Korean · soup

Yukgaejang (Spicy Shredded Beef Soup with Fern and Sprouts)

Yukgaejang (Spicy Shredded Beef Soup with Fern and Sprouts) reads umami 8.1, salinity 6.2 and funk & ferment 5.5 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Korean soup, about 2 hr 43 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Umami 8.1 · Salinity 6.2 · Funk & Ferment 5.5 · Richness 5.3 · Allium 4.7 · Marine & Briny 4.3 · Herbaceous 1.9 · Heat 1.8 · Warm Spice 1.4 · Earthy 1.3 · Sweetness 1.2 · Bitterness 1.0 · Sourness 0.9 · Smoke 0.7 · Nutty 0.6

What's in it (15)

Time & effort: about 2 hr 43 min (2 hr 26 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 41.3 kcal, 3.4 g protein, 2.6 g fat, 1 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains seafood · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. Soak the beef in cold water 30 minutes and drain. Put it in a pot with the 2.5 L of water, the onion, whole garlic and scallion whites, bring to a boil, skim hard, then simmer 90 minutes until a chopstick goes through the meat easily. Lift the beef out, strain the broth and discard the aromatics. You want about 2 L of broth.
  2. Cool the beef for 20 minutes and tear it along the grain into shreds with your fingers. Shredded, not diced: yukgaejang is a soup you eat in strands, and it is what distinguishes it from the clear beef tang.
  3. Make the chile oil, which is the heart of the dish. Warm the 60 ml of oil in a small pan to about 80 C, take it off the heat, and stir in the gochugaru. It should sizzle faintly and turn a deep glowing red within 30 seconds. If the oil smokes, the flakes burn black and bitter in a couple of seconds and you must start again.
  4. Toss the shredded beef, gosari, daepa and soybean sprouts with the chile oil, the minced garlic, guk-ganjang and anchovy sauce until everything is red and coated, and let it sit 15 minutes. Seasoning the solids before they go into the broth, rather than seasoning the broth, is the traditional method and it is why a proper yukgaejang tastes of chile all the way through instead of tasting like red water.
  5. Bring the broth to a boil, tip in the seasoned mixture, and simmer 20 to 25 minutes, until the daepa has gone silky and sweet and the broth has turned properly red and slightly oily on top. Season with the salt.
  6. If you like, drizzle the beaten eggs over the surface in a thin stream and leave them 30 seconds before stirring once. Serve with rice and kkakdugi. Daegu claims this soup as its own, where a beefier local version is known as Daegu-tang, and the fiery style is associated with that city.
  7. Substitutions: shank can stand in for the beef brisket; leeks can stand in for the daepa; perilla oil can stand in for the neutral oil.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.