Hwangtae (freeze-dried pollack)

Hwangtae (lieu d’Alaska séché au gel)

What it is

On the deokjang racks of Yongdae-ri in Inje, pollack hang through the winter, freezing at night to around −10 °C and thawing by day, twenty times or more over three or four months, until the flesh has turned yellow and porous. The ice crystals do the work: they tear the muscle into fibres that plain drying never produces.

In the kitchen

Beat the dried fish or roll it hard to open the fibres, soak twenty minutes and squeeze — the squeezed water is bitter, the fish is not. Fry it in sesame oil before you add any liquid and the soup comes out milky instead of thin.

Goes with

Doenjang Gochugaru Egg Toasted sesame oil Garlic Daikon Spring onion

Same species

Cod Cod liver Cod tongues Mentaiko Salt cod Smoked cod roe

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