Jangjorim (Soy-Braised Beef Strands)

Variations

• With pork: shoulder is softer and cheaper. It has more fat, so it keeps less well — eat it within a week.
• Eggs only: gyeran-jangjorim, boiled hen's or quail's eggs braised in the soy alone, and much quicker without the meat.
• Heavy on the peppers: take the peppers up to half the volume and it becomes fresh and hot. That is how it is made in summer.
• Shiitake and kelp: for a vegetarian version, use shiitake-stem and kelp stock in place of the beef liquid. There is no grain to tear, so shred the mushrooms coarsely instead.
• The same first hour as suyuk: the two are nearly identical for 60 minutes. They part at what happens next — suyuk discards the liquid, jangjorim adds soy to it.

Tips

• Adding the soy late is the whole dish. 120ml of soy sauce is concentrated salt, and salt tightens muscle fibre. As braising puts it, a braise is a trade in which you "accept the drying of the fibres" in exchange for turning collagen to gelatin — put the soy in at the start and the fibres tighten while the collagen is still slow to let go. Two hours later it is tough.
• Three points on this site's salt-timing axis. Eisbein brines for days before cooking so the salt gets right in; nikujaga stages sugar then soy during the simmer; jangjorim waits until it is already tender. Same ingredient, three moments, three purposes.
• Why it is torn along the grain. Cooking meat says to slice across the grain, because that leaves short fibres to chew. A keeping side dish wants the opposite: long strands are what chopsticks can pick up, they carry far more soy on their surface, and they do not crumble after a few days in the fridge.
• Why it keeps. Liquid heavy with soy and sugar has a low water activity, which is hostile to microbes. So it must be stored in that liquid, and whatever sits above the surface spoils first — the same principle as gotgam or takuan, run in a liquid.
• Quail eggs and peppers get the last ten minutes. In from the start, the eggs go rubbery and the peppers turn brown. Neither needs cooking; they only need to take the seasoning.
• Half submerged, not covered. Fully covered it turns salty over a few days; too little liquid and the top dries. Half, and pushed back under each time you serve it.
• Eye of round is the standard cut. Almost no fat, so it does not go off, and a coarse grain that tears into long strands.