Korea is a country with a variety of food, right? There are many delicious foods, and the taste is rich. Are there any foods that your friends living in Korea haven't eaten yet? I have a lot TT. Among the types of Korean food, I personally like the steamed type the most. Steamed chicken, steamed kimchi, etc. are rice thieves. The food I want to introduce today is steamed algae, but you probably don't know many friends. It's Korean agujjim!

What kind of food is agujjim?

Agujjim is a Korean dish stir-fried monkfish and bean sprouts in a spicy gochujang-based base. Anglerfish is the name of a fish. For ugly fish =.=”. Unlike its ugly appearance, it tastes good and is treated as a delicacy. The chewy and soft texture of the meat is an advantage, but in fact, if you look at the 'taste of the flesh itself', anglerfish is a mild fish that has neither this nor that taste. There is also a place where gujjim is called 'steamed bean sprouts'. In addition to anglerfish, most places put other seafood (midodeok, shrimp, clam, and mandoongi). The cooking method is the same as steamed seafood. It is called 'steamed', but in actual cooking, it is not steamed in a steamer, but rather fried in a frying pan.

Origin of steamed agu

In the Incheon area, when fishermen caught an anglerfish, they threw it into the sea on the spot, saying it was ugly, and it was called Multeombeong. The origin of this is called 'Multeombeongi', an Incheon-style steamed monkfish made with living things. There is 'Multeombeongi Alley' in Yonghyeon-dong, Michuhol-gu, Incheon. This is the type of steamed monkfish made with raw monkfish that people in the metropolitan area think of.

An elderly woman with a lump who used to boil and sell eel soup in Masan, Gyeongsangnam-do said that one cold winter day, fishermen caught angler fish and asked her to make side dishes with this fish. The lump-beaked grandmother stared at the mucus-producing angler for a long time and then said, 'Why do you eat such a snotty fish?' and threw it out. It is said that the anglerfish froze and thawed in the cold winter weather as it was thrown, and when it dried well, a lump-beaked grandmother cooked the anglerfish using the method of making braised pollack fish and fed it to regular customers.

Characteristics of Agu-jjim

It's spicy and chewy, so it goes well with soju, cheongha, and makgeolli. It doesn't go well with beer. Monkfish stew is quite spicy. In fact, the distinction between steamed seafood and steamed monkfish is different only in the type of seafood used, so it is safe to say that they are the same dish. Anglerfish meat is white, strong, and light, so most people eat it well. However, the flesh around the skin, mouth, head, and fins has a lot of mucilage and cartilage, making it slippery and stretchy, and the shape is disgusting, so people who don't like it can't eat it. After eating steamed monkfish (even if you don't eat it all), there are many cases of making stir-fried fried rice using leftover bean sprouts and seasoning!.

If you are curious about the taste of agu-jjim, find a restaurant that sells agu-jjim in your neighborhood and go. I would like to recommend it to a fish-loving friend. The fish is a little ugly, but I like the taste of monkfish meat. Try the fried rice as well.