Kongnamul-guk (Soybean Sprout Soup)

Kongnamul-guk lives or dies by the lid. Keep it on from the moment the sprouts go in until they are cooked, or keep it off the whole time. Lift it halfway and the sprouts turn sharp and bean-smelling, and then the whole pot tells on you.

This is weeknight soup, morning soup, after-a-long-day soup. My mother made it when rice was already in the cooker and nobody had patience for a stew. Soybean sprouts, a clean anchovy-kelp broth, garlic, soup soy sauce, scallion. That is enough. The broth should stay light, and the sprouts should still snap a little under the teeth. Let it taste like itself.

Notebook 19 says 250 grams of sprouts to 6 cups of broth, with 1 tablespoon guk-ganjang (Korean soup soy sauce) and 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt. That measure gives you a soup you can eat beside rice without tiring of it. 손맛 is real. I still measure it, so it can be handed on.