Dumpling soup

Today I’m going to show you a really delicious one bowl meal recipe that you’ll really love, especially if you already made my shrimp and chive mandu recipe and have some dumplings in the freezer! This is dumpling soup (Mandu-guk: 만두국) and made with your homemade mandu it’s a fantastic taste match! Imagine garlic-flavored rich beef brisket stock filled with sweet, springy shrimp and chive dumplings. If you’re a soup person, this is going to make your stomach very happy.

Years ago, when I first posted a recipe for mandu, I included a recipe for mandu-guk made with anchovy stock. This time I’m making it with beef brisket, but you can use that recipe if you can’t get ahold of any beef. And of course you can use store-bought mandu if you’re too busy to make it homemade. They should be available in the freezer section of any Korean grocery store.

I hope you enjoy this recipe! Make beef stock and dump your dumplings!

Ingredients (serves 2)

• ½ pound beef brisket (about 230 grams), cut into small pieces
• 8 cups of water
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 green onions, sliced (or ½ cup sliced large green onion (dae-pa)
• 14 homemade shrimp & Asian chive dumplings (or any store bought frozen dumplings)
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 egg, beaten in a small bowl
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

1. Bring 8 cups of water to a boil over medium-high heat.
2. Add brisket and garlic to the boiling water. Cover and turn the heat down to medium.
3. Boil for 30 minutes. Taste a piece of brisket to check if it’s tender or not. If it’s still a little tough, add more water and cook longer, until the beef turns tender.
4. Add 14 dumplings and turn up the heat to medium-high. Cook until all the dumplings are floating to the surface and have turned translucent. If you use freshly made dumplings, it will take about 7 minutes, but if you use frozen dumplings straight out of the freezer, it will take longer, between 10 to 12 minutes.
5. Add fish sauce and green onion, stir it gently and let it cook for 1 minute.
6. Pour the beaten egg over top of the soup and let it cook for about 20 seconds. Stir it gently.
7. Add sesame oil and ground black pepper.
8. Remove from the heat and serve right away with kimchi and a few more side dishes.

Egg garnish (Gyeran-jidan: 계란지단)

This traditional Korean garnish takes a little time and care to make, but really makes a dish special and colorful. It’s paper made from eggs, lightly fried and cut into thin ribbons.

You can make gyeran-jidan (also called dalgyal-jidan 달걀지단) with the egg white and yolk mixed together, or separate them and fry separately. The second way takes more work but is more spectacular. In that case the white will be called gyeran heenja jidan (계란 흰자 지단) and the yellow called gyeran noreunja jidan (계란 노른자 지단). The key is to pan fry carefully on low heat with a minimum of oil, so the resulting garnish is pure white, or pure yellow.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• a few pinches of salt
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Separate the egg yolks from the whites and put them in 2 bowls: 1 for the yolks and the other for whites.
2. Remove the white stringy stuff from the yolks. Mix with a pinch of salt.
3. Mix the whites with a pinch of salt.
4. Add 1 teaspoon vegetable oil to a heated nonstick pan. Swirl the oil around so it covers the pan, and then wipe off the excess heated oil with a paper towel so only a thin layer remains on the pan.
5. Turn off the heat. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the pan and tilt it so the mixture spreads thinly. Let it cook for about 1 minute. Flip it over and let it sit on the pan for 1 more minute. Put the cooked egg yolk paper on the cutting board. Roll it a few times and cut it thinly.
6. Make egg white paper with the same method as egg yolk paper and slice it thinly.