Making Guk and Jjigae

A Korean meal almost always includes something hot and liquid next to the rice. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture calls boiling one of the essential cooking methods of a grain-centered table, and soups and stews are the main reason. The vocabulary can confuse newcomers, but the categories are fairly logical once you know what to look for: how much liquid there is, what seasons it, and how it is served.

Guk, tang, jjigae and jeongol

• Guk (국): a brothy soup with plenty of liquid, served in an individual bowl beside the rice. The encyclopedia dates its place as a daily basic to at least the Goryeo period, citing a record in the Goryeosa of a king granting rice and guk.
• Tang (탕): the Sino-Korean word for a soup; the encyclopedia groups guk and tang together as the dishes with abundant liquid. Long-simmered bone and meat soups such as seolleongtang and samgyetang usually carry the -tang name.
• Jjigae (찌개): less liquid, more intensely seasoned, and usually built around one main ingredient or one seasoning, as in doenjang-jjigae, kimchi-jjigae or sundubu-jjigae. It is often served bubbling in its pot and shared.
• Jeongol (전골): a pot of several ingredients arranged by color, covered with seasoned broth and cooked at the table. The encyclopedia distinguishes it from jjigae by this mix of ingredients and by the communal cooking.

The word jjigae is younger than the dish. The encyclopedia notes that it does not appear in earlier Joseon cookbooks, and that the late nineteenth-century Siuijeonseo uses jochi for the same thing. In the palace, stews were called jochi and divided into clear ones seasoned with soy sauce or salted-shrimp liquid and tojang ones made with doenjang or gochujang; two were set on the royal table. The food scholar Yun Seo-seok, quoted in the encyclopedia, saw an even older distinction in an eighteenth-century text between brothy tang and the thicker gaeng.

Jeongol has a well-known origin story. A 1909 book by Jang Ji-yeon claimed that soldiers once cooked meat and vegetables in their iron helmets, and that households later copied the shape. Treat that as legend. More solid is the description in the Gyeongdo japji of a grill shaped like an upturned felt hat, with vegetables blanching in its central well and thin slices of meat searing on its brim; the encyclopedia suggests today's broth-filled jeongol evolved from this grilling pan.

The four families of guk

The encyclopedia sorts guk into four types:

• Clear soups (malgeun-janguk): seasoned with soy sauce so the broth stays clear; the formal choice for a full table. Beef, fish, vegetables or seaweed are typical, as in miyeok-guk and kongnamul-guk.
• Doenjang soups (tojangguk): doenjang dissolved in the water left from washing rice (ssal-tteumul), which gives body and is said to soften vegetables. Spring versions use wild greens such as naengi.
• Long-simmered soups (gomguk): beef bones, brisket, tail or offal simmered for hours. The milky color, the encyclopedia explains, comes from phospholipids from bone and organ meats emulsifying into the broth.
• Cold soups (naengguk): chilled and light, such as cucumber or seaweed cold soup, eaten in summer.

Building the broth

The encyclopedia recommends beef, dried anchovies, dried shrimp or clams for flavor, and notes that anchovy stock suits doenjang soups while beef-bone stock is better in winter. For method, see making yuksu broth. It also gives practical proportions: about one cup of broth per person, with solids making up roughly a third of the liquid. Cooking times depend on the ingredient; it lists about 5 to 8 minutes for soybean sprouts, 5 minutes for miyeok, 15 minutes for radish and just 2 minutes for tofu. Clear vegetable soups should not be overcooked, and fish goes into already boiling broth so it holds together.

Seasoning with jang

According to the encyclopedia, the character of a guk depends largely on the ganjang, doenjang or gochujang used to season it, and the same logic classifies jjigae. A clear shrimp-seasoned stew uses saeujeot with minced beef, sesame oil, garlic, tofu and radish, with about half a cup of water per person. Gochujang stews are fiery and especially suited to freshwater fish and crab. Doenjang stews range from plain to chili-laced, and in summer a thick gang-doenjang simmered with green chilies is a classic. For the seasonings themselves, see making jang.

The ttukbaegi

The vessel matters as much as the recipe. The ttukbaegi is a thick earthenware pot that goes straight from the flame to the table. The encyclopedia describes glazed and unglazed versions, notes that it holds heat so food stays hot while the outside stays fairly cool, and lists seolleongtang, yukgaejang and samgyetang among the dishes served in it. A tiny version, the al-ttukbaegi, is used for steamed egg. Shared stew came with manners: the eldest at the table dipped first, and younger diners paused so two spoons never entered the pot at once. For the clay tradition, see onggi.

Soups and stews are often the saltiest part of a Korean meal. Eating the solids and leaving some broth is a simple way to cut back; see sodium in Korean food.