Korean soups are not only brewed from dogs, as many people think!
In fact, there are a lot of delicious dishes from the usual ingredients for us.
So why not cook them?
Korean soup - general principles of cooking
Korean soups are boiled with fish, vegetables, meat, seaweed, roots, tofu, mushrooms and other various products. And very often in one dish there are several different and, at first glance, incompatible ingredients. But it only seems so. In addition to familiar products, special mixes or pastes are added.
What unusual ingredients are found in Korean soups:
• Twendyan (soya paste);
• Gochudyan (pepper paste);
• garlic paste (you can just make mashed potatoes with fresh cloves);
• kimchi (spicy, pickled Beijing cabbage);
• dashi (seasoning).
In many dishes there is already familiar to us soy sauce. To season Korean soups, green onions, sour cream, and hot peppers are often used.
Recipe 1: Korean Cooky Soup with Beef and Noodles
A recipe for traditional Korean soup, also called kuksu. It is prepared in different ways and this is only one option. You can use any, but preferably egg, noodles.
Ingredients
• 300 grams of beef pulp;
• 80 ml of vegetable oil;
• 200 grams of white cabbage;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 100 grams of noodles;
• 300 grams of fresh cucumbers;
• green cilantro;
• 2 eggs;
• 100 grams of radish;
• cayenne and black pepper;
• 1 liter of water;
• sugar, salt, vinegar, soy sauce.
Cooking
1. Cut the beef pulp into thin strips, fry in vegetable oil for two minutes.
2. Add the slaw and sauté together.
3. Put both types of pepper, pour in a little soy sauce, reduce heat and simmer for about ten minutes. If the cabbage is juicy and soft, then less is possible.
4. Radish and cucumbers cut into strips, add chopped cilantro, garlic, a little vinegar and oil, mix.
5. Separately, boil the noodles, grease with oil.
6. Beat the eggs with a fork and bake two thin pancakes, cool, turn and cut into noodles.
7. How is kuksi served. Put meat with cabbage in a plate, add noodles, lay cucumber salad with radish next to it, and scrambled noodles on top. All is poured with salted broth and you're done!
Recipe 2: Korean Miyokkuk Soup with Seaweed
The recipe for the national Korean soup, which is usually cooked for birthdays. For it, you will need canned seaweed, preferably without unnecessary additives. Green peas are also used canned.
Ingredients
• 250 grams of seaweed;
• 3 potatoes;
• 120 grams of green peas;
• 1 egg;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 small onion head;
• 2 liters of broth;
• sour cream;
• spices;
• butter.
Cooking
1. Onion finely chopped, fry in a pan. After a minute, add the grated carrot.
2. Put the broth on the stove, add salt and, after boiling, add the diced potatoes. Cooking ten minutes.
3. While boiling potatoes, boil a hard-boiled egg, peel, cut into small cubes.
4. Add the previously fried vegetables.
5. Next lay the sea kale. From it you need to drain the broth. If there are spices, then take out. Often put onions, it also needs to be removed.
6. After boiling the cabbage, throw the peas.
7. Add the egg, put spices to taste and turn it off.
8. When serving, put a spoonful of sour cream and herbs in each plate.
Recipe 3: Korean Tofu Soup
Unusual, but well-known first course. For this Korean soup you will need soft tofu, its amount is not strictly defined. Add "by eye".
Ingredients
• 2 liters of rice water;
• 1 zucchini;
• tofu;
• 1 leek;
• 2 tablespoons of Twendyan (soya paste);
• 1 tablespoon crushed garlic;
• 0.5 tablespoons of dasha seasoning;
• 200 grams of oyster mushroom;
• 3 potatoes.
Cooking
1. Cooking rice water. To do this, take a couple of glasses of rice, rinse, drain the water. Fill with two liters of new liquid and rinse intensively. You can let it stand for several minutes. We use rice for any dishes, and pour the water into a saucepan and set the soup to boil.
