Anchovy and Kelp Stock

The stock most Korean soups and stews are built on, where the kelp comes out before the water boils and the anchovies go in after.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

• 1.5 litres cold water
• 20 g dried kelp, 2 or 3 pieces about 10 cm
• 25 g dried anchovies, about 20
• half an onion
• 4 spring onion roots or white parts
• 1 piece dried shiitake, optional

Method

1. THE KELP COMES OUT BEFORE THE WATER BOILS. Above about 60C it starts releasing alginates, and boiled kelp turns the stock slippery and faintly bitter -- a texture you notice immediately in a clear soup and cannot remove. Soak it cold, bring the pan slowly to just below a simmer, and lift the kelp out at that point. Everything else in the pot wants longer; the kelp has already given what it has.
2. AND THE ANCHOVIES GO IN AFTER IT, NOT WITH IT. They need a proper simmer to give anything, and they turn bitter past about fifteen minutes of it. So the order is: kelp cold and out at 60C, anchovies in, fifteen minutes, strain. Two ingredients with opposite requirements, which is the whole difficulty of this stock and the reason it is worth its own page.
3. THE HEADS AND GUTS COME OUT OF THE ANCHOVIES. Pinch the head off and flick the dark line out of the belly with a thumbnail. That is where the bitterness is, and twenty fish takes two minutes.
4. THEY ARE DRY-TOASTED FIRST, one minute in a dry pan over a medium heat until they smell nutty rather than fishy. It takes the raw edge off and is the difference between a stock that tastes savoury and one that tastes of the cupboard.
5. IT IS NEVER BOILED HARD AT ANY POINT. A rolling boil clouds it and pushes the fish oils into emulsion, and a cloudy stock cannot be used for a clear soup.
6. Anchovy heads pinched off and the dark gut flicked out with a thumbnail.
7. The anchovies toasted in a dry pan 1 minute until they smell nutty. Set aside.
8. Kelp wiped with a damp cloth -- not washed, the white bloom on it is flavour -- and put in a pan with the cold water, the onion and the spring onion.
9. SOAKED COLD 30 MINUTES if there is time.
10. Brought slowly up to the point where small bubbles form at the base and the surface trembles. Takes about 10 minutes.
11. THE KELP LIFTED OUT NOW, before it boils.
12. The anchovies and the shiitake added, and simmered gently 15 MINUTES. Not longer.
13. Any grey foam skimmed off the surface.
14. Strained through a sieve and the solids discarded without pressing them, which would push bitterness through.
15. Used at once, or kept 3 days in the fridge and frozen in portions beyond that.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes