Wednesday Gourmet (Wednesday Food Talk / 수요미식회)

Welcome to the 206th episode of Wednesday Food Talk.

Welcome. - Welcome.

Let me introduce today's guests.

She's an actress who always plays a lovely and cute girl's role.

Lovely actress, Shin Da Eun.

Da Eun, you have a deep friendship with Seok Jin.

He arranged a match for you.

Yes. - Seok Jin introduced Sung Bin.

Arranging a match sounds so old.

I just introduced them to each other.

You're right.

Did you go out with Da Eun and her husband?

We went to eat together. - You went to the restaurants.

So they are really close.

I asked her if she went to eat with Seok Jin.

The first thing she said was, "I'm so sick of him."

They hang out all the time.

Next, we have the best fishcake expert in Korea.

Please welcome food columnist, Park Sang Hyun.

Nice to meet you.

Let me tell you today's theme first.

You have this since childhood. You always have it...

with tteokbokki.

Sometimes you wouldn't be able to eat tteokbokki without it.

A bite of this with hot soup...

will warm your body and soul.

Today's theme is fishcake.

Food columnist Park Sang Hyun has been conducting...

research on fishcakes for about 10 years in Korea.

He's the best fishcake expert.

How did you start with your fishcake research?

I didn't intend to study on fishcakes at first.

About 10 years ago, I wrote a column about old restaurants...

that were more than 50 years old on a daily newspaper in Busan.

I found out that nobody had...

recorded history of Busan fishcakes.

I suddenly got responsible to do that somehow.

That's when I started to study about fishcakes.

I still study about them today.

His nickname is "fishcake".

What? His nickname? - He's Fishcake Park Sang Hyun.

Is this true? - So it's his nickname.

We really call him that.

Busan's really well known for fishcakes.

Fishcakes are the most famous specialty in Busan.

I heard that they put fishcakes...

in soups for memorial service in Busan.

In fact, nobody does that in Seoul.

They usually serve taro soup...

during memorial services in Seoul.

Busan serves beef radish soup.

There's beef.

They also put roasted fishcakes...

into that soup.

Roasted fishcakes get wrinkled on the outside.

The soup gets clear with them.

That's why they put those in the beef radish soup.

Instead of beef, they put...

fishcakes in japchae too.

So this tradition still continues today.

One of Busan's specialties is spicy glass noodles.

Right.

They always put fishcakes on top of spicy glass noodles.

People in Busan are not the only ones who love fishcakes.

Stir-fried fishcake is everyone's favorite side dish.

I used to bring it to school in my lunch box.

Rich kids brought hams.

I remember my mother packing me a lunch box...

full of fishcakes because we couldn't afford to buy hams.

Come on.

My mouth always smelled fishy then.

Everyone had it in their lunch box.

I'm sure you all had it as a side dish before, right?

I make stir-fried fishcakes...

with onions and potatoes.

For my case,

my mom added Cheongyang chili too.

So it wasn't too greasy.

It was light and spicy that it increased my appetite.

I see. - Cheongyang chili.

How did you enjoy it?

Stir-fried fishcake? - Yes.

Actually, I didn't like to eat...

fishcakes before. - We called for the wrong guest.

But after I got married, I learned that...

my husband loves it so much.

He is crazy about fishcakes.

So I started to enjoy it as I made it at home for him.

It's probably about 10 years ago.

At some point, they started to add crabs in the fishcake soup.

I felt like I was in a premium restaurant.

You're right. - It's like premium fishcake soup.

I felt like having some premium food on street.

Some crabs are as old as their owners.

Oh, come on.

They keep using those crabs over and over again?

You didn't mean that.

They brew those crabs for a long time.

When you have fishcakes on street,

they serve the soup in paper cups.

But back in those days,

they used to serve it in some red plastic cups.

I've seen a lot of those before. - You have?

Some people drink with those red cups when they drink alcohol.

The lady told him that he shouldn't touch it with his mouth.

He then just rinsed it in the soup.

I remember those times.

But that was the fun part too.

How we dip it with soy sauce has changed too.

We all used to share the same pot of soy sauce before.

We dipped it in the same sauce.

That's right. - The sauce got diluted.

The content got increased because it got watery too.

The soy sauce never gets decreased.

They keep adding the soup to the soy sauce.

That's how they used to sell before.

But it was unhygienic.

Then they made people to use a brush for the soy sauce.

Recently, they use a bottle of soy sauce spray. That's hygienic.

I like that spray bottle idea. - Right. It's a great idea.

When I was young,

I felt uncomfortable to share the soy sauce with strangers.

But these days, I just spray it.

So it's really easy and simple now.

You can control the amount of soy sauce too.

I still have a question about this.

What? - When I was in high school,

my mother used to make...

fishcake soup at home.

Fishcake soup. - Homemade fishcake soup...

and the one sold on street taste completely different.

For me, when I have hangover...

I don't feel like eating.

The only thing I can take is fishcake soup.

I tried every possible way...

to make it taste like the one sold on street.

I tried adding all sorts of stuff.

But it won't taste like the one...

I enjoyed on street.

Why is it so? - It's simple.

It's the hours of making the broth.

It's the numbers of fishcakes.

The one that they make on street...

gets heated from the start.

It's boiled the whole day.

They keep adding fishcakes...

when the old ones get sold.

So the soup gets richer with fishcake flavors.

You can't make something like that at home.

You can find a special seasoning...

for fishcake soup in supermarkets these days.

Goodness. - It's very simple.

Does it taste like the one on street?

It's pretty much the same. - Really?

No matter how many radish pieces you put in your homemade soup,

it won't taste like the street one. But you can just add that seasoning.

I think it's okay to add...

a bit of that seasoning to make it delicious.

You're right. - It's not as bad as we think.

They sell it because it's edible.

Beside that seasoning,

is there any other way...

to make fishcake soup taste like the one sold on street?

There are some ways.

Moms probably would use this method...

because our palates are used to the food from outside.

Especially, dishes like fishcake soup remain...

in our memories because we've often had the broth from outside.

To make this dish at home, you just need to remember four things.

Radish, anchovies, - Radish.

green onion, and onion.

As for the radishes, it's better to slice them into big chunks...

and keep simmering the broth with them.

That way, the broth gets really sweet and tastier.

If you boil anchovies for more than 20 minutes, it might get fishy.

And they would make the broth taste bitter too.

So you should take out the anchovies.

2 or 3 minutes before turning off the stove,

make cuts on Cheongyang chili peppers and add them to the broth.

If you do that, it's not spicy. - Right.

It makes the broth taste sweet.

The broth becomes sweet, not spicy.

The flavor of Cheongyang chili peppers can bring together...

all the other ingredients.