Winter Soups

Winter is wrapping up here in Goheung and we've had temperatures in the double digits again (Celsius) yay! But over the winter, while I was away, and more so after I returned, J decided to make a project of learning Korean soups for regular meals. Korean soups have a lot in common with each other, but vary pretty dramatically in what they are paired with.

For example, almost all of our soups start with a broth made from boiled anchovies and kelp. The anchovies are purchased dried so that they keep for a long time. We have to cut off the heads and remove the guts for safety purposes but shh!... I've made several dishes in which I was too lazy to do this and we didn't die of fishy liver disease. Still, it's best to do so and when J looks over my shoulder I'm always happy to play it safe. We put the usable parts of the fish into a cheese-cloth bag with cut squares of dried kelp. Kelp, for those of you who don't know, is a thicker seaweed (not the stuff you snack on from the Asian foods aisle of the grocery store). Together these things make a pretty ocean-y tasting broth that doesn't smell too strongly of clams (my least favorite ocean smell). It's savory and very nutritious. After these ingredients have been boiled for ten minutes or so, the cheesecloth bag can be removed and thrown away and your remaining soup ingredients added.

Typical soups include 된장찌개 (do-eyn-jang  jjee-gay) which is veggie heavy, and salty with the use of  된장 paste. The paste is essentially a fermented soy paste that is a favorite for lots of recipes here. Then there is 김치 찌개 (kimchi jjee-gay) which is the same broth base with, you guessed it, kimchi, and pork, and 고추장 (go-chu-jang). 고추장 is a fermented red pepper paste that makes many Korean dishes red in color and spicy. A final favorite is 미역국 (mee-yeok-guk). This one is a little different in that it doesn't use exactly the same broth. It's mostly just the seaweed. That's because this is seaweed stew. With little other flavoring, this soup involves some garlic, beef, and fish sauce, and is served with rice like most Korean dishes. While J and I like eating this one just for it's flavor and healthiness, it is said to be a go-to dish for the sick and pregnant because of it's nutrition content. Supposedly it also helps stimulate breast milk production. A friend of mine supports this theory, as she just had a baby and has eaten the soup at least once a day for the last two months. I like the stuff, but I'm not sure I could stomach it for that long.

Soups are never eaten as the sole dish, as almost nothing is eaten without sides here. But soup specifically always comes with a helping of white rice, that, if you are very lucky has been augmented with purple rice or millet. Besides the obvious, like don't each kimchi as a side with kimchi soup, suggested sides are often fried tofu, yellow pickled radish, or 어묵 (processed fish cake slices).

This time of year isn't only soup heavy in our home. Most Koreans eat a lot of soup in the winter, as certain seafood is in season, but very little vegetable and grain are available. Though, these days green houses abound and we've been eating unexpectedly tasty strawberries all season. Actually, side note on the green houses; Here they are called 비닐 house, and if you can read that you know it would be pronounced vee-neel house... which Koreans will tell you is english. But good luck, if you speak English, recognizing that vee-neel is vinyl and vinyl-house is a green house. We've had this come up multiple times for some reason and every time the Korean looks at us sideways and tells us it's English, like obviously we should understand. Oh well. There are plenty of those weird, kind-of-English names for random objects... like "water tissue." That apparently means wet-nap...

Since I appear to be getting off topic, I think that means I'm done for this post. I highly suggest that all of you check out some Korean soup recipes. They are quite easy, aside from the obvious issue of getting Korean food products abroad.

Enjoy!
-K