Bugeoguk 북어국

This is such a simple, light and tasty soup. You need good quality wind-dried Alaska pollock, pre-shredded. I bought a packet in Korea, but sadly I just finished the whole packet. I'm sure this will be available outside Korea. The Korean name of the fish is myeongtae (명태).

Tear 60 grams of dried pollack into 6 cm long pieces (this just means halving the pre-shredded pollack) and fry these for a minute or so in a tablespoon of pure sesame oil with a couple of diced cloves of garlic.

Add 1,25 litter of water to the pan and Korean radish (mu 무) cut in bite sized pieces. Boil for 20 minutes until the radish is cooked. Add 2 tablespoons of Korean fish sauce, simmer for a couple of more minutes. Pour a beaten egg into the boiling soup and only stir after the egg has set. Turn off the heat and add fresh spring onion. Serve with white rice, which you can add to the soup halfway for a more substantial meal.

Bugeo (북어) – dried Alaska pollock

You can also make a somewhat similar soup with hwangtae, made by drying Alaska pollack during winter and allowing it to undergo natural freeze-thaw cycles.

Hwangtae (황태) – "yellow" Alaska pollock drying during winter with repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Photo shared under CC BY 2.5 licensing: http://blog.daum.net/sansanaiys/2935

Snert

You will need:

500 gram split peas.
A piece of pork hock or ham hock [Dutch: hamschijf], about 500 gram, or two pig's trotters. Note: hamschijf is neither smoked nor cured.
100 gram streaky bacon [Dutch: zuurkoolspek], salted but not smoked, preferrably with rind.
One smoked sausage [Dutch: rookworst].
2 large onions, chopped.
1 large carrot.
2 leeks.
1 celeriac [Dutch: knolselderie].
2 potatoes.
1 bunch of fresh leaf celery.
Black pepper and salt according to taste.
2 litres of water to start with.

Serve with Rye bread ('pumpernickel') and slices of 'katenspek' (lightly streaked pork, first boiled and then smoked black).

How to make split pea soup

Start the day before. Wash the split peas, add 2 litres of water and bring to a boil adding the meat, excluding the 'rookworst'. Remove the thick layer of foam, which will form. Discard the water. Add clean water and bring to a boil again.

Cut the celeriac, onion and potato in small cubes; the carrot in 'half moons'. Cut the leeks 'cross wise', like a feather stick. Add all vegetables (but not the leaf celery) and simmer for 1,5 tot 3 hours.

Remove the meat and cut in small pieces and remove the bones. Pork hock contains an amazing amount of fatty skin. Perfect for an hungry 19th century farmer, maybe not so great for a 21st century city dweller. Discard some of the fat. Return the boiled meat to the pot.

Add the 'rookworst' and a handful of chopped leaf celery. Season with salt and pepper and leave overnight.