Matzo meal is ground matzo, an unleavened bread that has already been baked, so flour or breadcrumbs measured the same way will not work in its place. The balls are cooked in plain water and lifted out, and chicken broth heated in a separate pot is ladled over them in the bowl, which keeps the soup clear.
Pieces of catfish simmer in a gochujang broth, and thin pinches of flour dough go in partway through, so fish and sujebi dumplings come out of the same pot. Before cutting, the catfish is rubbed well with salt to strip off its slippery coating, which otherwise leaves a muddy taste in the broth.
Buckwheat jelly is plain on its own, and the cold soy and vinegar broth is mixed a little too salty and sour to make up for it once the jelly goes in. The broth is chilled until a few ice crystals remain, and crumbled laver and sesame oil go on just before serving.
Butterbur stems are peeled, blanched and left to soak in cold water for a good while to draw out their acrid edge. Ground perilla seed with a little glutinous rice flour makes the broth thick enough to cling to a spoon, and the thick-cut stems and king oyster mushrooms give it something to chew.
Butterbur stems, peeled of their stringy outer skin, simmer in doenjang broth until they bend limply under a chopstick. Their sharp, acrid taste is the main hurdle: unless the stems are blanched and soaked in cold water first, that harshness spreads through the whole pot.
Mideodeok, a small sea squirt, holds a pocket of briny liquid inside its tough skin, and it bursts in your mouth when you bite down. To keep that liquid in, the stems are left uncut and the sea squirts get only three minutes in the pot, and the doenjang is dissolved in rice-rinsing water rather than anchovy stock. Around Tongyeong and Geoje on Korea's south coast, it is everyday home cooking.
Pinch two corners of a square of wheat dough together and it takes the shape of a mi, a winnowing basket. In Jikkoku, in Fujikawa, Yamanashi, that shape is said to scoop up good fortune, which is why the soup appears on New Year's morning and at celebrations. The dough goes straight into the broth with the root vegetables instead of being boiled separately, and the flour on its surface gives the soup a light body.
Tofu and water dropwort (minari) are nearly all there is in the bowl, so the anchovy broth stays clear and light. The minari is pulled off the heat while its stems are still crisp and bright, and the soup goes straight into bowls.
This is the dried pollack soup Koreans often make the morning after drinking, with a handful of spring water dropwort (minari) added. Pollack strips toasted in sesame oil give the broth its base, beaten egg drifts through it in soft ribbons, and the grassy minari lightens the whole heavy bowl.
Brisket simmered for about 25 minutes gives a clear, light brown broth. The cooked beef can be torn along the grain and returned to the soup, or lifted out and dipped in a seasoned soy sauce.
White miso makes a mild, slightly sweet soup and red miso a darker, saltier one. Either way, once the miso is in, the pot does not boil again: the heat is turned off, and only then are the wakame and green onion added.
This soup comes from the Shimanto, Niyodo and Monobe river basins in Kochi, where it was made in autumn as the mitten crabs move downstream. The crabs are ground shell and all and strained, and as the liquid boils the crab protein gathers into soft curds; eggplant and a stalk vegetable called ryukyu go in with them. Raw freshwater crab can carry parasites and contaminants, so the recipe never uses crabs you caught yourself, only ones sold for cooking by a licensed supplier.
No meat and no stock, just plain water. Seaweed fried in sesame oil and doenjang (Korean soybean paste) give the broth its flavor, and tofu takes the place the beef would usually hold. It is lighter than beef seaweed soup, and the doenjang leaves the broth slightly thick.
In Korea this soup is served on birthdays and to new mothers, and on a birthday it also carries thanks to the mother who gave birth. Beef and soaked sea mustard are fried in sesame oil one after the other, then simmered in water for more than 20 minutes, until the seaweed is soft enough to lift easily with a spoon.
The only heat involved is a 20-second dip for the seaweed, which is rinsed in cold water right after so it stops cooking. The broth is never heated either; it is soup soy sauce, vinegar and sugar topped up with cold water.
In Jeju, pork backbone and belly simmer for an hour and a half, and gulfweed goes into that broth along with buckwheat flour to thicken it. It keeps thickening as it cools, and the heat goes off while it still runs slowly off a spoon.
Fat from pork small intestine melts into a soy-and-mirin chicken broth and turns it cloudy and rich in this hot pot from Hakata, Fukuoka. Cabbage torn into big pieces soaks up that broth and goes soft and sweet. Once the solids are gone, noodles or rice are added to the remaining broth.
Radish greens dried in autumn used to come out through the winter for soups like this one. Rubbed with doenjang first and then simmered with five spoonfuls of perilla seed powder, they end up in a broth thick enough to spoon over rice and mix in.
There is no separate stock here. Seven hundred grams of mussels open in boiling water and their liquor becomes the broth, with doenjang seeping out of the radish greens that were rubbed with it beforehand. Between bites of plump mussel, the greens stay a little fibrous.
Add beef and this becomes beef radish soup; add dried pollack and it becomes pollack radish soup. This is the plain version underneath both, and the one thing that takes care is cutting the radish a little thicker than usual so it does not fall apart in the long simmer. Winter radish makes a noticeably sweeter broth, and the radish is softer still when the soup is reheated the next day.
The gochujang and vinegar broth goes into the freezer for about an hour and is poured over the bowl while still slushy. That keeps everything cold to the last spoonful without a pile of ice cubes thinning the seasoning. Raw flatfish sits on shredded pear, cucumber and cabbage, and with nothing here touching heat, the fish should be sold for raw eating, kept cold, and served the moment the bowl is put together.
This is just the broth for mulhoe, Korean raw fish in an icy, spicy soup, made on its own ahead of time. Six tablespoons of vinegar and some plum syrup go into the gochujang base, and the 100ml of soda is stirred in last and slowly so the fizz survives. It can rest in the fridge for a day, then move to the freezer an hour or two before serving to turn slushy.
Mulmegi is caught off Korea's east coast from December to February, and its flesh is so soft that it nearly dissolves into the pot once cooked. Even in this clear soup that gives the broth some body, enough that it sets almost like jelly as it cools. Once the fish is in, shake the pot rather than stirring it.
Several beef offal cuts with very different chews, such as small intestine and omasum, go into one pot of milky bone broth. Chili flakes and garlic make it spicy, and half a spoonful of doenjang mixed into the seasoning paste tamps down any remaining offal smell. It is a hot pot for the drinking table, alongside soju.