Cold Seafood Bowl: Spicy Korean Mulhoe

Mulhoe, the cold seafood dish I crave when summer starts

These days it is warm enough at midday to head out in a T-shirt, and around this time there is one dish I always start thinking about: mulhoe. It is a Korean cold seafood bowl made by tossing fresh raw fish in a spicy, tangy sauce, then pouring over an icy chilled broth. Some places even serve it with ice bobbing on top, so the first spoonful feels like the heat just backs off straight away. This is actually an old story, from more than ten years ago, I reckon. At the start of summer, I had mulhoe with a mate near Sintanjin in Daejeon, a city in central Korea, and I still remember that bowl. So today I am going back to that meal.

Before the mulhoe came out — starting with the side dishes

Before the mulhoe arrived, the side dishes came out first, and one of them was steamed clams covered in cream sauce. A white plate was piled with clams, with thick cream sauce running down over the top. I did not expect something like that at a mulhoe place, but my mate picked one up first, opened it and went, “This is good,” then just kept cracking through them on his own.

There was also daseulgi, a tiny freshwater snail, braised with dried chillies. It tasted salty with a mild little kick. You pick the meat out with a toothpick, and weirdly enough, your hand keeps going back for more. The only letdown was the serving size. The plate disappeared so quickly that there was not much left to do before the mulhoe arrived.

The mulhoe finally arrived — first impression

The mulhoe finally came out. In a clear glass bowl, shredded carrot, cucumber, red cabbage, pear, perilla leaves and cabbage were arranged around the edge, while the mulhoe ingredients sat in the middle. The seafood and raw fish had been mixed with a spicy red sauce, then sprinkled with sesame seeds. The colours were so full-on that I stared for a while before even picking up my chopsticks. You finish mulhoe by pouring cold broth over it and mixing everything together, but I will get to that part in a bit.

What is mulhoe?

Mulhoe seafood — sea cucumber, sea squirt and clam meat

I took a closer photo. The dark chunk in the centre was sea cucumber, and its soft, wobbly texture really divides people. Next to it, the orange piece mixed through the sauce was sea squirt, called meongge in Korean. It has a strong ocean flavour that fills your mouth straight away, so first-timers can get a bit shocked. That was exactly my mate. He had never tried sea squirt before, picked up a piece, put it in his mouth, then his eyes went wide like, “What is this flavour?” I asked whether he liked it or hated it, and he said, “…both.” The clam meat was sliced thinly and hiding between the sauce. It was chewy with a slight sweetness, so out of the three, it was the easiest one to eat. Because sea cucumber, sea squirt and clam meat were tucked between the vegetables, it was kind of fun not knowing what would come up on each spoonful.

Sea snail and pear

This was thinly sliced sea snail, or sora in Korean. The round slices had that clear dark edge, which is the look sea snail tends to have. When you bite into it, it is chewy and slightly nutty, and the flavour hangs around for quite a while. The yellow strips next to it were pear. It was crisp and sweet, so once mixed with the spicy sauce, it helped reset the mouth a bit. At first I found it odd that fruit went into mulhoe, but after trying it mixed through, I reckon the dish would feel a bit empty without it.

Sea squirt and sea cucumber — mulhoe ingredients people love or hate

I zoomed in on the centre. The orange, bumpy-looking bit was sea squirt, and the black, slippery-looking bit was sea cucumber. With whole sesame seeds scattered over the top, it did look pretty decent in its own way. But honestly, if you are seeing it for the first time, the look can be a bit confronting. My mate actually asked, “Are you sure this is food?”

Mulhoe vegetables — perilla, cabbage, carrot and fruit

Perilla leaves — the Korean vegetable many foreigners struggle with

The perilla leaves were shredded and piled up on one side. For Koreans, this is a very familiar vegetable. They wrap barbecue meat in it, serve it as a side dish, and use it in dishes like mulhoe too. But it is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it ingredient. Koreans tend to find it fragrant, while many foreigners find the aroma too strong at first. Later on, when my wife first came to Korea, she smelled perilla and said, “Isn’t this some kind of medicinal herb?” then pushed it to the side of the plate. Now she feels like something is missing if there is no perilla. She said it took her about half a year to get used to it. In mulhoe, that perilla aroma helps cut through the fishy smell from the seafood and the spicy sauce. If you leave it out, the flavour changes quite a bit.

