Hwangtae-haejangguk (Dried Pollock Hangover Soup)

Hwangtae-haejangguk lives or dies in the first five minutes, before it looks like soup at all. Tear the dried pollock with your hands, moisten it, then toast it in sesame oil with garlic until the fish relaxes and the pan smells nutty. Only then do you add water or broth. Skip that step and you get fish in hot water. Do it properly and the soup turns pale, almost milky, with a sweetness that dried fish keeps hidden until you coax it out.

This is haejangguk (hangover soup), but not the fierce kind that tries to wake you by force. It is the morning-after bowl for people who need steadiness: hwangtae (dried pollock), kongnamul (soybean sprouts), radish, scallion, and egg if the house wants it richer. The bean sprouts must cook with one rule: lid on the whole time or lid off the whole time. My teacher would tap the pot lid with her spoon if a student reached for it. Half-cooked sprouts meeting cold air make a smell no seasoning can repair.

Notebook 41 says 60 grams of torn hwangtae to 6 cups of liquid feeds four people generously. That looks like too much fish when it is dry and too little once it softens, which is why we write it down. Season lightly with guk-ganjang (soup soy sauce) and salt at the end. Let it taste like itself, clean fish, sprout, radish, and a little sesame oil holding the bowl together.