Grilled Eel (Simplified)Jangeo Gui

Jangeo gui has a summer association in Korea. The traditional belief is that eating eel in the hottest months of the year restores energy — a logic that has to do with the eel's high fat content and the idea that fighting heat with warming food keeps the body in balance. Whether or not that holds up, eel restaurants in Korea do their best business in July and August, and there is something about eating fatty grilled fish in humid heat with a bowl of rice that works.

I first cooked jangeo gui at home for a friend named Ieva from Latvia who was visiting Seoul in late August. She had tried unagi in Japan and liked it, and wanted to know how the Korean version compared. The core technique is similar — butterflied eel, glazed and grilled — but Korean jangeo gui uses a sauce built around soy sauce and garlic where Japanese unagi leans toward a sweeter mirin-heavy tare.

The key detail is the skin. Eel skin has enough fat to crisp if you start skin-side down on a properly hot grill pan and resist moving it for the first three minutes. If the pan isn't hot enough or you move the eel too early, the skin steams instead of crisping and the texture suffers.

For home cooks, pre-cleaned butterflied eel is available frozen at most Asian grocery stores labeled as unagi or freshwater eel. Thaw it completely and dry it thoroughly with paper towels before cooking — surface moisture prevents crisping. The glaze recipe here is straightforward: soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine, garlic, and ginger simmered down for five minutes. Brush it on after the first flip, then again with each subsequent flip, building up layers until the eel has a lacquered, slightly sticky surface.

Perilla leaves are optional but add a herbal contrast that cuts through the richness well.