Beginner
Korean
Kimchi Jjigae (Kimchi Stew)
Source: Traditional
30 min3420 kcal
Dairy-free🌶️🌶️
Gundruk ko Jhol
A thin, sour soup of dried fermented mustard greens with potato and soybeans — Nepal's answer to a winter with no fresh vegetables in it.
Source
Recipe by Nepali home kitchens · 🏺 Traditional · Everyday Nepali cooking — rice and lentils twice a day, a seasonal vegetable beside them, and a fermented something sharp enough to cut through both.
Nepali · fermented greens — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article is about gundruk itself — the fermented leafy green — rather than this soup; it confirms the leaves used, the fermentation and drying, and that gundruk is eaten as both a soup and a pickle. The soup quantities and method are this book's own.
Watch it being made · 3 videos
⏱ 40 min🍽 4 servings🔥 140 kcal🇳🇵 Nepal🌶️🌶️
HalalVeganVegetarianGluten-freeDairy-freeNut-free
Steps
Soak the gundruk in warm water for 10 minutes, then squeeze it dry and chop it roughly. Keep the soaking water — it is half the flavour.
Drain the soaked soybeans and fry them in the mustard oil until they blister and smell nutty, about 5 minutes.
💡 Frying the beans first is not optional. Boiled straight in, they stay squeaky and the soup tastes flat.
Push the beans aside, add the fenugreek and dried chillies for 15 seconds, then the garlic, ginger and turmeric.
Add the gundruk and fry it 3 minutes so it takes on the oil, then the tomato and cook until it collapses.
Pour in the water and the reserved soaking water, add the potato and salt, and simmer 20 minutes until the potato is soft and the soup smells sharp.
Serve in bowls beside rice. It is meant to be drunk as much as eaten.
💡 Tips
- Gundruk is one of the oldest fermented foods in the Himalaya, and it is sour the way sauerkraut is sour — if it tastes sharp, it is right.
- The same gundruk, squeezed dry and tossed with chilli, mustard oil and lime instead of boiled, is gundruk ko achar — a pickle, not a soup.
- No soybeans on hand? Black-eyed beans do the same job. Skip them entirely and it becomes a lighter everyday version.
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