Today’s recipe is spicy steamed eggs in an earthenware bowl, or maeun ttukbaegi gyeranjjim in Korean. I call it a spicy volcano eggs side dish because it’s reddish and gets puffed up like a steaming hot volcano!
I actually made a traditional steamed eggs recipe and video all the way back in 2008! This time I’m making it in an earthenware bowl. I learned this recipe from my cousin when I used to live in Korea. She didn’t use an earthenware bowl, she steamed hers on top of her rice. The last step of making rice is to let it simmer and steam in the pot, and she put her egg mixture in there in a stainless steel bowl, on top of the rice. So when the rice was done, the eggs were done, too.
I had to eat so many eggs to develop this version of the recipe in an earthenware bowl. But it was worth it! This dish is easy to make, simple, delicious, and really spectacular-looking!
Enjoy the recipe and let me know how yours turns out if you make it!
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup chicken broth
- 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon and ½ teaspoon hot pepper flakes (gochu-garu)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds, ground
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 1 or 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
Directions
- Put ¼ cup chicken broth into a 2½ cup Korean earthenware bowl (aka ttukbaegi 뚝배기) or a small and heavy saucepan. Make sure it fits your stove element properly, not too big or too small. Don’t turn on the stove yet!
- Combine the eggs, soy sauce, 1 tablespoon hot pepper flakes, and ground sesame seeds in a bowl. Beat the mixture with a fork 50 times, or about 1 minute.
- Add another ¼ cup of chicken broth and beat another 50 times.
- Bring the chicken broth in the earthenware bowl to a boil over medium high heat. Korean ttukbaegi heat up slow, in 2 or 3 minutes, but a stainless steel saucepan will heat up faster, in about a minute.
- Turn down the heat to medium low. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the bowl a little by little, stirring with the fork as you go. The egg mixture will fill about 80 percent of the bowl.
- Stir several more times and cover with any dome shaped heat-resistant lid or bowl, so that the mixture has room to expand while it’s being cooked.
- Simmer for 10 minutes until steam comes out of the gap between the bowl and the lid.
- Uncover and sprinkle with green onion, and ½ teaspoon hot pepper flakes. Drizzle some toasted sesame oil over top and serve right away with rice.
Maangchi's Amazon picks for this recipe
It's always best to buy Korean items at your local Korean grocery store, but I know that's not always possible so I chose these products on Amazon for that are good quality. See more about how these items were chosen.
Since I’m on this comments thread – whenever I read “Steamed eggs in an earthenware bowl”, I hear “White Birds in a Golden Cage” by “It’s a Beautiful Day” in may mind… :-)
Maangchi, I have been making this recipe for the past eight+ years. My eggs always stick to the walls of the ttukbaegi. To remove them, I scrub the wall with a steel wool scrubber. Eventually the walls loose their shine and I have to buy a new ttukbaegi.
How can I prevent the eggs from sticking to the walls of the ttukbaegi?
Thank you.
Put some neutral cooking oil on the edge of a piece of kitchen towel and thoroughly rub it over the inside of the ttukbaegi before filling in anything else. That should prevent some of the sticking.
Never ever scrub the ttukbaegi that brutally!!
Better soak it for a long time and only use soft pads or brushes – never metal ones!
I never had problems putting them in the dish washer, too…
Just make sure the ttukbaegi is really dry before its next use.
No problem to scrub it with a wire scrubber for me. If I have some burnt stuff on the bottom I scrub it with a wire scrubber, then it’s gone quickly. And I usually use hot water to clean, but when I cook some greasy stuff I use coffee grounds, it works perfectly.
I’m an admirer :) I didn’t have a Korean earthenware pot, so I took a similar bowl and put it in a makeshift steamer (bainmarie). It was delicious! Will definitely make again <3 I also ate both servings :) Thank you for teaching about Korean food. I'm discovering my heritage :)
I also have a glass top / induction stove. It did work well. Remember to wait until the chicken broth is boiling before adding the rest of the egg mixture.
I think my earthenware bowl was slightly larger because it only filled about 2/3 of it. Also, it’s been 20 minutes and no steam and I peeked and it’s basically still liquid. I have a glass top stove. Is that perhaps why it’s not cooking?
Made this an hour ago for lunch.
I end up using the following substitutions:
Chicken Broth – substitute with water + chicken bouillon cubes
Ground sesame seeds – around 1-2 tbsp sesame oil
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It looks great! I’m sure that it was tasty!
How do I print your recipe???
What browser do you use?
In Firefox, there is that switch on the right of the url-line to enter reader-mode.
Then, you’ll only see the recipe-related stuff.
Then, chose print (should be somewhere on the right), chose your preferences and go.
Good luck!
Bye, Sanne.
It seems that if I try to load a picture (JPEG) it is blocked…. very odd… Oh well… you may have to take my word for it – it was delicious!! :D
Hello! I made a variation of this, like an omelette… I grated some haloumi cheese and began to fry it in a non-stick frying pan; I mixed the eggs really well with pepper flakes, ground sesame seeds, soy sauce, fish sauce, a little sugar and beat really well, then poured over the frying haloumi cheese. Then I gradually cooked it, rolling, and letting the uncooked egg flow into the part of the pan, now bare, when I rolled the omelette! Topped with spring onion! Eating with Kimchi and glutinous rice! So good!!!
My friend gave me fresh duck eggs. I had this again with three duck eggs instead of four chicken eggs and it’s even better!
Wow, interesting! I should try it with duck eggs!
I love duck eggs! I love the big yolks. I bet they’d be really good as Soy Sauce eggs.
afaik duck eggs should always be completely cooked as they are more likely to carry harmful bacteria or parasites than chicken eggs, so you should keep that in mind when handling them.
it look delicious and mouth watering.
Maangchi, our family loves your recipes! Once a week, every Monday in fact, we make it a Korean food night. When you made this dish, we wanted to copy your banchan, too! There was one dish we didn’t recognize. The one with, I think, with zucchini and the shrimp on top. At least that was what it looked like. Do you have a name and recipe for that dish? Thank you for all you do!
Wow Korean food on Monday sounds like fun! The zucchini and shrimp is one of my cookbook recipes. I’m thinking of making a video for it because so many people have been asking me about it!
Maangachi, I made this for dinner tonight. I put some rice and kimchi with it. Very tasty and very savory. I look forward to making it again. I did wind up burning the eggs on the bottom but thankfully I was able to separate the burnt area. I’m thinking I’ll use less heat next time and either double the portion or get a smaller bowl. My earthern ware bowl was bigger than what you used.
You can use a bigger earthenware bowl, but follow the recipe exactly. Be sure to beat and whisk the egg mixture to create tiny bubbles, which makes it fluffy. And cook on low heat!
Hi Maangchi! I made this today and I think I cooked it for too long, but it smelled burnt and the sides stuck to the bowl. When I took the lid over, the egg collapsed and fell flat. Is it supposed to be like this? Thank you!
It’s supposed to gradually deflate, but not like you describe, not that fast. Be sure to cook over low heat and don’t forget to whisk the egg mixture well so it has lots of bubbles. That’s what makes it fluffy. And when you see the steam come out, that’s the time you need to remove from the heat. Good luck!
Maangchi, this is SO Good! I just made it for lunch.. I ate both portions (shh!). I don’t have a bowl that fits my ttukbaegi right, so I had to use the lid. It’s not as puffy, but perfect spicy and the sesame seeds really a a lot!
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It looks great! Congratulations!