correct, it stays a little crunchy and cuts the sweetness. Coffee in chicken: genius or crime?