How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for Soup (from scratch)!
(This is part II of How to Make Korean Fish Cakes. If you want to find out How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for appetisers / sides / snacks, click this link. )
Last week I shared a recipe – How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for appetisers / sides / snacks. Today, I want to share How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for Soup. You might be wondering what’s the difference between the former and the latter?
My quick answer is the cooking method. The first one is deep fried and the second one is boiled. While I was researching fish cake recipes, I discovered that boiled fish cakes better suit soup as it will give a cleaner broth flavour as opposed to an oily flavour. This way, you can appreciate the soup and fish cakes more!
That made sense to me. Typically when Koreans use pre-packaged fish cakes for cooking, most of them rinse the fish cakes in warm/hot running tap water to wash out the oil coat in its surface.
After making these fish cakes, I made the fish cake soup right away. And it really tasted healthy. My sister said, “To some degree, boiled fish cakes come across a bit bland but that’s because I’m used to the unhealthy packaged fish cakes.”
I thought she is right. I felt the same way. It tasted really natural and healthy. Something I wouldn’t mind feeding my little toddler girl over and over. 😉
Try these Korean fish cakes for your next soup. Enjoy!
Ingredients for 4 to 5 servings (if used for soup)
- 260g (9.1 ounces) boneless skinless white fish fillet (I used frozen cod. Snapper or pollock is ok too. More information in the Notes section.)
- 160g (5.6 ounces) skinless squid body (Squid legs can be used too. I used frozen squid.)
- 80g (2.8 ounces) shelled prawns (I used frozen banana prawns.)
- 55g (1.9 ounces) yellow onion, peeled
- 1 extra large egg white
- 1 tsp rice wine (mirim)
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 2 Tbsp potato starch
- 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 4 to 5 cups of water to boil fish cakes
*1 Tbsp = 15 ml
How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for Soup
* Any frozen seafood should be defrosted first before being prepared.
1. Individually rinse the fish, squid and prawns in cold water and pat dry them separately with paper towel. Cut the fish and squid into a few chunks. (No need to cut the prawns) Put all of them into a food processor. Pat dry the onion with paper towel and put it into the food processor. Grind them finely. (It takes between 30 sec to 1 min). Move the ground mixture into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients (egg white, rice wine, sugar, salt, starch and flour) into the bowl and mix them well.
3. Prepare one or two large flat plates and lay down some waxed paper (e.g. baking paper) on top. Shape the fish cakes the way you want and place it on the plate. Below is a short instruction on how to make fish cake balls and also fish cake long thin bars.
-For balls: Scoop out 1 Tbsp of the fish cake mixture and take it out using another spoon (tea spoon size is good). Place the fish cake ball on to the waxed paper. Repeat this for the rest of the mixture.
-For long thin bars: Cover the cutting board with a sheet of waxed paper. Scoop out some fish cake mixture (about 1/4 cup size) and flatten the fish cake with a kitchen knife. Roll it up with a knife (from left to right). Use both sides of the blade when you roll it – refer below photo. If you rolled it too thick, you can cut it into half. Repeat this for the rest of the mixture.
4. Put the water into a sauce pan and boil it for 5 mins on high heat. Once the water starts to boil add some fish cakes (about 5 fish cakes at a time) using tongs. Cook them until well done (when fish cake becomes firm – takes about 2 to 3 mins). Take them out with a strainer and put it aside to cool down.
5. Use this fish cake to make some Korean fish cake soup (Eomuk-guk, 어묵국 or Odeng-guk, 오뎅국).
Note
- While this fish cake recipe is written for soup making, (if you don’t like the deep fried fish cakes), you can use this for side dish making.
- A common white fish fillet used for Korean fish cakes is cod or pollock. In this recipe I used frozen cod but in the other fish cake recipe I used Australian caught fresh goldband snapper. The snapper was way better of course. I think the type of fish you use, not only the freshness of the fish (i.e.fresh or frozen) but also the species of fish have some effect on the overall taste of the fish cakes at the end. It’s quite subtle but I could notice the difference when I was using frozen cod fillet and fresh goldband snapper fillet.
- You can use a different ratio of seafood to mine according to your preference. You will notice that the ingredients I used in this recipe are slightly different to the deep fried version. Just note that squid and prawn gives a more chewy and elastic texture (which more people seem prefer) than the fish fillet.
- If you don’t have a food processor you could try using a hand held blender. I’ve never used it before so I can’t really know for sure, but I think it will work better than the classic style (stand alone type) blender. I tried my Vitamix to mince my seafood but it didn’t work well as the fish stuck below the blades and all it did was empty spinning. It’s also difficult to get the food out because the blades were in the way.
- If you don’t have any electric tools to grind the meat, you can always do it manually with your hands and knife. It just takes a lot of mincing (possibly comes with your sore joints) and a lot longer time. If you are pursuing this method, the texture will be slightly different to mine.
- While you could eat this fish cake on its own (maybe with some soy sauce dipping), it is intended for further processing – aka making soup.
- If you want to insert a skewer into the fish cake bars, do this after boiling once they are cooled down.
- Boiled fish cakes that are unused can be frozen for up to 3 months. (This is based on the general frozen food guideline, not based on my experience.)
How to Make Korean Fish Cakes for Soup
Ingredients
- 260 g boneless skinless white fish fillet (9.1 ounces), I used frozen cod. Snapper or pollock is ok too. More information in the Notes section.
- 160 g skinless squid body (5.6 ounces), Squid legs can be used too. I used frozen squid.
- 80 g shelled prawns (2.8 ounces), I used frozen banana prawns.
- 55 g yellow onion (1.9 ounces), peeled
- 1 extra large egg white
- 1 tsp rice wine (mirim)
- 1 tsp white sugar
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 2 Tbsp potato starch
- 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 4 to 5 cups water to boil fish cakes
Instructions
- Individually rinse the fish, squid and prawns in cold water and pat dry them separately with paper towel. Cut the fish and squid into a few chunks. (No need to cut the prawns) Put all of them into a food processor. Pat dry the onion with paper towel and put it into the food processor. Grind them finely. (It takes between 30 sec to 1 min). Move the ground mixture into a large mixing bowl.
- Add the rest of the ingredients (egg white, rice wine, sugar, salt, starch and flour) into the bowl and mix them well.
- Prepare one or two large flat plates and lay down some waxed paper (e.g. baking paper) on top. Shape the fish cakes the way you want and place it on the plate. Below is a short instruction on how to make fish cake balls and also fish cake long thin bars.-For balls: Scoop out 1 Tbsp of the fish cake mixture and take it out using another spoon (tea spoon size is good). Place the fish cake ball on to the waxed paper. Repeat this for the rest of the mixture.
-For long thin bars: Cover the cutting board with a sheet of waxed paper. Scoop out some fish cake mixture (about 1/4 cup size) and flatten the fish cake with a kitchen knife. Roll it up with a knife (from left to right). Use both sides of the blade when you roll it – refer below photo. If you rolled it too thick, you can cut it into half. Repeat this for the rest of the mixture. - Put the water into a sauce pan and boil it for 5 mins on high heat. Once the water starts to boil add some fish cakes (about 5 fish cakes at a time) using tongs. Cook them until well done (when fish cake becomes firm – takes about 2 to 3 mins). Take them out with a strainer and put it aside to cool down.
- Use this fish cake to make some Korean fish cake soup!
Notes
Nutrition Info (per serving)
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
