쇠고기무국 요리했다 ~ I cooked Korean beef-radish soup!

I finally decided to try making one of my school lunch favorites at home. 

쇠고기무국! 

(Beef Radish Soup)

Step 1: Prep your ingredients

Prepping the ingredients you need is quite simple: 

1. Thinly slice a shiitake mushroom - I used various mushrooms.
2. Wash and cube 2 C worth of Korean radish 
3. Cut green onions at a slant - It's supposed to be the bigger kind, but small is all I had. It still gave the same taste.
4. Thaw and have a 1/2 C worth of beef chunks ready to go - I used maybe a 3/4 C of beef.
5. Have your minced garlic, soup soy sauce, and sesame oil set aside. 
6. Prepare 3 Cups of rice water. - This is the cloudy water that remains after rinsing your rice.

Start Cooking

First, turn the stove on medium heat and place 2 teaspoons worth of sesame oil in your pot. Once it is hot, toss your meat in and brown the sides.

The radish cubes come next, add them to your pot and stir them around for a few seconds until they are slightly clear. 

Next, you should add your three cups of rice water to the pot, stir, and simmer it all covered for about 10 minutes or until the radishes become soft. 

After checking that the radishes are soft, you should add your seasonings to the pot. This includes a 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic (or more to taste) and 3 teaspoons of the dark soup soy sauce. Give it a good stir. 

You may need to skim some of the foam off the top of the soup to yield a clearer broth. 

The final step is to throw your mushrooms and onions into the pot and to boil everything together for approximately 2 minutes. That's it! Super simple! 

Once your soup is done cooking, you can add pepper to taste and eat it along with rice and any other side dishes you feel like having. 

As for myself, I chose to have my soup with a side of rice, kimchi, braised black beans, and tofu (all of which I bought from the mart near my school). It was a super tasty and satisfying dinner that didn't take me forever to make. If you make extra like I did, it also tastes even better the following day ~~

Yay for my cooking adventures! 😁

All thanks go to the forever useful website Future Dish, whose beef-radish soup recipe is the one I followed to make my dinner tonight. Delicious, simple, and easy to follow directions make for the best recipes in my opinion, and the step by step video reassures me that I am doing it right.