Soon Du Bu (aka Soon Doo Boo) is a spicy anchovy based stew with chunks of super soft tofu and other vegetables. Most Soon Du Bu specialty restaurants will give you a bunch of options. You can choose to get white (no spicy seasonings), mild, medium, hot, or a bean paste based soup, similar to miso. They even give you the option to add mushrooms, seafood, pork, beef, Kimchi, or a combination of the aforementioned ingredients. I threw in whatever I had on hand for this particular recipe.
This stone bowl keep the soup nice and hot so that it doesn’t get cold as you eat. As you can see, it totally fogged up my camera lens, and continued to bubble for a good 10 minutes.
When it’s cold outside, there is nothing more comforting than eating soups! This is one of my favorite soups and I have a feeling I will be eating a lot of it this winter! Won’t you join me in this endeavor of eating delicious Soon Du Bu at home? 
Feel free to add ground beef, or ground pork, or your favorite seafood to this recipe. Also, check out my other recipes for Korean Soups.
Makes 3-4 servings
Ingredients:
1/2 pound of fresh shrimp, peeled and cleaned
1/2 cup of fermented Kimchi, cut into strips
1 package of silken tofu (usually in tubes)
1 package of Enoki mushrooms
1 cup of shittake mushrooms
1/2 of a medium onion, diced into cubes
10 pieces of dry anchovies
2 tablespoons of Asian red pepper flakes (gochugaru) (use less if you don’t want it to be spicy)
1.5 tablespoons of diced salted shrimp (or fish sauce)
1 egg
2 teaspoons of canola oil
2 teaspoons of minced garlic
2 sprigs of scallions, diced
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
Procedure:
1. Boil 3 cups of water in a large pot with anchovies. After it has come to a boil, lower heat and simmer, for about 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a frying pan over low heat, add oil and red pepper flakes. Continue stirring until you see more oil in the pan than you’ve started with and the red pepper flakes are a bit dark in color. Be sure to keep the heat at a minimum as the burnt red pepper flakes will taste bitter. Add garlic and saute for another couple of minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Add mushrooms to the broth and simmer on low for another 10 minutes.
4. Discard anchovies. Take out shiitake mushrooms and place in a bowl.
5. Add salted shrimp (smells bad but tastes amazing), shrimp, onion, kimchi to the broth over medium heat. Add sesame oil.
6. Add red pepper flake oil to the broth, along with tofu and Enoki mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes, covered.
7. Chop up cooled shittake mushrooms and add to the broth.
8. Whisk egg in a bowl, then pour into soup.
9. Add scallions and serve!
Update: My friend Sam told me that cooking down the ingredients in frying pan first made a big difference in flavor and I totally agree! I sauteed the onions in a frying pan first and it gave the soup a nice, seasoned taste.
You can buy it at any Korean grocery store!
September 14, 2009
wow u made that look so easy…