A Practical Guide to Korean Food and Korean Fusion Food

It is getting closer to Christmas as the days go by and I am still cooking Korean food. There is nothing wrong with Korean food, it is still my favourite kind of food, it’s just that it is Not quite festive enough. I guess it comes down to my lack of creativity with Korean food.

I made fish cake soup the other night, with more natural ingredients compared to my first recipe on this blog. It might be a psychological thing but it seemed taste better because of that. Nothing can beat natural ingredients instead of processed ingredients, right?

Ingredients for 2 people

(Expected prep time – 4 minutes, Cooking time – 30 minutes)

• Fish cakes – 150 g
• White radish – 100 g
• Big size spring onion – 1/2 stalk
• Water – 3 cups
• Soy sauce – 2 tbsp
• Refined rice wine – 1 tbsp
• Dried kelp 10×10 cm
• 5 big size dried anchovies
• Optional : Pepper and salt (as you need)

Prep

1. Cut the radish into thin small squares.
2. Thin slice the spring onion diagonally.
3. Slice the fish cakes (whatever size you want, I sliced them in long thin shapes to stick them with some skewers, mostly for looks. )
4. Run some hot water onto the fish cakes to remove any oil coating.

Cooking

1. Put the water (3 cups) in a pot and add the kelp and soak it for about 20 minutes. (By the way, if you do this before you start cutting the other ingredients, you can save some time.)
2. Take out the kelp. (I threw it away, it’s just for flavour)
3. Add the anchovies then boil the water.
4. When the water starts to boil, take out the anchovies (throw them away) and add the radish.
5. When the radish is nearly cooked, add the fish cakes, rice wine, and soy sauce.
6. Boil it for about 2-3 minutes then add the spring onion. (You can adjust the taste with salt or pepper. It tasted good without either of them though I added some pepper, because I like the smell of pepper)
7. Boil it for 30 seconds.
8. Serve it in a bowl.

It was really nice, definitely good comforting food for a cold night. It goes well as a drink snack or as an accompaniment to ddeokbokki (spicy rice cakes). It dilutes the spiciness. You might experience a slightly bitter taste from the radish depending on what kind of radish you use I guess, but it is not a problem at all. Though I will try to figure out a way to get rid of or at least reduce the bitter taste from it.

Here is another tip about how to enjoy fish cakes, but you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.

I made dipping sauce for the fish cakes, which is the same sauce I made for instant dumplings the other day. It is not for soup, it is just for the fish cakes. The fish cakes taste even better with the sauce. I guarantee you.

Related Posts

Fish Cake Soup (Eomuk-Guk in Korean)

What Square Fish Cake Looks Like and is Made of

Fish Cake Stir Fry