I’m very excited to introduce you to this popular Korean side dish, “godeungeo-mujorim,” which is braised mackerel and radish in soy sauce based broth. Along with grilled mackerel, this is the most popular way of cooking mackerel in Korean cuisine.
I love not only the fish but also the cooked radish. The texture of the cooked radish is soft, juicy, and a little sweet and salty. When you cook this dish, expect your house to be full of a delicious aroma that might lead your neighbors to knock at your door and say with sniff sniff:
“Where does this delicious smell come from? It makes me go crazy! uh? Is this mackerel? Holy mackerel! It looks so tasty! Can you share some with me?”
For 4 servings
Cooking time: 50-60 minutes
Ingredients
Mackerel, soy sauce, sugar, hot pepper flakes, garlic, ginger, Korean radish (or daikon), onion, green onions, green and red chili peppers.
Directions
Prepare 2 medium sized fresh or frozen mackerel (750 grams, or 1.7 pounds). Thaw them out if frozen.
- Cut off the fins and heads.
- Make a slit from the top to the vent and clean the guts.
- Cut the fish across into 2 inch pieces, rinse in cold water, drain, and set aside
Prepare your vegaetables:
- Peel a large, heavy Korean radish. Cut 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) worth of radish into pieces 2 inch wide, 2½ inch long, and 1 inch thick.
- Add the radish pieces to a large thick bottomed pot with. Spread them out evenly, by hand.
- 1 large onion or 2 medium sized onions (about 400 grams’, or 2 cups’ worth), cut into ¼ inch thick slices and place over the radish.
- Cut 3 stalks of green onions into pieces 1 inch long, and chop 2 green chili peppers and 1 red chili pepper. Set aside
Let’s make godeungeo jorim:
- Place the mackerel on top of the pieces of radish.
- Make seasoning sauce in a bowl by mixing ½ cup soy sauce, ¼ cup hot pepper flakes, 2 tbs sugar, ⅓ cup garlic cloves minced (12 cloves), and 1 tbs of minced ginger.
- Pour the seasoning sauce over the fish. Pour in 1 cup of water along the edges of the pot.
- Close the lid and bring to a boil over high heat for 20 minutes.
- Open the lid, tilt the pot, and use a spoon to push aside the mackerel and radish to make empty spot for the broth to well.
- Scoop some broth from the empty spot and pour it over top of the fish and radish. Repeat several times.
- Add the chopped green onion, green and red chili peppers.
- Close the lid and lower the heat to a simmer for 30-40 minutes, until the radish is cooked thoroughly. The radish will absorb the soy sauce based broth, so it will look brownish and a little translucent when cooked nicely.
- Open the lid and turn up the heat to boil off excess broth.
- Tilt the pot and use a spoon to push aside the mackerel and radish to make empty spot for the broth to well.
- Scoop some broth from the empty spot and pour it over top of the fish and radish. Repeat it off and on for about 5-7 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and transfer to a serving plate. Serve with rice, kimchi, soup, lettuce, and a few more side dishes.
Posted Monday, August 29th, 2011 at 11:37 am.
Tagged: braised fish, braised mackerel, braised mackerel and radish, cheap recipe, cooked radish, delicious recipe, 고등어 무우 조림, 고등어무조림, 고등어조림, fish recipe, fish stew, godeungeo recipe, godeungeojorim, green chili peppers, holy mackerel, jorim, korean food, Korean kitchen, Korean radish, Korean radish recipe, Korean recipes, maangchi recipe, mackerel recipe, mujorim, red chili peppers, side dish, spicy mackerel, white radish, whole fish recipe
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Hello! I am having problems getting mackerel , do you think that I could do this with salmon? If so what would the cooking time be?
Annyeonghseyo Maangchi!
I live in Male(Maldives). So lots of fresh tuna fish are available here but i cant find mackerels . so can i replace the above recipe godeungeo-mujorim with tuna and normal white radish.
Warm Regards,
Jenna Gangmei
Tuna sounds great! Use some oily part of tuna then. It will turn out very tasty.
Thank you so much . i cooked exactly like you said and it was heavenly hehe. i made potato pancake, steam eggs,cucumber and radish pancake too. i am gonna try all your other recipes too . In many dishes you use dried anchovies. what can i replace anchovies? i cant find it here. thank you have a nice day
Hi Maanchi, I am new here posted in wrong place -sorry. My wife is from Pusan, and misses her mothers Belt fish stew. I think this is the same recipe just Belt fish in place of Mackerel. Will Belt Fish work? If not can you post a belt fish recipe?
