Seafood Soybean Paste Guk

Since soybean paste flavor is a good match with many different ingredients, there are many different kinds of soup that uses it. This soup is one of them. You will be amazed what kind of great and savory flavor you get with this soup using only natural ingredients, without any artificial seasonings like MSG.

Yield: 2-3 Servings

Short Korean Lesson

• SiJak (시작) = Begin
• Ggeut (끝) = End

Video Instructions

Main Ingredients

• 1 Cup Mixed Seafood (½ lb)
• ⅓ Cup Potato
• ⅓ Cup Zucchini
• 1 Green Onion
• 1 Tbsp Red Hot Pepper (Optional)
• 2 Tbsp Soybean Paste
• ½ Tbsp Garlic, Minced

Broth Ingredients

• 4 Cups Rice Water
• 4 Pieces Kelp (1x½ Inch)
• 1 Dried Anchovy Pack (or 6-7 Dried Anchovies)

Directions

Obtain 4 cups of rice water. When you wash the short grain rice before cooking, the water will become milky. That is what I call rice water. You can wash the rice several times by rubbing the rice grains together in the water to make rice water. Rice water makes good broth. If you don’t have rice water, you can just use 4 cups of normal water instead.

Pour the rice water in a pot. Then add 4 pieces of dried kelp and 1 dried anchovy pack. Boil it on medium-high.

Once the broth starts to boil, cook for 5 minutes and remove the kelp.

Occasionally remove the foam on the surface of the broth to get better flavor. Cook 10 more minutes on medium-high.

Meanwhile chop ⅓ cup worth of zucchini and ⅓ cup worth of potato into bite-sized pieces. Chop 1 green onion into ½ inch pieces and 1 Tbsp worth of hot pepper thinly. If you do not want spicy food, you can skip the hot pepper.

Obtain about ½ pound worth of mixed seafood. It will be about 1 cup. If the seafood is frozen, thaw and rinse in water. My mixed seafood pack had mussel, squid, shrimp, clam, and octopus in it. Just get any kind of seafood you like and use 1 cup of it.

10 minutes later, remove the anchovies from the broth.

Add 2 Tbsp of soybean paste to the broth and mix well until the soybean paste dissolves. Depending on the soybean paste brand, or homemade, the saltiness of soybean paste will be different. So, adjust accordingly.

Add the chopped zucchini and potato into the soup and cook for 7 minutes on medium-high.

7 minutes later, add the seafood and ½ Tbsp of minced garlic. When the soup starts to boil again, cook for 3 minutes on high.

Lastly, add the chopped green onion and hot pepper. Cook for 1 more minute and turn off the heat. In this step, you can add a little more soybean paste or soup soy sauce if needed. I didn’t need any and it was just right.

 

If you chop the seafood and vegetables into little pieces, this soup can be good for kids also. If you like seafood and want to try something different, try this someday. 🙂