Mussels simmered in their shells give off a briny, sweet liquor that becomes the soup. At the drinking table the broth is sipped between glasses, and the mussels are fished out and dipped in chogochujang, a sweet-sour chili sauce. Plump winter mussels make the sweetest broth.
The heat in this soup comes from white pepper rather than chili, building slowly at the back of the throat after each spoonful. Vinegar layers sourness on top, and the broth, thickened with starch only until it turns glossy and translucent, holds wood ear mushrooms, tofu and thin ribbons of egg.
Crisp mizu stems and freshly cleaned sea squirt sit in cold, lightly salted kombu stock, a summer bowl from the Tsugaru area of Aomori that pairs two ingredients peaking in the short northern summer. The sea squirt must be very fresh and sold for raw eating, and because nothing is cooked after assembly, the bowls are put together right before eating and leftovers are not kept.
A whole chicken simmers with dried astragalus root (hwanggi), jujubes and garlic until the meat falls from the bone, and the clear amber broth smells earthy and herbal. Unlike samgyetang, the bird is not stuffed with sticky rice.
The potatoes are cut 0.7 cm thick, enough to hold their shape while their edges fray slightly and give the clear pollack broth a little body. Wring the pollack shreds hard before toasting them, or they steam instead of turning nutty.
Pollock left on racks in Gangwon-do through the winter, freezing and thawing over and over until it dries, becomes hwangtae. Its chewy strips and wisps of soft egg end up in the same spoonful of this clear soup, which is made for hangovers and for ordinary breakfasts alike.
The pollack shreds are not soaked, only swished briefly in cold water. A long soak would wash their savoriness away.
In southern Aomori this soup was served at Bon, New Year, weddings, and other celebrations, and its name comes from golden sea urchin in clear broth looking like wild strawberries seen through morning mist. The roe is heated only until its surface sets; a hard boil breaks it apart and dulls its aroma.
Pine nuts and sesame are ground into an ivory broth that is poured over shredded chicken breast and topped with fine strips of cucumber. Milk and the chicken poaching liquid set the thickness, and it is served cold or just warm. The dish comes down from banquets at the Joseon court.
Sweet white miso, used generously, gives this Okinawan celebration soup a soft body and mild sweetness without any starch. Ina means wild boar and mudouchi means an imitation: the name dates from when pork replaced increasingly scarce boar. Castella kamaboko, a fish cake rich in surimi that is steamed and then fried, links the soup to Ryukyu court hospitality, and it still appears at New Year, graduations, school entrance and coming-of-age celebrations.
Salmon fillet with skin and bony parts, milt, and loosened roe all go into one pot of kelp stock seasoned with miso in this Hokkaido-style nabe. It is said to come from fishermen near the mouth of the Ishikari River, who dropped fresh salmon pieces and bones straight into miso soup to celebrate a big catch. Root vegetables, konnyaku, tofu, and rolls of blanched spinach wrapped in napa cabbage are arranged in sections around a mound of miso in the center. A final dusting of sansho pepper over the whole pot adds a tingling lift to the miso broth.
This Ishikawa miso soup comes from the Buddhist temple tradition and uses no meat or fish stock: kombu dashi is mixed with the water the adzuki beans cooked in. The first boiling water is thrown out for its astringency, and only the second goes into the soup.
Marsh clams from the Seomjin River area around Hadong are tiny, so the pleasure lies in the broth: pale and clear, yet surprisingly full-tasting. Garlic chives go in just before the heat is cut, wilting only enough to stay green and fragrant. When lifting the clams out of their soaking water, scoop from the top so the sand at the bottom stays behind.
Because the eel is poached first and picked off the bone, the soup can be eaten by the spoonful without worrying about bones. Koreans make a point of eating it in the hottest stretch of summer, and some add perilla seed powder or extra chili to change the broth.
The abalone guts are fried with the radish in a little sesame oil before anything else, and they are why this otherwise clear soup turns faintly green and smells strongly of the sea.
Because this soup goes on the table for ancestral memorial rites, even the way it is cut matters. Brisket, radish and tofu are sliced into neat squares of the same thickness, and the fat that rises is skimmed off to keep the broth clear.
Miso is spread thickly around the inside rim of the pot like a bank of earth, and it gets scraped into the broth a little at a time as the pot simmers. Oysters release salty juices of their own, which is why the miso never goes in all at once.
Nothing else goes into the pot as filling. Yamataro crabs, with only the top shell removed, are pounded with miso in a mortar, mixed with water and strained three times, and as that liquid heats, the crab protein sets into curds like soft tofu. Ginger juice and sliced scallion are the only things on top.
Toyama turnips from Yonezawa in Yamagata are harder and sweeter than ordinary turnips. Instead of being sliced, they are pried into rough chunks with the heel of the knife, and the sake-lees broth works its way into the torn surfaces. Even so, the flavor only reaches the center once the soup has cooled overnight and been reheated the next day.
Two glutinous rice dumplings filled with sweet bean paste float in each bowl of clear soy-seasoned broth, sweet and savory in the same spoonful. They are shaped like small eggs, which is where the name keiran, meaning egg, comes from, and in the Shimokita area of Aomori they were made for the autumn harvest and festive days.
The first things in the pot are 8 tablespoons of oil and firm tofu crumbled by hand. Once the tofu has broken into loose crumbs, daikon, burdock, zenmai, warabi and butterbur are fried with it, and only after that are the dashi and light soy sauce poured in. There is no meat.
Every ingredient in this Tsugaru Little New Year soup is diced to about 5 mm, and each spoonful carries daikon, carrot, burdock, mountain vegetables, fried and freeze-dried tofu, soybeans, and kombu together. Red miso seasons it. Half the soybeans stay whole and half are coarsely mashed into zunda, which gives the broth a light body.
The ingredients are nearly those of kimchi stew, but with more water, so it becomes a soup for pouring over hot rice. How it tastes depends on how sour the kimchi is; if yours is still young, a little vinegar fills the gap.
Thin bulgogi-cut beef and ripe kimchi are fried in sesame oil until red oil starts to gather in the pot, and that is when the water goes in. The tofu is added late but still gets ten more minutes, enough to soak up the kimchi broth all the way through.