Fish Cake Soup (Odeng Soup) is one of the most favorite comfort food for Koreans. It can be enjoyed by itself or goes wonderfully with bunsik style foods like tteokbokki and spicy bibim noodles.
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Fish Cake Soup - Korean Odeng Guk[/caption]
Fish cake soup is also known as Odeng Guk or Eomuk Guk in Korea. The word Odeng originally comes from the Japanese word Oden (おでん) ('Japanese one-pot winter dish consisting of several ingredients such as boiled eggs, daikon, konjac (kelp), and processed fishcakes stewed in a light, soy-flavored dashi broth' Wikipedia). There's a slight change in meaning here though.. Japanese Oden refers to the one-pot dish containing fish cakes whereas in Korean culture, Odeng refers to the fish cake ITSELF. Eomuk on the other hand is the pure Korean word, with Eo meaning fish, Muk meaning cake like state, similarly used in the name Dotori-muk.
Interestingly, even though these two soups are basically called the same thing, the Korean and Japanese fish cake soups taste somewhat different. Both soups start with the same basic dashi broth made from dried anchovies, radish and kelp but it is seasoned differently. Japanese style oden soup has a darker color because it's seasoned mostly with Japanese dark soy sauce and will be sweeter tasting. Korean style eomuk guk (어묵국) is lighter in color and is seasoned with both salt and Korean soup soy sauce (guk ganjang). Both taste good in their own way but with Korean bunsik, the Korean style eomuk guk definitely tastes better together. 😉
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