Agu-jjim (Spicy Braised Monkfish)

Agwi-jjim is better known by its Gyeongsang dialect name, agu-jjim. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture defines it as a local dish of Masan in South Gyeongsang. Its recipe starts with dried monkfish cut into short pieces and soaked briefly, simmered in strained doenjang water; soybean sprouts are piled on top and steamed, then chili powder, minari, green onion, garlic and a starch slurry are added and everything is turned together. The encyclopedia warns against too much liquid and notes that the dish, hot and spicy enough to make diners sweat, was valued for warming the body in winter.

The Korean Food Promotion Institute and the Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture both tell the same origin story. Fishermen considered the big-mouthed monkfish unlucky and often threw it back — one nickname, multeombeong, imitates the splash. A Masan fisherman once brought one to an old woman who sold eel soup, who discarded it for its looks; after the fish had frozen and thawed through the winter until it dried, she cooked it the way she cooked dried pollack (bugeo-jjim), and the result became Masan agu-jjim. The institute places the story in Masan's Odong-dong, says the dish became widely known in the 1960s, and suggests soybean sprouts and minari were added from about the mid-1960s.

Monkfish itself was known much earlier: the institute notes that the Joseon-era fish survey Jasan eobo records it, with the popular name agueo. But it observes that the braise first appears in writing only in a 1984 government survey of local foods. Masan's version still uses fish dried in the cold winter wind, while Busan and most restaurants elsewhere use fresh monkfish. See steaming jjim and capsaicin and spicy food.

• Lean fish: monkfish flesh is low in fat and a good source of protein.
• More vegetable than fish: the large share of soybean sprouts and minari adds fiber, folate and vitamin K. See vegetables and namul.
• Warming: the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture describes it as a winter dish that makes you sweat — traditionally valued as warming food.

• Masan agu-jjim (Gyeongsang): dried monkfish caught December to February, wind-dried about 15 days and soaked 2–3 days before cooking; simmered with doenjang, then finished with sprouts, minari, chili, garlic and a little perilla seed and glutinous rice flour. The folk encyclopedia notes it uses no innards and more sprouts than fish, often with sea squirt (mideodeok).
• Busan and fresh style (Busan): fresh monkfish, including liver and innards, with sprouts, minari, fine chili powder and starch; the folk encyclopedia records seafood seasonings made from mashed liver, shrimp and mussels, and a finish of perilla powder.
• Agwi-tang / agu-maeuntang: a soup of the same fish when a brothy dish is wanted.