Thank you
Joe.C Seattle WA
Yes, you can replace mackerel with belt fish in this recipe. Good luck with making delicious galchi-jorim (braised beltfish)!
I made this for dinner for my family, so delicious and easy, think this is going to become a regular dinner for us!! I’m actually looking forward to the leftovers!
What other fish have you made jorim with? Mackerel is great, but I’m sure other fish can be delicious for this recipe too, right? When I didn’t have mackerel, I used a Blue Dog fish. It was still delish. I have a pic with a bunch of fishes that my friend caught when he went fishing. Which fishes (from the pic) would be good for jorim? http://www.behgopa.com/2013/11/fishy-fishy-fishy.html
Do you ever go fishing, Maangchi?
Well, I tried it and it was so delicious. … the smells that come when I cooked it was so…. good…. definitely will make it another time… yummy, yummy…..
yes, I love the smell, too. The smell encourages me to make it again soon.
this broth is delicious with any combination of fish and/or vegetables… i did salmon and daikon with it, and also a vegetarian version using sweet potato and carrot instead of mackerel! :-)
thanks for the recipe!
Hi Maangchi! I really really want to try making this for my parents, it looks so good! But my dad won’t eat anything with fish bones still inside :( If I take the fish off the bones before braising, or buy just the frozen fillets where it’s already off the bone, will the recipe still be as yummy?
Hi Maangchi! My husband and I LOVED this recipe! Thank you for doing what you do. I’ve learned so much from you.
Great! Happy cooking!
Maangchi,
If I want to make Braised Hairtail Fish, can I used the same recipes….? well, when I search for hairtail fish, I found a video about Braised Hairtail Fish at Namdaemun alley, it’s look so delicous, this is the link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiPar4VOL9Y&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s
I’m not sure if you can or not to find the link, so this the tittle for that video…
Namdaemun alley of Braised Hairtail Fish
I made this with two beautiful frozen mackerel. It’s winter in California now, and the radishes in the asian grocery stores are very very good. I’ve never gutted and trimmed a mackerel before, thank you for the great instructions and visuals. Delicious dish for oily fish lovers, like me. Thank you for the great recipe, it was DELICIOUS.
I bought a frozen makerel and thawed it out, and found that it had very strong fishy smell. That’s not normal is it? I threw the fish out in the end. Fresh makerel is almost never available where I shop, so I was wondering…. Would canned makerel work too?
hmm, frozen mackerel should work well. Add more ginger if it is too fishy. Yes, you can use canned mackerel. During my Gapshida trip, Susanne from Roterdam the Netherlands made her braised mackerel with canned mackerel. It was very tasty. Check out the photo here. https://www.maangchi.com/blog/gapshida-rotterdam-susanne
Yes! Canned mackerel works, too! I recently moved to a small town very far away from the ocean where fresh fish is not always available, so I took a chance on canned mackerel, and my family liked it fine. For me, I was craving the moo/radish portion of the dish, and the canned mackerel worked perfectly to bring out the “traditional salty-sweet-hot fish sauce” taste of the broth. The sauce tasted just like the ones at Korean restaurants, and that’s what I was trying for-the traditional sauce taste of this dish, rather than the type of fish in it.
Hi Maangchi!
If I replaced the mackerel with black cod, would it be eundaegujorim? It looks very similar!
I’m so glad you do all these videos. My husband is Korean-American and although I learned a few recipes from his mother, now with your videos, I can cook more dishes and hope to impress my mother-in-law someday!
yes, it can be called eundaegu jorim (braised cod with radish)! Eundagu is black cod. Check out the recipe submitted by one of my readers Georgia here. I will post it someday later.
https://www.maangchi.com/talk/topic/eun-dae-gu-jorim
Would save your sablefish (black cod) for another recipe if it’s as expensive a it is here in Manhattan ($20/lb). I just made this recipe again and think that Maangchi wanted to emphasize how you can make a delicious meal with a cheap fish with a lot of spice and ginger. It is indeed a delicious dish.
Personally I would go with a less aggressive sauce and cook the black cod much more delicately to emphasize it’s natural flavor. Poaching would rock.
My 0.02
Piperjohn3,
Black cod is about $18/lb here so not too different from Manhattan prices. Had black cod (eundaegu jorim) prepared in a similar way (radish underneath fish, spicy and savory sauce) at Sorabol in Hawaii, and it was really delicious! Didn’t want to experiment without a recipe because it is such an expensive fish. Will make this recipe as is, and try Georgia’s recipe with the black cod.
