Torantang

Korea's clear Chuseok soup of taro and brisket with dried radish greens and seaweed, eaten for the few weeks the corm is in season

Origin: Seoul & the Korean Peninsula

From the journey of Taro.

Toran, 토란, is Sino-Korean 土卵: earth egg, which is a fair description of a peeled taro cormel. The soup made from it belongs to Chuseok, the harvest thanksgiving of the eighth lunar month, and it is one of the few dishes in the Korean repertoire that is genuinely seasonal rather than nominally so. Fresh toran appears in the markets for a matter of weeks in early autumn, and torantang is made and eaten in that window and then not again until the next year. The broth is deliberately plain. Brisket is simmered long enough to give a clear beef stock, seasoned with nothing more assertive than soy sauce for colour, garlic, and salt; there is no chilli, no gochujang, and no fermented paste, which makes it unusual on a Korean table and is the point. Chuseok food leans towards the restrained and the ancestral, and a soup meant for a rite is not made loud. What gives it character instead is texture, and the texture is the taro's. Properly cooked, the corm is soft and faintly slippery in a way Korean cooking values and English struggles to describe without sounding unappealing. Getting there requires the step every Korean cook does first: the peeled corms are parboiled, traditionally in rice-washing water or in salted water, and that liquid is thrown away. It draws out both the sliminess and the irritation together. Every taro-eating culture on earth arrives at some version of this instruction independently, which says something about what happens when it is skipped. The dried radish greens and the sheets of dasima kelp that go in alongside are pantry staples rather than luxuries, and they carry the soup's savour. It is served with rice, with the other Chuseok dishes, and with a bowl put out for the ancestors first.

Ingredients

Soup

  • 700 g toran (taro cormels), peeled
  • 1 tbsp coarse salt, for the parboil
  • 60 g dried radish greens (siraegi), soaked and cut into 5cm lengths

Broth

  • 500 g beef brisket, in one piece
  • 2.5 litres water
  • 1 onion, halved
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 1 piece dasima (dried kelp), 10cm square

Seasoning

  • 3 tbsp soy sauce for soup (guk-ganjang)
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tsp salt, or to taste

To finish

  • 3 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal

Method

  1. Soak the brisket in cold water for thirty minutes and drain it, which draws out the blood and gives a clearer broth.
  2. Peel the toran wearing gloves. The sap causes fierce itching, and the corms are easier to grip dry than wet.
  3. Parboil the peeled toran in salted water for eight minutes, then drain and rinse them and throw the water away. This removes both the sliminess and a good deal of the oxalate, and it is not optional.
  4. Put the brisket, water, onion, and garlic into a large pot, bring to the boil, and skim the grey foam carefully as it rises.
  5. Simmer for one hour, adding the kelp for the last ten minutes only. Kelp left in longer turns the broth bitter and slippery.
  6. Lift out the brisket, the onion, and the kelp. Strain the broth if you want it clear, and slice or tear the beef into bite-sized pieces.
  7. Return the broth to the pot with the parboiled toran and the soaked radish greens and simmer for fifteen minutes.
  8. Test the taro with a skewer. It must be entirely soft through, with no resistance at the centre.
  9. Return the beef, season with the soup soy sauce and salt, and simmer for five minutes more so the seasoning goes into the corms.
  10. Take the pot off the heat, stir in the sesame oil, scatter the spring onions over, and serve hot with rice.

Notes

The parboil in salted or rice-washing water and the discarding of that liquid is the step Korean cooks never skip, and it is what makes the difference between a pleasantly slippery soup and an unpleasantly slimy one. Wear gloves when peeling: raw taro sap causes intense itching that can last a day. Guk-ganjang, the thin soy sauce made for soups, is saltier and lighter in colour than ordinary soy and gives the clarity this broth wants; ordinary soy sauce will darken it. Fresh toran is a short autumn season, and frozen peeled taro from a Korean or Chinese grocer is the year-round substitute. Dried radish greens are sold ready-soaked in Korean shops; if using them dry, soak them overnight and boil them for thirty minutes before they go anywhere near the soup.

The Gastrographer

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