Tag: soup
Fish Pepper Soup
Fish Pepper Soup
This is one of my favorite African recipes. I make this fish pepper soup fairly often and it is always different, which is great. One thing that changes is the spice powder. The base is always smoked paprika, white pepper, and bouillon. There are multiple additional spices that can be added to the powder including fennel, cumin, coriander, allspice, curry powder, njangsa, alligator pepper, African nutmeg, lemongrass, etc. That is really up to you. The other other thing that changes is whether or not I sauté the rest of the ingredients chopped or turned into a paste in the food processor. If you want your soup chunkier, don’t turn the ingredients into a paste. I like to use king fish for this soup. It’s inexpensive, flavorful, and very meaty for fish. Other fish that you can use include catfish, tilapia, cod, swai, snapper, or mackerel. You can either cut up your fish into smaller pieces if you’re using a fillet. I chose to keep my king fish steaks whole so I can serve 1 per person.Serve the soup with steamed rice or boiled plantains.
Servings: 4
Equipment
- Spice grinder
- food processor
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 lbs king fish steaks
- 6 garlic cloves minced
- 1 habanero
- 1 tbsp ginger grated
- 1 stalk celery finely chopped
- 1/2 medium onion diced
- 6 basil leaves chopped
- 2 green onions chopped
- 4 cups water
- 1 bay leaf
- salt to taste
Spice Powder
- 1 tbsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp white peppercorns
- 2 tsp chicken bouillon
Optional Spices
- 1 tsp fennel seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 tsp njangsa
Instructions
- Grind the fennel, cumin, njangsa, white and black peppercorns in a spice grinder. Mix them with the smoked paprika, and chicken bouillon. Set aside.
- Blend the onions, garlic, ginger, habanero, green onions, celery, and basil in a food processor until it is almost a paste.
- Heat up cooking oil in a large pot over medium heat. Fry the paste for 5-6 minutes.
- Add the spice powder mix. Fry for a minute.
- Pour in 4 cups of water. Add the bay leaf. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt.
- Add in the fish steaks. Simmer for another 10 minutes until they are cooked through.
Jjamppong (Seafood Noodle Soup)
Jjamppong (Seafood Noodle Soup)
Jjamppong is a Korean spicy seafood noodle soup. Despite there being a ton of ingredients in this recipe, it’s fairly simple to make and takes little time. You can adjust the heat to your liking by adding more or less gochugaru. There are a couple routes you can go when selecting the seafood for this soup. The first is the buy a frozen seafood mix, usually consisting of crab, shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. Make sure that the seafood mix is defrosted before adding to the soup. The other route to go would be to customize what seafood goes into this soup by buying fresh seafood, still in the shell. This will cost more, but will yield tremendous flavor.
Ingredients
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 6 garlic cloves minced
- 2 tsp ginger minced
- 5 green onions chopped
- 4 oz pork diced
- 1 mefium onion sliced
- 6 oz cabbage shredded
- 1 small zucchini julienned
- 1 small carrot julienned
- 4 tbsp gochugaru
- 1 tbsp smoked paprika
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1/4 cup shaoxing cooking wine
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 lbs frozen seafood mix.
- 2 portions Kalguksu noodles
Instructions
- In a large pot over medium high heat, sauté the garlic, ginger, and green onions for 2 minutes.
- Add in the pork, cabbage, carrots, zucchin, and onions. Sauté for 2 minutes.
- Add in the gochugaru and smoked paprika. Sauté for a minute.
- Add in the soy sauce and oyster sauce. Sauté for 30 seconds.
- Pour in the shaoxing cooking wine and chicken stock. Season with salt. Bring to a boil.
- Add the seafood mix and cook for 3 minutes.
- Bring water to a boil in another pot. Add the Kalguksu noodles. Boil for 5 minutes.
- Drain and rinse under cold water.
- Add a portion of the noodles to a bowl. Ladle over the seafood soup. Garnish with green onions.
Gamjatang (Pork Neckbone Soup)
Gamjatang (Pork Neckbone Soup)
Gamjatang is my absolute favorite Korean dish. So let me tell you a long drawn out story about it…In December of 2018, I was in Koreatown in L.A. at the Decibel Magazine Beer and Metalfest with my Metal homies Brian, Kevin, and Marcos. Mike showed up the next day. We had just finished watching Armored Saint at the Whiskey and made it back to Koreatown and were super hungry. It was after midnight. We stumbled into this 24 hour Korean restaurant called Yanji Gamjatang. We all ordered our food. I remember getting blood sausages with tteokbokki. It was really good. But what Marcos was eating is what I really wanted. He got a large bowl of gamjatang. It looked absolutely amazing. I kinda obsessed over it for months.I went back to Koreatown in February 2019 for a short vacation, mostly to eat. It was after midnight again and I went directly to Yanji Gamjatang. I ordered a bowl of gamjatang. It was massive. It was spicy. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. So I had to learn to make it.Gamjatang has a lot of steps in preparation, but all are very simple. The most important step is making sure the broth is clean and free of impurities. To do this, the neck bones need to be soaked in cold water to remove any excess blood. Then the bones need to be boiled for 8 minutes then washed under cold water. This will eliminate any scum that would float to the top of the broth from the bones. After these steps, the rest of the cooking process is a piece of cake.
Ingredients
Pork Broth
- 2-3 lbs pork neck bones
- 1/2 onion
- 2 green onions
- 6 garlic cloves
- 5 slices ginger
Seasoning
- 1 tbsp gochugaru pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp gochujang paste
- 2 tsp doenjang paste
- 1 tbsp soup soy sauce
- 1 tbsp garlic minced
- salt and pepper to taste
Stew
- 6 oz cabbage
- 2 large potatoes cubed
- 8 perilla leaves roughly chopped
- 2 green onions chopped
Instructions
- Soak the neck bones in cold water for 1 hour, changing the water half way through.
- Bring a pot of water to boil. Boil the neck bones for 8 minutes. Strain. Rinse and wash each bone under cold water.
- In a large stock pot, add the neck bones, onion, green onion, garlic, and ginger slices. Add 8 cups of water.
- Bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes uncovered. Cover. Reduce the heat to medium low. Simmer for 50 minutes.
- While the bones are simmering, mix together all of the seadoning ingredients. Set aside.
- In another smaller pot, bring water to a boil. Blanch the cabbage for 1 minute.
- Scoop out the cabbage and drain. Add one tbsp of the seasoning mix and set aside.
- In the same pot of water, boil the potatoes for 10 minutes. Strain and set aside. Disregard how shitty this picture is.
- Uncover the pot of neck bones. Scoop out the onion, green onion, and ginger slices. Add in the cabbage, potatoes, and the seasoning. Simmer for 10 minutes.
- Add in the perilla leaves and green onion. Cook for 5 more minutes.
