Songsoo Kim’s oyster jook with soy-cured egg, fishcakes with daikon in broth, and crispy jeon (pancake)
An essay about cooking for Alice and Dalai, and recipes for a rainy day. Words and photographs by Songsoo Kim.
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Welcome to Vittles Recipes! In this weekly slot, our roster of six rotating columnists will share their recipes and wisdom with you. This week’s columnist is Songsoo Kim. You can read our archive of cookery writing here.
Cooking for Alice and Dalai
There’s an expression in Korean – 染 – that blames one’s melancholy on the seasons. The verb ‘blame’ may not be adequate: the character 染 is a combination of the characters 氵(‘water’), 九 (‘hook’), and 木 (‘tree’) – to hang (on a hook 九) from a tree (木) in water (氵). Perhaps a better way to think of the concept is as if one is dyed by the season. The verb draws attention to the importance of observing nature’s rhythms, and recognises how our emotions may be completely enmeshed in them.
This winter, I often felt coloured by the season, and regularly wandered into reclusive melancholy. One day, I decide to give this feeling company. I message Alice and Dalai, and ask them if they would like to come over for a meal. Alice and Dalai are from Taiwan, and like me, came to London via the working holiday visa scheme. Now, we have all been in London for more than seven years. With them, I share unspoken understandings that I don’t always have with others – about concepts of home (and where and what home may be), and caring for our ageing parents in a way that is culturally unlike our European peers. I wish to discuss such thoughts with them over a meal – ideas of home-making, distance, and how to make sense of where we find ourselves in the world.
When Alice and Dalai arrive, it’s raining outside. I cook them an oyster jook (congee) with glutinous rice, the flesh of the oyster swimming in the sticky rice amid streaks of soy-cured egg yolk. As we laugh and slurp our jook, they coo at their bowls, signalling to me as if to say, ‘This is great, this is correct.’ The jook is delicate but also rich and distinctive, complex without being too heavy. I also serve a broth with fishcakes and daikon, and a jeon or crispy pancake with julienned leeks and daikon. Alice and Dalai take great comfort in these dishes, switching between the fried pancake and broth, dipping in and out of their bowls. This meal is soothing, and matches the rain outside. I think of how, in Korea, pancakes are eaten when the rain comes.
Our conversation is collage-like. English enables us to speak to one another, but our disjointed communication in it leaves space for feelings more powerful than words. With Alice and Dalai, I share gestures and cultures of care, food, and feelings, products of our shared histories, concerns, and decisions. As we eat and listen to the rain, our chatter dampens my melancholy, infusing it with kinship and meaning. I think about spring, which will have arrived by the time this column is in the world, and about surrendering to the seasons once again.
Oyster jook (congee) with soy-cured egg yolks
This recipe is based on a dish I remember from when I was around thirteen. It was winter, and we had this oyster jook for breakfast in Myeong-dong, Seoul. It may seem unusual to cook oysters, but by warming them gently in the congee, the oysters become super creamy, simultaneously delicate and rich.
Serves 2
Time 1 hr 15 mins plus 1 hr soaking
Ingredients
for the oyster jook
1L chicken or vegetable stock
200g short grain rice, rinsed and soaked in cold water for 1 hr
salt, to taste
4 oysters
for the soy-cured yolks
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
to serve
toasted sesame seeds, roughly crushed
toasted sesame oil