11 recipes. Page 1 of 1
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The oysters go on only after the rice has absorbed nearly all its water, and they cook in the five-minute rest and nothing more. Added at the start, they would shrink and lose their sweetness. The rice itself is unseasoned; everyone stirs in their own soy, chili flake, scallion and sesame oil sauce.
Midwinter napa cabbage grows sweeter the more cold it weathers, and simmered from cold water with radish it sweetens the broth with no separate stock. The oysters go in last for a minute or two, and since they bring plenty of salt, the soy sauce stays light.
Made with plump winter oysters, it smells of the sea from the first spoonful. With lots of tofu and a chili-red broth, it sits closer to a hearty, spicy stew for rice than to a clear oyster soup.
Maesaengi, a seaweed as fine as hair, and plump fresh oysters give this knife-cut noodle soup a deep taste of the sea. Because the noodles cook first and the seafood is added only at the end, the oysters stay plump and the seaweed keeps its bright green color.
Oysters go into the pot last, after the rice has broken down and the radish is soft, and they need only a few minutes to stay tender. Most of the work is the long simmer before that: rice and minced radish, first toasted in sesame oil, cook for over 30 minutes and like to stick to the bottom, so stir from the base often.
The broth gets its base from radish, cooked until translucent before the oysters go in. That is why the radish is sliced an even 0.3 cm thin, and no tofu or separate stock is used.
A handful of crown daisy goes into the broth once the oysters and tofu are cooked, and the heat goes off as soon as it starts to wilt. The seasoning is soup soy sauce, which keeps the broth from turning dark.
Maesaengi, a seaweed as fine as thread, spreads green through the whole pot, and the oysters bring a briny, salty depth. Maesaengi holds heat and barely steams, so it is much hotter than it looks. Blow on the first few spoonfuls.
This is Korea's birthday seaweed soup made with oysters in place of beef. Between November and January, when oysters are fattest, the broth takes on the most of their creamy sweetness.
Winter oysters, plump at this time of year, share a doenjang broth with bitter-edged shepherd's purse. The base is kelp stock and radish, and the paste is held to 1.5 tablespoons, light enough that the oysters still taste of the sea.
This is a soup for November through February, the months when maesaengi (a seaweed as fine as thread) and oysters are both in season. The seaweed spreads loose through the broth, so every spoonful lifts green threads along with an oyster or two.