Spicy Chicken SoupDakgaejang

Yukgaejang — the beef version — gets most of the attention, but dakgaejang, made with chicken, was the version I grew up eating more often. Chicken thighs are cheaper and faster, and the broth from boiling them has a gentler richness that works beautifully with gochugaru.

The process has a satisfying logic: you boil the chicken first, building a light broth as the base. Then you remove the chicken, shred it, and add the spice directly to the same broth — gochugaru, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil. The broth turns from pale yellow to vivid red. Then the shredded chicken and bean sprouts go back in, and finally you drizzle beaten egg in a thin stream while stirring, which creates soft, wispy egg strands throughout.

I made it for a German friend named Markus who was visiting Korea and had mentioned he liked spicy food. He watched me shred the cooked chicken by hand — pulling it apart along the grain — and asked why I didn't cut it. I said hand-shredded chicken has a different texture in the soup, more surface area for the broth to cling to, more varied lengths. He tried both methods on a small piece and agreed the shredded version absorbed more flavor.

Markus said the egg drizzle technique reminded him of Chinese egg drop soup. I told him it had the same logic but ends up tasting completely different — the Korean broth is much spicier and the egg strands are thinner because you stir faster. He ate two bowls and asked where he could buy gochugaru to take home. That felt like the right outcome.