Cabbage and carrot

Cabbage and carrot do not need much explaining. They were sliced finely and added for crunch when everything was mixed. Without those two, you would just have seafood and sauce, which could get a bit much pretty quickly. Because there was something crisp in the bowl, I could finish the whole thing without getting tired of it.

Apple and cucumber

The apple was also cut into thin matchstick-like strips. There was pear already, and with apple added too, the sweetness became much richer. Between the spicy sauce, that cool fruit sweetness kept popping up and made the mouth feel refreshed again. The pale green strips at the back were cucumber, which was there for crunch. I did not know at first that mulhoe used this many vegetables and fruits, but once you eat it, you realise they all have a job to do.

Red cabbage and onion

Red cabbage and onion were also taking up one side of the bowl. The red cabbage had such a vivid purple colour that it really lifted the look of the whole mulhoe. The white onion was sliced thinly nearby, and once mixed through, that sharp bite came up and worked well with the sauce.

How to eat mulhoe — pour in cold broth and mix

Now I will show you how to eat mulhoe. We poured in the cold broth and mixed everything through. The pretty arrangement from earlier completely disappeared, and the vegetables and seafood got tangled up in a spicy red broth, turning into a totally different dish. Honestly, it looked much better before mixing, but this is where the flavour really starts. Scoop up a big spoonful and you might get sea cucumber, sea squirt, apple and perilla all at once. In your mouth, it bursts into something spicy, cold and refreshing. My mate watched me mix it and said, “Why would you do that to something that looked so nice?” I told him this was how you were meant to eat it, but he still looked a bit sad about it.

I used the ladle to turn everything over from the bottom. The sauce sinks, so you cannot just stir the top and call it done. After a few big turns, the carrot, apple and perilla were all coated in red sauce, and it finally looked like proper mulhoe. One thing, though: the seasoning was a bit salty. The broth diluted it, but the first one or two spoonfuls hit with saltiness before the spice even had a chance.

Mulhoe somyeon — finishing with noodles in the leftover broth

Once you have eaten a fair bit of the mulhoe, the classic finish is to order somyeon, thin wheat noodles, and add them to the leftover broth. They came on a plate in small rolled portions, with a little sesame sprinkled on top. Drop them into the mulhoe broth, mix them through, and the spicy seafood flavour soaks right into the noodles. It becomes almost like another meal. My mate said he liked the somyeon more than the mulhoe itself. Since the broth had all that seafood flavour in it, it was on a different level from noodles simply mixed with sauce.

When you add somyeon to the broth

There was more somyeon than I expected. At first I got greedy and put it all in at once, then by the end I was getting a bit over it. It would have been better to add half first and keep the rest for later, but I did not know that at the time. The white bundle of noodles floated on top of the red broth, and as I lifted it, bits of vegetables and seafood from the bottom came up too. It felt like eating mulhoe a second time, just in noodle form.

About A$45 for two, then the quiet trip home

As we left, I asked my mate what he thought. He said, “Everything was good except the sea squirt.” So in the end, he never really got used to that flavour. I actually liked the sea squirt the most, which says a lot about mulhoe. Even when two people share the same bowl, each person ends up fishing out different bits. From memory, the two of us paid around 40,000 won, about A$45, including the mulhoe and somyeon. Considering how much seafood was in it, it did not feel like a waste at all. On the way back, neither of us talked much. Maybe we were full, or maybe the cold broth had made us a bit sleepy and relaxed. The restaurant we visited back then is gone now, but there are still plenty of mulhoe places around Daejeon if you search for them. Even now, whenever the weather starts warming up, I think of that cold seafood bowl: spicy, icy and honestly pretty good.