1. Ingredients
- Main ingredient: bean sprouts
- Side ingredients: rice, squid and green onion
2. Taste Evaluation
- Spicy taste: ☆☆☆☆☆
- Salty taste: ★★☆☆☆
- Sweet taste: ☆☆☆☆☆
- Sour taste: ☆☆☆☆☆
3. Introduction to Kong-namul-gukbap 콩나물국밥
You may have a lot of private meetings in Christmas and the end of the year. Many Koreans also enjoy this moment with friends, lovers and families. In particular, many people suffer from stomach disorder due to drinking parties during December. Some foreign people calm their stomachs with alcohol. But eating some food is the Korean custom.
“Haejang foods” relieve stomach the day after drinking. “Kong-namul-gukbap” is the most popular Haejang food in Korea. Kong-namul-gukbap consists of bean sprouts and rice. The hot soup calms hurt stomach.
According to the documents, people ate Seasoned Bean Sprouts in the Goryo dynasty period and the Joseon dynasty period. The recipe of “Kong-namul-gukbap” in Jeonju has been passed down since 1910. In other words, Kong-namul-gukbap was originated from Jeonju. There are a lot of Kong-namul-gukbap restaurants in the region, which are famous all around the country.
Bean sprout is non-toxic, and good for stomach disorder. It is effective in decomposing alcohol since it has aspartic acid.
So, Korean people have eaten bean sprouts for relieving hangovers. Moreover, bean sprout is good food ingredient as it is easy to buy and cheap.
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Korean people usually make soup with dried seafood. Kong-namul-gukbap is also made of the soup boiled with dried pollack, anchovy and kelp. Some people eat it with squid, green onion or kimchi. Others put whisked egg into the soup.
Hot and refreshing soup relieves stomach, and crunch bean sprouts decompose alcohol. So it is effective for headache. Moreover, rice makes a full stomach so that you can get some energy. Generally, Kong-namul-gukbap is clean and light. Those who firstly eat the food would also enjoy the taste.
The bowl for kong-namul-gukbap is called “ttukbaegi”. It keeps the hot temperature of the food. So people usually sweat while eating kong-namul-gukbap, which stimulates blood circulation. So it makes people sober up.
If you have drunk a lot of alcohol at year-end party, you should eat a bowl of hot kong-namul-gukbap for breakfast on the next day. It will dissolve headache and stomach disorder.
4. The kinds of kong-namul-gukbap
Kong-namul-gukbap was originated from Jeonju, and it is made of clear soup, bean sprouts, rice, squid and green onion. “Kimchi kong-namul-gukbap” has been made for those who love spicy food. It is hot and spicy.
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Kong-namul-gukbap is a simple food which consists of rice and soup. But there are a lot
of ways to enjoy the food. A soft-boiled egg, salted shrimp and laver are usually served with kong-namul-gukbap.
At first, you should eat a soft-boiled egg. There are two ways to enjoy it. One is eating the egg before having kong-namul-gukbap. It would relieve hurt stomach. The other is putting the egg in
kong-namul-gukbap. As ttukbaegi keeps hot temperature of the food, the egg is also done. The later way makes soft and aromatic kong-namul-gukbap.
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After eating the egg, you should season kong-namul-gukbap with salted shrimp as you want. It makes the food a little bit salty. As salted shrimp is tasty, it makes more delicious soup.
Lastly, you should eat laver.
Put a seasoned laver on the rice and then eat at once. The combination of aromatic laver and clean rice soup is amazing.
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