Thanks for the 0.02
Thank you, I will try Georgia’s recipe, and I look forward to yours, too!
Yum! Everyone was out of whole mackerel today (except salted) so I used filets.. still had a few bones though. My cat was bugging me for a taste immediately. She liked it too! =^,,^=
“My cat was bugging me for a taste immediately” haha so cute!
This tastes surprisingly good! But the smell is even better!! It’s very umami-taste!
yeah the aroma is irresistible. : )
Maanghci!!
It has been a long time since I have checked out your recipes! This braised mackerel recipe looks so good! I will try it exactly the way you posted it but do you also think the Potatoes would be good in place of the radish???
thanks!
lisa
lisa,
Yes, I sometimes use potato instead of radish, but you will have to add potato later so it doesn’t get mushy.
Thanks Maangchi! I will try the radish first and then experiment with the potatoe! Also, please post a recipe for crab stew! I can get fresh crabs here in Portland!!!
Maangchi! I love it when you try your food because you always get a mouthful! Makes the food look even yummier!
haha, thanks a lot for your compliment! Sometimes my scene of eating food tortures those who are hungry. : )
I made this dish yesterday and it came out perfect! My husband loves it. It is hard to find a good frozen mackerel nearby since I had to drive across town to get more fresh ones. Is there an alternate frozen or fresh fish we can use for this dish? I also see frozen hairtail, belt fish, croaker, corvina, indian mackerel (is that the same? looks smaller) at the asian market nearby. The frozen packaged mackerel is already salted so i think it would be too salty for this dish. thanks for your advice.
wow belt fish is my favorite! You can replace mackerel with belt fish in this recipe.
This was a hit with the whole family–and our Korean friends too. I made this yesterday and it is gone now. It was the first time I have cleaned the guts out of a fish. Very easy since it was frozen, like the one you showed. My kids and I love watching your videos and then making the food together. The girls helped make the sauce and threw in the green onions and peppers. So delicious!
omg, that’s awesome news! I imagine you and your children working together in the kitchen! Happy family!
One of my fave! Now if only I could get my husband to stop complaining about the smell : )
Hi ~
I attempted this dish last night and had some issues. I followed your directions and after boiling on high for 20min, it started burning before I noticed. The bottom radish n onions started sticking n burning with the pot and sucked up all the juice. So I had to add more water n transfer pots since I didn’t want to waste the mackarel. I cooked it for over 40 min additional and the radish wasnt soft. Does it take that long? How can I avoid the burning and the water evaporating? Most of the fish ended up breaking to pieces as well.
I would lower the heat or add more water if I were you. My stove has 4 burners, each a different size and different level of heat. If I use the largest one, it will probably happen to me, too. The reason I use the medium sized burner in the video is that I think most people’s stove has the same level of heat as that one. Update me please. Happy cooking!
Yes yes yes! This dish is awesome, i hope many people will cook it, it’s an instant classic!
I expected a few drops of sesame oil right before serving :) :) :-p
Haha I love sesame oil but for this dish I have never used sesame oil.
I fell in love with mackerel many years ago. In Japan and Alabama both I was able to purchase them fresh. I know what a great combination mackerel and radish are because I have grilled many a mackerel and topped it with grated radish and soy sauce Japanese style.
I am going to my local Asian market tomorrow or the next day and plan on buying some frozen mackerel so I can try your delicious looking recipe. I think I can impress my Japanese wife with my cooking ability if I follow your recipe.
Thank you!
Wonderful! “I think I can impress my Japanese wife with my cooking ability if I follow your recipe”
Oh yummy! I’ve only cooked this with canned mackerel before. I will have to try it with fresh mackerel soon. I felt like I could smell the food through your video!
yes, the recipe made with canned mackerel is a little different from this recipe. I will post the recipe someday. “I could smell the food through your video” Sniff sniff, it sounds like you already know what the smell is supposed to be!
Oh my gosh! I have LOVED mackerel ever since your godeungeo gui video, I can’t wait to try this! I can’t help myself and name my mackerels Mike when I buy them. I love their pretty blue stripes.
I also wave at you every time I see you in your videos when you say hello everybody and bye bye! I’ll have to get to the store that sells mackerels soon. When you sliced your pretty white radish I wanted to taste it so bad!
Thank you for your videos!
Kerri
Hey Kerri!
“I also wave at you every time I see you in your videos when you say hello everybody and bye bye!” haha! That’s so cool!!!!
OMIGOD!!!!! This is absolutely one of my most favourite dish! I could eat this everyday!!!
yay, I knew you would like this dish! : )