Fighting a hangover the Korean way with hae jang guk

Korean spine soup Hae jang guk.

We already gave you some tips and tricks to get rid of your hangover. But every country has its own traditional dishes to make the process go faster. We like to give you a taste of the international anti-hangover cuisine. This time we go Asian with the Korean soup called hae jang guk.

Koreans, what can you say about them? Well quite a lot of positive things when it comes to drinking. The Korean drinking culture is simply awesome. First of all in South Korea there is no law against public drunkenness and the residents take full advantage. They say getting drunk is only half the battle. After that the fun really starts when the people try to drink as much as possible until they drop down. Well, this behavior can of course lead to massive hangovers. And that’s where hae jang guk comes in, a soup made drawn from pork spine and ox blood.

Ingredients:
2 kilo pork spine (or neck bones with meat)
2 liter water
1 cup doenjang (Korean soybean paste)
1 onion
14 cloves of garlic
7 green onions
30 gram peeled ginger
2 liter beef broth
10 black pepper seeds (whole or cracked)
1 Korean white radish (daikon)
8 leaves of Chinese cabbage
150 gram gosari (fern bracken and fern sprouts)
2 chili peppers (red or green)
2 tablespoons red chili paste (gochujang)
60 grams of oyster mushrooms (neutari beoseot)
100 grams shiitake mushrooms (pyogo beoseot)
4 tablespoons red chili pepper
250 gram soy bean sprouts
60 grams enoki mushrooms (paengi beoseot)
125 mililiter ox blood

Preparation:
Step 1
Place the spine bones in a large cooking pot and cover with cold water. Let it soak for 2 hours, than throw away the water. Cover the bones with 2 liter water and bring it to boil over high heat. Let it boil for 5 minutes. Throw away the water.

Step 2
Now rub the pork bones with the soybean paste and leave it for 10 minutes. Prepare the vegetables: cut the white onion in quarters. Peel and cut the ginger in 2 or 3 pieces. Cut 6 garlic cloves in half. Slice one green onion in half from top to bottom (only the white part).
Put the pork bones back in the pot and cover it with the beef broth. Bring it to a boil, than reduce to a simmer. Add the vegetables of this step. Let it simmer for 2 hours. Add water from time to time to maintain 3/4 of the liquid. Carefully remove the bones from the broth, strain it into a second pot and throw away the vegetables.

Step 3
soak the dried gosari in cold water for half an hour to an hour. Than rinse and drain. Cut the white radish in slices. Rinse the Chinese cabbage in cold water and cut into slices. Cut the 8 remaining garlic cloves in in half. Slice the chili peppers. Cut the oyster mushrooms to bite size.
If the shiitake mushrooms are dried, rinse them in cold water and re-hydrate them with broth. Than cut them in half. Also rinse the soy bean sprouts in cold water. Mix the ox blood with a cup of water and a teaspoon of salt.
Pu the bones back in the pot and add the strained broth and the blood mix and bring it to a boil. Add the gosari and radish and wait for 3 to 5 minutes. Than add the other mentioned ingredients and let it cook for another 5 minutes.
Poor the soup in bowls and put a bunch of enoki mushrooms and cut green onions on top.

Micky Bumbar

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