The Korean Seaweed Soup, also known as miyeok guk or miyuk guk is a delicious dish for anybody that is looking for a light yet flavorful, simple yet nutritious meal. It brings together the strong flavors of seafood from the seaweed, and combines it with some tasty protein with the beef. As with many Korean recipes, many authentic flavor profiles are brought into the soup with the soy sauce, garlic, and of course sesame oil.
With all these ingredients coming together, we get the deep, rich flavor.
There is a lot of browning involved in this recipe, from the seaweed to the beef, and this is one of the main reasons why this soup tastes as good as it does: the browning process helps extract all of the flavors from all of the ingredients, and combines them in a delicious way. The combination of the boiling and browning also help homogenize all the flavor and break down nutrients which helps us get more out of what we eat!
Surprisingly, it’s also known as the Korean Birthday Soup since plenty of Korean families make this dish for their birthday. The history behind this interesting fact is that the variety and amount of nutrition in this soup is good for mothers that just delivered a baby, since they help the recovery process for the mother. As a result, many families have made it a tradition to eat this soup on birthdays then on.
And as always, #LifesDelicious, so enjoy it!
Ingredients
- 30-40 grams Dried Seaweed
- 1 lb. Beef
- 2 tbsp Garlic, minced
- 3-4 tbsp Soy Sauce
- 2 tbsp Sesame Oil
- 1 tbsp Cooking Oil
- 20-30 cups Water (half a pot)
- Rice to serve
Instructions
- Fill large deep bowl with water
- Soak the seaweed in water for 5-10 minutes, then drain and squeeze out the water
- Slice the seaweed into strips and set aside
- Slide the beef into bite sized pieces
- Heat the pot on medium-high heat, add cooking oil and seaweed, brown for 1 minute.
- Add the beef, garlic, sesame oil, and soy sauce. Allow to cook for about 2 minutes.
- Pour water into the pot and let the soup come to a boil.
- Serve seaweed soup with hot steamy rice!