The New Year's Day Soup I Grew Up Hating
There are certain Korean dishes I could eat every day for the rest of my life. My grandmother’s galbi jjim, or soy-braised beef short ribs, top this list. Gyeran jjim, a hot egg custard cooked in pungent fermented-shrimp broth, is a close second. And I regularly crave transfusions of fiery kimchi jjigae, a stew that's best made using only the stinkiest, overripe kimchi.
But when it comes to tteokguk, a Korean rice cake soup traditionally eaten for breakfast on New Year’s Day to symbolize luck and prosperity, a bowlful a year has always been more than enough.
No single aspect of this soup is particularly offensive to me. Beef stews with garlic and ginger to make a broth. Rice cakes cook in the soup until they become chewy and release some of their starch, slightly thickening the liquid and turning it cloudy. Every Korean family has its own version; my mom finishes ours with a couple of whisked eggs streamed right into the pot, and a bowl of crumbled toasted nori for garnish.
But somehow, when eaten together, the sum always fell short of its parts. I remember obediently eating a bowl of tteokguk on New Year’s Day, waiting just long enough until it was an acceptable time for second breakfast, a.k.a. “normal” breakfast, a.k.a. a bagel with cream cheese.
Then, recently, I spotted a tteokguk recipe in our holiday issue from Sohui Kim, chef of Insa in Brooklyn. I immediately recalled a spicy squid and udon noodle stir-fry I had eaten at Insa a few weeks before—a dish so good I lingered over it at the table for the better part of an hour, not wanting it to end. I had an idea: I would cook Sohui’s tteokguk recipe for my family, have a rice cake revelation, and write about the process. If anyone could convince me to love this soup, or at least give it another chance, it was Sohui. I pitched the story to my editor. Game on.
So one Sunday, I took a bus to New Jersey and hit the local H-Mart to gather my ingredients: a hunk of lean brisket; a bag of fresh rice cake discs; scallions, ginger, garlic; a large moo, or Korean radish.
Photo by Christina Chaey
Deeply browning cubes of brisket is the first step to a flavorful broth.
I set up shop in my parents’ kitchen and got to work deeply browning the brisket cubes, grating the garlic, smashing the ginger. I filled the stockpot with water and let everything simmer for the next two hours as a dense, beefy scent filled the house.
“That’s not the right color,” my mom said as she peered into the pot. “Too brown.”
“Are you going to season this?” my dad asked as he dipped a spoon in. “Because it tastes terrible right now.”
I ignored them and kept stirring, skimming, tasting. I knew the broth was done when it was rich and dark, and the meat was so soft it practically shredded itself when I pressed on it with my thumb. In went a few glugs of fish sauce, lots of cracked black pepper, and thin slices of Korean radish. I’ve never eaten tteokguk with radishes before, but I have always loved the way their soft flesh yields when cooked, like a boiled turnip or carrot. And finally, the rice cakes, which needed just a few minutes to cook (conventional wisdom says when they float to the top of the pot, they’re done.)
Photo by Christina Chaey
Bowl full o' goodness.
I whisked a couple of eggs together and cooked them in a skillet like a crepe until set, then sliced the egg blanket into thin yellow ribbons (Sohui follows the traditional egg preparation for this dish, unlike my mom’s egg drop soup method). I sliced some scallions. My mom crumbled a few sheets of nori, which aren’t included in Sohui’s recipe, but which she knows I can never resist.
No offense to my mom, but those first hot spoonfuls were unlike any tteokguk I’ve ever tasted, including hers—the broth was salty, meaty, and umami-rich from the fish sauce; a gentle, gingery heat lingered after every bite; and the rice cakes, which I had never had fresh before, were plump and soft.
I’m planning to make this again for New Year’s Day breakfast. And although I may never choose tteokguk over, say, soy-braised short ribs, this year, I might just go back for seconds.
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