Daegu-jjigae (Cod Stew)

Cod is a cold-month fish. Cook the month you're standing in. When daegu (cod) is firm, heavy, and bright-eyed at the market, this stew asks for very little: good broth, radish cut thick enough to sweeten, and a cook who won't boil the fish to cotton.

This is not a gochujang stew. Some homes make it redder, and that's their table, but the version I write here is clear and peppery, closer to daegu-jiri (clear cod soup) than maeuntang (spicy fish stew). The radish goes in first because it needs time. The cod goes in last because it has none to spare.

My teacher would press a chopstick into the thickest piece of fish and say nothing. If it separated cleanly, the pot left the fire. If you wait until the broth looks dramatic, you've already lost the cod. Write down the minute your fish flakes, because thickness changes everything. Memory is a borrowed bowl.