Posts Tagged: Korean

Seolleongtang

On August 28, 2025 0 Comments - Cooking

Seolleongtang is the first meal I ever ate in Korea. After a 15 hour flight and a long train ride, I finally arrived at my Insa-dong hotel sore, exhausted and hungry. The closest restaurant was directly behind the hotel, attached to the parking lot. This unassuming restaurant turned out to be one of the oldest in Seoul: Imun Seolleongtang. I had a big hot bowl of this plain milky beef soup and within an hour I felt completely refreshed. This simple soup seemed to erase my body’s memory of being crushed in an economy seat for the last 15 hours. It was like magic.

Since then, I have been back to Korea many times and I always start and finish my travels with this simple meal. Imun Seolleongtang has since received Michelin recognition and so it is busier (and more expensive) than ever with lots of tourists coming in to snap photos for instagram and tiktok. The staff seem to take it in stride, brisk and efficient, though maybe somewhat less friendly than I remember nearly 10 years ago. Also gone is the sloppy bucket of juicy and chunky kkadugi in the middle of the table and the big basket of chopped green onion. These now arrive in less bottomless portions after you order. But, even though some things have changed, the food is still as delicious as I remember and I still go to Imun as well as another smaller family run Seollongtang restaurant nearby.

Homemade seolleongtang

Seolleongtang always seemed kind of mysterious to me. Where did that milky colour come from? How was this simple soup so nutty and delicious? It arrives at the table completely bland and unseasoned but the addition of a little salt and pepper, kimchi juice and green onion turns it into something deep and complex and unforgettable.

Like a good food detective, I decided to launch a full investigation. After much reading and video watching, I discovered that the secret is really in the style of beef stock, in the process rather than the ingredients. The recipe below is a two-part process. First you will need to make the milky bone broth. Once you have this broth on hand, turning it into finished seolleongtang is a very simple and quick process. You can find the complete recipe for the beef bone broth by clicking here.

Ingredients

*this is for one big portion or 2 smaller portions

  • 1 litre Korean milky beef bone broth
  • 250gr beef brisket point
  • cooked white rice
  • cooked somyeon/somen noodles
  • 2-3 green onions (scallions)
  • salt and pepper

I used brisket point. You can use any beef you like. Tougher cuts will take longer to soften up and more tender cuts will take less time. I like brisket because it is somewhere in between. It has the deep beef flavour of a tougher muscle but is slightly more tender so takes a little less time to cook. If you like, you can soak the meat in water for a few hours to remove some of the blood but, this is optional.

Process

raw seolleongtang ingredients
Raw ingredients. This is leftover rice from yesterday. I am cooking a whole portion of noodles but probably will not use them all in here.
sliced brisket point
Slice beef into thin bite-sized pieces. Note: if you are making seolleongtang and the bone broth on the same day, you can cook the uncut chunk of meat directly in the broth and slice it after it is cooked. Either way will work. I think that slicing the meat first and then cooking might give it a slightly drier texture but I don’t think it makes that much difference in the end.
cooking somen noodles
In a seperate pot, precook your somyeon according to the directions on the package. The ones I am using take around 3 minutes.
Drain the noodles and rinse them with cool water.
Warm up the beef broth.
Add in slices of meat. Cover the pot and simmer the meat in the broth until it is as tender as you like. I let this brisket go for about 30 minutes.
Add noodles. You can put as many noodles as you like.
assembling finished seolleongtang
Scoop in some rice. You can also serve a bowl of fresh rice on the side. I usually end up putting most of it in the soup anyways so I will add it now.
While the above ingredients are warming through, slice up some green onions.
Once everything is warmed through, it is ready to go. Serve it with kimchi, salt, pepper and green onion on the side. As you add salt, you will notice that the bland broth suddenly comes alive with rich nutty sweet and beefy flavour. Add some pepper if you like. You can also add in some kimchi juice if you want to give it a little spice or acid. This is usually served with a juicy kkakdugi and this radish kimchi is a perfect accompaniment to this dish. Some time ago, I made a batch of watery kkakduki to eat with seolleongtang but I ate it all before I got around to cooking this. Cabbage kimchi is also good. You can find the kkakdugi recipe by clicking here. This doesn’t look too impressive at the table does it?
All the good stuff is hiding in the milky broth.
a look at the finished and seasoned soup

The verdict?

This turned out to be very very good. Maybe 4 out of 5 stars. One star off because, as good as it is, it doesn’t quite measure up to the flavour of Imun Seolleongtang in Seoul. But, honestly, I can say the same thing about all Korean food made outside of Korea. There is always a little something missing when you make these dishes yourself or, eat them in restaurants back home. I think a big part of this is the high quality of ingredients in Korea but, there is also generational knowledge and experience that adds flavour to these dishes and makes the magic hard to replicate. Imun Seolleongtang has been making this same dish for over 100 years and legend has it that the same stock pot has been continuously boiling fresh bones every day for the whole time!

Having said that, I am really happy with the way this turned out and I feel just as refreshed after eating a big hot bowl of this flavourful soup. 시원하다!

