Sungeoguk

A light, refreshing soup featuring mullet (sungeo) and water parsley (minari) in a clear, mildly seasoned broth.

Sungeoguk uses mullet (sungeo) — a somewhat underrated Korean fish with clean, mild flesh — combined with minari (Korean water parsley), one of Korean cooking's most distinctive aromatic herbs. The pairing is almost medicinal in its logic: mullet is traditionally considered cooling and detoxifying in Korean folk medicine, while minari is valued for its liver-cleansing properties, making sungeoguk a soup associated with health and renewal rather than indulgence. The broth is kept deliberately pale and clear, seasoned only with salt and a small amount of soup soy sauce, allowing the herbal freshness of the minari and the clean sweetness of the mullet flesh to express themselves fully. Spring onion and a few pieces of Korean radish may be added for body, but the overall effect is one of restraint and purity. Sungeoguk is particularly associated with spring eating in Korea, when minari is at its freshest and most fragrant and mullet begins to appear in coastal markets. Coastal fishing communities in South Jeolla and around the Yeongsan River estuary, where mullet is caught in abundance, have the most refined versions of this soup.