2. Add soya paste, seasoning of dasha, twendyan, crushed garlic, let it boil.
3. Put the diced potatoes, cook for five minutes.
4. Add chopped zucchini, mushrooms and cook for about five minutes.
5. Put the tofu, cut into cubes and bring the soup to full readiness. We focus on the readiness of vegetables.
6. At the end, add leek and turn off, if necessary, then salt. Often added to this dish pasta Gochudyan, which is prepared from red pepper.
Recipe 4: Korean Kimchi Soup
So far, Koreans and Japanese cannot share this dish. And everyone considers it their national. The cooking technology in both countries is similar and has many subtleties. But now there are simplified options, for example, this one. Kimchi - spicy sauerkraut, mainly used Beijing.
Ingredients
• 400 grams of pork loin;
• 1 onion head;
• 10 grams of chili sauce;
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• 250 grams of kimchi;
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce;
• green onions;
• salt, black pepper;
• 3 cloves of garlic.
Cooking
1. Cut the loin into small pieces. Add water and when boiling remove the foam.
2. We throw the peeled, but whole onion. After half an hour, it will need to be removed, and the broth boiled for another thirty minutes until the bread is ready.
3. Fry kimchi in a pan for several minutes. Once it becomes softer and more transparent, you can turn it off.
4. Combine hot chili sauce, garlic, a pinch of black pepper. Instead of chili sauce, you can simply take red pepper puree twisted in a combine. Add soy sauce and stir well.
5. Put the aromatic mixture in a pan.
6. Add the fried kimchi cabbage.
7. Cook everything over low heat for about five minutes, salt to taste.
8. When serving, sprinkle with green onions, you can add slices of tofu.
Recipe 5: Korean Radish Soup
White daikon radish is commonly used for this Korean soup. But you can also take radishes. You will also need dried seaweed.
Ingredients
• 800 grams of radish;
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil;
• 1 bunch of green onions;
• 20 grams of dry seaweed;
• 3 cloves of garlic;
• 60 ml of soy sauce.
Cooking
1. We clean the radish. If the root vegetables are young and the skin is intact, then you can just wash it well. We cut the radish into cubes, fill it with water and put on the stove. Cook for three minutes.
2. Fry green onion in oil, just a little bit.
3. Add soy sauce, garlic and seaweed to the pan.
4. Cook the soup until the radish is soft, at the end add the fried green onions, turn off.
Recipe 6: Korean Seafood Soup
The recipe for a light Korean soup, which will need shrimp and fish with white meat. You can use cod.
Ingredients
• 0.6 kg of fish fillet;
• 0.5 kg of shrimp;
• 1 teaspoon of Kochujang pasta;
• 20 ml sake;
• 1 spoon of sesame oil;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 300 grams of daikon;
• 1/3 cup anchovies;
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce;
• 1 liter of water;
• 150 grams of tofu;
• 1 bunch of green onions.
Cooking
1. Cut the washed fish fillet in strips of 2 centimeters, put in a saucepan with sesame oil, add hot Korean pasta, garlic and soy sauce. Mix and let stand for half an hour.
2. Then just turn on the stove and simmer over low heat for about ten minutes. Often stirring is not necessary so as not to damage the fillet pieces.
3. While the fish is cooking, boil the water and boil the anchovies in it, three minutes are enough.
4. Put the cut daikon cubes to the anchovies and cook until soft.
5. Add the peeled shrimp to the soup and after a minute put the aromatic fish and diced tofu from the stewpan.
6. Cook all together for four minutes, do not let it simmer actively, add sake at the end.
7. Turn off and put in plates, serve hot soup with green onions.
Korean soup - tips and tricks
• Green onions in Korean soups are much more common than any other greens. To quickly and accurately cut feathers, you can use ordinary scissors. And you can cut onions even over a plate.
• Korean cuisine is rich in spices and spicy seasonings. But all this is optional. If some ingredient does not suit or is simply absent, then it can always be excluded.
• No dried seaweed? You can take a sheet of noriya and just cut with noodles. Of course, it’s not quite cabbage, but also not bad.