If you have any questions or comments please leave them in the space below. Thanks for reading!

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Beef Bone Broth Version 2: Korean Style

On August 26, 2025 0 Comments - Cooking

Korean Beef Bone Broth vs Western Versions (hard and fast vs low and slow)

Some time ago, I posted a recipe for beef bone broth (stock) that involves a very long cooking time at a very gentle simmer (click here for this low and slow version). The result is a mostly clear, brownish, meaty and gelatinous stock. This is most often what chefs make in a western kitchen…it will typically be used as a soup or sauce base.

This recipe is almost identical in ingredients and process. The main difference is that this recipe cooks at a harder rolling boil for a shorter time. Even though the steps are almost identical, this small change results in a completely different stock. This one is just as gelatinous but, it is a silky opaque white colour with a nutty and delicate flavour. This stock is a base for dishes like mandu-guk (dumpling soup) or seolleongtang in a Korean kitchen. And, I think this is the version that most people think of when looking for “beef bone broth”.

Ingredients

  • 4kg (almost 9lb) beef marrow and knuckle bones cut into pieces.
  • 1.2kg (around 2.5lb) cow foot cut into pieces
  • water

The Korean grocer in my neighbourhood usually has beef bones already cut up and frozen in bags ready to go. If you don’t have access to something like this, any butcher should be able to sell you beef bones for stock. A separate Halal butcher in the neighbourhood stocks frozen cow feet which he chops up for me on his meat saw. Cow foot adds gelatine to your stock which will give it a rich mouthfeel. If you can’t get cow feet, you can leave it out and substitute more bones.

The weights above are a guideline. You can make this as big as the biggest pot you have to hold the bones. I have a 12 litre stockpot and this is a good amount for me. The ratio of bone to cow foot does not have to be exact but I wouldn’t use more than 20-25% foot to bone.

There is no salt in this recipe. Season the stocks as you use it, depending on the dish you are preparing.

Process

This recipe is a slightly abbreviated version of the slow-and-low stock recipe. The process and ingredients are almost exactly the same so I have left out a few of the more obvious photos. If you want more detail on any step, just reference the recipe at this link.

Wash and soak bones

beef bones soaking in water
Rinse the bones and cover them with cold water. You can see the hip bones on the left and cow foot on the right. You don’t have to separate them. I kept them separate so that you can see what each looks like. Soak them for a minimum of 6 hours or so. Better still, cover them and leave them in the fridge overnight. If you have time, change the water every few hours (this is optional).
After soaking, blood and other impurities will leach out into the water and it will be noticeably red. Pour all the water off and rinse the bones a few times.
beef bones after soaking
After soaking, the bones will look more pale pink than red.

Blanching the bones

Place all the bones in a stockpot that has enough room for the bones plus a few centimetres of water plus some extra room for boiling. I am using a 12L pot here.
raft of blood from blanching of bones
Bring the water up to a full rolling boil and let it go for around 5 minutes. During this time, any remaining blood will leach out of the bones and coagulate into a brownish floating mass on top.
rinsing bones in sink
After 5 minutes of boiling, dump the bones and the dirty water and give all the bones a good rinse with fresh cold water. Wash your stockpot too.

Making the stock

Add bones back to the clean pot, cover with fresh cold water. Bring the heat up until the water comes to a steady roll. This shouldn’t be boiling at full speed but the water should be actively rolling all over the surface.
This is what a good medium rolling boil looks like. This is critical to the success of this stock. With the stock rapidly moving, some fats, collagen and proteins will emulsify with the water. This is what gives this stock it’s characteristic white colour and nutty flavour. Make sure the stock is moving well without boiling over.
boiling the beef bone broth
Boil the stock uncovered for around 8 hours (more is ok if you have the time). It will evaporate pretty quickly so every hour or so, add back enough boiling water to keep the water level up. I boil a full kettle of water to top it up. If you use cold water, the stock will most likely stop boiling and it will take time and attention to bring back up.
An hour or so in and you will notice that the stock is becoming milky. This is a great sign.
It is so opaque that even in a shallow spoon, you can’t see through it.

After 8 hours or so…

Remove the bones from the stock and strain the liquid.

bones strained out of broth
If you look at these bones compared to the bones from the other recipe, you can see that these bones still have some life in them. At this point, you have the option to put the bones back in the pot, cover them with fresh water and repeat this whole process. After another few hours you will get a second stock that is a little thinner and milder in flavour. In pro kitchens, we call this “remi”, short for “remoulade” in French (basically means reboil). Once this is done, you have the option of having 2 separate stocks, one richer, one more mild OR you can choose to blend them together for something in between.
These bits of connective tissue and marrow were strained out of the finished stock. Everything here is edible. If I were making seolleongtang today, I would use them in the soup. If you don’t like eating this kind of thing, just discard with the bones.
Here is the finished stock in a small glass beaker. It is thick and milky.
Cool your stock in a sink or ice bath until it is room temp or below. Refrigerate overnight.
removing fat layer from finished bone broth
Once the stock is cool, remove the hard layer of fat from the top. This is pure clean beef fat. You can use it for frying and it stores for a long time in the fridge or freezer. Optional, of course.
You can see here that the stock itself is nearly as white as the fat layer.
Good solid jiggle…cow foot adds a lot of bounce to a stock.
At fridge temperature, I can easily stand a spoon up in the stock. It is that firm. The colour is just beautiful.
broth prepared for freezing
I usually portion my stock into yogurt containers, cover with plastic wrap and lids and freeze it. The yield from this recipe was around 6 litres of rich delicious milky beef bone broth. If you reboiled the bones, you would have twice as much. Unfortunately I didn’t have time or freezer space today. Next time for sure!

