Jongol

 

In cold winter it is natural to want a hot food which can keep the body warm, and jongol (casserole), a traditional Korean food, is particularly appropriate for the purpose. You can eat meat, fish, vegetable and other materials while boiling them in a single casserole dish, adding the soup little by little. It is one of the Korean dishes based on unique cuisine.

The origin of jongol has the following story.

In the winter of one year soldiers of Koguryo (277 BC-AD 668) waged a fierce battle for several days to repulse foreign invaders. Finally they won the battle and began to prepare their supper. But as the battle was fought in a place far away from the rear, their provisions had run out. Only a few soldiers had some foods they had left half-eaten. The foods, however, were too cold and hard to eat. Still worse, the soldiers had not any vessels to boil the foods in again, for they lost their ovens and other cooking utensils during the battle. Then they decided to boil the foods in a jonrip similar to an iron helmet. When the foods began to boil, the soldiers, unable to bear hunger, chose and ate boiled foods with relish. As the foods tasted unusually good, they later prepared meals in such a way. And the dish began to be called jongol and developed through generations into a famous national dish of Korea.

Jongol can be served in two ways: one is to give the materials and a casserole dish to the customers to cook it themselves; and the other is to give them the already-boiled dish.

It is divided into beef, chicken or squid jongol.

Cuisine of beef jongol is as follows:

Keep minced beef spiced with seasonings for about 30 minutes. Slice or rip Songi mushrooms lengthwise. Slice an onion and cut spinach and a Welsh onion into proper sizes. Then put a casserole dish on fire to heat it and spread oil in it. Saute minced beef in it and add the mushroom, onion, spinach and Welsh onion in turn along with a bowl of meat soup. Boil it with seasonings and add eggs. When the dish is half done, ladle it into bowls to eat.

Chicken jongol is boiled in the same way.

As to squid jongol, put spiced squids in the boiling soup to be parboiled. Then take the squids out to dip them in the whisked egg before eating.

From of old it has been commonplace to add sinsollo or jongol to a feast in Korea.

You will relish jongol tasting a harmoniously combined flavour of different kinds of materials.

As the dish digests well and is highly nutritive, it was registered as national intangible cultural heritage.