Korean beef bone soup

[Norm Matthews]

Korean beef bone soup is something I never understood even though my wife and MIL made it daily at our restaurant. To me it was just a weak broth that they used as a base for almost every kind of sauce and soup. I never paid much attention to it. I wasn't all that impressed with it. 

 

Fast forward a couple of decades and now my son is trying to tell me how his mom-who now lives in Las  Vegas- makes it and I can’t get it through my head that you need to use beef bones. He keeps saying Ox bones and My brain keeps thinking OxTAILS.  He says she washes them, boils them briefly then throws the water away(!) and starts over with fresh water.  He must mean simmer, surely not BOIL.

 

So recently there was a discussion here about homemade ramen with links to articles about Japanese and Korean soups and I finally got it.

 

At the Asian Market the other day I bought a beef shank and a few pounds of beef bones and made the stock for him.  I asked him if it tasted like it was supposed to and he said it was good.  I froze most of it so he can make his kim che soup. 

[Anna N]

Korean beef bone soup is something I never understood even though my wife and MIL made it daily at our restaurant. To me it was just a weak broth that they used as a base for almost every kind of sauce and soup. I never paid much attention to it. I wasn't all that impressed with it. 

 

Fast forward a couple of decades and now my son is trying to tell me how his mom-who now lives in Las  Vegas- makes it and I can’t get it through my head that you need to use beef bones. He keeps saying Ox bones and My brain keeps thinking OxTAILS.  He says she washes them, boils them briefly then throws the water away(!) and starts over with fresh water.  He must mean simmer, surely not BOIL.

 

So recently there was a discussion here about homemade ramen with links to articles about Japanese and Korean soups and I finally got it.

 

At the Asian Market the other day I bought a beef shank and a few pounds of beef bones and made the stock for him.  I asked him if it tasted like it was supposed to and he said it was good.  I froze most of it so he can make his kim che soup.

This

http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/ox-bone-soup

is very enlightening.

[Norm Matthews]

Yes, that is one of the links I watched.  I used the recipe from here  http://www.koreanbapsang.com/2013/02/seolleongtang-beef-bone-soup.html#.U0F4eVFdV4U

[Anna N]

Yes, that is one of the links I watched.  I used the recipe from here  http://www.koreanbapsang.com/2013/02/seolleongtang-beef-bone-soup.html#.U0F4eVFdV4U

I find the technique fascinating because it is so much against the grain of what we learn as Western cooks. It requires a leap of faith.

[huiray]

Glad you have now noticed more the characteristics of soups and stocks in the E/SE Asian tradition. :-)

 

That technique of briefly boiling the bones and throwing away the water is, as you would have read about in that ramen tonkatsu & seolleongtang thread, an old E/SE Asian cuisine technique, called "fei sui" in Cantonese.  One of the posters in that thread also comments that it has been absorbed into French culinary tradition.

 

When one makes phở, for that matter (as a SE Asian soup well-known in the USA and Canada), the beef bones are subjected to this "fei sui" technique - if the maker of the soup is any good.  I once demonstrated this technique to a (German-heritage) friend of mine when I made phở for her and her DH by hanging on to the water from the parboiling of the bones and asked her to smell that water versus the now-simmering stock with the bones using fresh water (after the parboiling) and the look on her face was, as they say in those Mastercard ads, priceless.  (Of course, in the case of phở, one indeed simmers the stock, not boil it , as the objective is to get clear stock, not milky stock)

 

Both milky stocks and clear stocks are utilized in E/SE Asian cuisine.  It just depends on what one is trying to achieve and what dish one is creating and what the "desired" characteristics are.  There are some soups where the very slightest cloudiness would be considered undesirable, while in others a lack of opacity/milkiness would (in turn) be considered a defect; whereas in others it doesn't matter and it is simply left to personal preference.

 

The wiki article on "Asian soups" isn't a bad one to get an overview of these things, if one has no knowledge of these things (I'm not addressing you, Norm Matthews, specifically here ;-) ).  The aspect called "mouthfeel", part of the characteristics of milky soup/stocks, is a quality which is not dwelled upon in Western cuisine and is part of the "texture thing" that is (broadly speaking) not a prominent component in Western cuisine.

Edited May 10, 2014 by huiray (log)

[huiray]

I find the technique fascinating because it is so much against the grain of what we learn as Western cooks. It requires a leap of faith.

 

Perhaps one could just simply make such a soup and it would no longer be a leap of faith.  :-)

[heidih]

It is almost 90 degrees F with high humidity but I am craving a lip sticky soup so I wandered over to the Korean market and spied this container (looks like about a quart) of beautifully gelled beef bone broth whIch I could not pass up at $3.99.  Part is headed into a soup with tofu, watercress, shiriataki noodles (more slippery texture) and king oyster mushrooms plus assorted aromatics.  Within a minute of exiting the parking lot I could smell the beef broth as my super hot car heated the cold jello.

 

 

[heidih]

The soup is enjoyable - not as lip smacky sticky as my regular but not bad under the circumstances. Things are floating so more liquid than appears

 

[Norm Matthews]

I had forgotten about this.  I should add that my son's mom came here for his wedding in November and I gave her some of the soup.  She said it was good.  Getting her to say that about anything is something to remember. 

 

Some of the bones I used-and possibly contributing to the flavor- were oxtail bones that I first used to make Western style soup, then used them again with other beef bones to make the Korean style soup.

[heidih]

Well I must confess that after tasting on and off I binned it - too muddy/murky and boring. I've gotten to the point where if I don't like it, I don't eat it. I think this was all bone - so what Norm describes is probably more flavorful 

[Norm Matthews]

I think it's a cultural thing.  While store bought might not be as good (or might be the same) I am not a fan of it.  It's kind of bland to me, but not muddy. I mean I'll eat it but I'd much rather have a French onion soup made with fresh meaty ox tail bones.