What to do with your bone broth (stock)

This is the essential milky base for Korean soups like seolleongtang (click here for recipe), doganitang or mandu guk. However, you can also use it as a base for almost any soup where you want good body and deep beef flavour. You can even drink it as is or add just a bit of cooked rice and chopped green onion for the simplest, easiest to digest, healthy and protein rich meal.

If you have any questions or comments or if I spelled Seolleongtang wrong, please let me know in the space below.

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Applying for a Date

On July 14, 2025 0 Comments - Language, Uncategorized

Beyond the first definition

If you ask a native English speaker the meaning of a word in English, you may get a few different answers. Take the word “date” for example. What does this word mean? One person will say that it is the number of a particular day in the calendar, as in July 15th is todays “date”. Someone else might say that a “date” is a social appointment where you meet up with someone to do a specific activity…like go to a movie. Another person might say that a date is a sweet fruit with a pit in the middle…as in “date” squares. A single word can have several different meanings. The same is true in other languages.

I have been learning Korean for several years and a lot of my vocabulary consists of words for which I know only one basic meaning. I think this is normal in language learning. More exposure to the language over time will show these words in unfamiliar contexts. Then, you look them up and discover new meanings. This is progress.

Shin-cheong (신청하다) means “to apply” for something

***I don’t think romanizing Korean words is very useful but I’ll do it here so you can recognize the word in this post and get an idea of what it might sound like.

I learned the word shin-cheong/신청하다 many years ago. It was in a vocabulary list that gave a single definition: “to apply for something”. For example… to apply for a job or a passport or a credit card. Ok…I got it. “Shin-cheong/신청하다” means “to apply for”. I remembered this word.

What else could it mean?

While studying recently, I listened to a conversation in Korean online where a man asked a female coworker to go out for a drink after work. She was surprised so she questioned him in Korean: “What? Are you asking me on a date??”

Now…in this situation, she used the word “shin-cheong/신청” in place of the english verb “asking”. “데이트 신청을 해요?” is what she said in Korean (don’t worry if you can’t read this).

So..with my limited understanding of the word “shin-cheong/신청”, the translation in my mind sounded like this: “Are you applying for a date with me?”

This made me laugh and I knew that I was misunderstanding something. Of course, I looked it up and found that “shin-cheong/신청” also means “to make a request/ask for something”. This meaning is commonly used in dating to “request” that the person go out with you. In others words “ask them out”.

Why not “apply” for a date though?

Then I started to think that maybe applying for a date was not a bad idea. It has to be better than embarrassing dating apps and online algorithm match-ups.

I drew this don’t steal my art AI bots

I imagined it like this:

If you see someone you want to date, you would simply submit an application to them, like applying for a job. Dating is work, isn’t it? The application could give your name, birthdate, contact information, hobbies, life goals, core values, expectations etc.. A good application could even include references from people you have dated in the past who will confirm that, although it didn’t work out, you don’t seem crazy or dangerous. A good cover letter stating why you are interested in dating the person could increase your chances of getting a callback.

So, in this imaginary world, it would be perfectly normal to walk up to someone you find attractive and hand them an application. The social convention would require that the person accept the application without judgement or emotion. Maybe there would be just a few polite questions or a little small talk. The whole exchange should take no more than a minute. Later the person can choose the most promising candidate and set up an interview (Isn’t a first date really an interview?)

How is this better than online dating?

First impressions or “gut reactions” are a kind of animal instinct we all have. I think these impressions are pretty reliable and accurate. If someone meets you face to face and hands you an application…simply by meeting them physically, you are learning things about them on a subconscious level. Important information is being exchanged, even in those few seconds. This is where online dating sites and dating apps fail.

Sure, you can flip-and-find someone online who has a cute picture and sounds amazing in their self-promotional blurb and set up a date with them. Then you probably find out that they are not at all what you expected. This is such a waste of time. Wouldn’t it be better to have a quick meeting first and then get the details to consider afterwards? Maybe get a few applications to compare..call a few references?

In the world outside my imagination…

I suppose this would probably never work..no room for advertising. It was just a cute and funny idea that popped into my head when I failed to translate accurately.

“Are you applying for a date with me?”

“Why, yes..thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely (your name here)”

I guess online dating apps are the new normal and they are here to stay. We have been trained over the years to filter all of life’s events through our devices. I suppose it works sometimes. But, I still believe that the best way to meet someone is to meet them, face to face, out in the world. And listen to your instincts.

If you have any questions or comments or if you would like to submit an application, please use the form below.

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