Kongguk (Cold Soy Milk Soup)

The first hard heat of summer is when kongguk belongs on the table. In the market, dried yellow soybeans sit in plain sacks, cheaper than meat and more patient than fish, and a cook with a blender can turn them into a cold bowl that feeds the body without heating the room. Cook the month you're standing in. This is summer food, and it should be served so cold the bowl beads with water.

People call it soy milk and think the work is only blending. No. Kongguk lives or dies in the boiling. Soak the beans, boil them just until the skins rub loose and the center tastes cooked, then stop. Boil them to softness and the soup goes dull and chalky; undercook them and the raw bean taste follows you all the way to the table. My teacher Master Seong-nyeo made me split a bean with my fingernail before she let me turn off the heat. Not pretty. Accurate.

Salt comes after chilling, because cold mutes seasoning and each batch of beans drinks water differently. I give 3/4 teaspoon for four cups of soup, then each person may add a pinch at the table. If your family takes sugar, measure that too. Serve kongguk as a small cold soup with cucumber and ice, or pour it over noodles another day and call the meal done, but don't make it thin. This bowl should carry its own weight.