Miyeokguk (Seaweed Soup)

Variations

• Beef miyeokguk: The everyday standard; brisket makes it rich.
• Seafood miyeokguk: Clams or mussels instead of beef for a clean, briny broth.
• Tuna miyeokguk: Canned tuna for an easy version.
• Perilla miyeokguk: Stir in ground perilla seeds for a nutty, silky finish.
• Birthday-style: Loaded with meat and simmered long and rich.

Tips

• The sesame oil is an exception cooking oils allows, used past the condition it allows it under. That guide's rule is that a finishing oil is not a cooking oil — in sigeumchi-namul it always goes in after the heat is off — and Kinpira Gobo named as the case that does fry in it, "where the time on the heat is short". Twenty to thirty minutes in a pot is not short, and the aroma does go. What the step is for is the fat: it coats the miyeok and carries the beef's browning, and the fat is still there long after the scent has left.
• Which is where "the longer it simmers, the milkier" comes from — and it is not Seolleongtang's white. Why sauces split gives the test: an emulsion "has to be beaten into existence", which is what a rolling boil is for, while things that thicken on their own "arrive whether or not you wanted them". Nothing here is boiled hard, so the colour is the second kind, and it is the seaweed as much as the fat.
• The substance doing it is a fault one guide away. Stocks and broths pulls kelp out before the boil because above 60-80°C "the slippery compounds and bitterness follow" — the same family of seaweed, the same compounds, and there they are the reason for a twenty-minute ceiling. Here twenty to thirty minutes are spent getting them, which is why this soup has body without a thickener in it.
• Soaking is the shortest step and the one that fixes the quantity. Soaking files seaweed under things that need a final rinse for grit, and dried miyeok expands several times over — so the handful is a decision about how much soup you are making, taken before anything is on the heat.
• Stir-frying the miyeok and beef in sesame oil is the secret to a deep broth — don't skip it.
• Soak the miyeok well and rinse off the salt; it expands a lot once rehydrated.
• Use soup soy sauce for color and finish the seasoning with salt.
• The longer it simmers, the milkier and deeper the broth.
• If using clams, purge the grit first and add them in place of the beef.