Corn Dumpling Soup, with Shrimp, Korean style

This Korean style corn dumpling soup with shrimp is made with Korean soybean paste broth. Shrimp and zucchini make the dish a complete meal.

As we enjoyed this corn dumpling soup with shrimp, we had to recollect the memories of Malaysia. It has been 2 years since our family moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our families and myself have made many good friends and enjoyed this beautiful tropical land throughout.

Life do sometimes makes you tun to a different direction that you didn’t expect. It looks like we are moving back to U.S soon.

Our kids are excited. We are, too, but with a little bitter-sweet feeling. Our family had a great 2 year adventure in Malaysia. We made some wonderful friends, helped many families who are in needs, enjoyed the great foods and companies, relaxed in the beautiful tropical beaches to ease the hustle and bustle city life… There were some challenges during our time here but we focused on what we were blessed with.

Getting ready for a big move is stressful. We've been going through lots of stuff everyday for the past few days to organize and simplify our life. Things do accumulate without recognizing it, especially if you have growing kids. Some stuff is direct to replace but some has precious emotional values but too bulky to store. But out of this stressful long inventory list days, you sometimes discover things that you have forgotten but brings back to the memory of yesterdays as you found it.

For days like these, when you are a little stressed out but with a glimpse of smile appearing on you face from moment to moment, you need a comfort food to get you go through. So we made a pot of Corn Dumpling Soup with Shrimp.

This soup can be made easily and fast. If you are not a big fan of shrimp, you can omit the shrimp to make vegan or replace with chicken. This type of dumpling is called Soojaebi (수제비) in Korea. We will call this dish – oksoosoo saewoo miso soojaebi (옥수수 새우 미소 수제비). Oksoosoo = corn, and saewoo = shrimp.

Her name is C O R N. Remove her husk, please.

Slice off the corn kernels.

Tip: Break the corn in half first, then slice off the kernels. That way, your kernels won’t fly off to the air driving you crazy. (we need to keep our stress level down these days)

Puree the corn kernels in a blender with some water until smooth.

Mix flour and salt in a bowl and pour in about 2/3 of the corn puree.

Mix together with a spoon to bring the dough together. Add more puree until you get the right consistency.

There is no exact ratio of flour and corn puree. You just have to follow your gut. No matter what you do, you won’t fail. We promise.

Knead the dough for 1 minute or so, then form into a ball shape. The consistency is similar to the bread dough.

Chill in the fridge while you are getting the soup stock ready. 30 minutes of chilling time is ideal.

We had some whole shrimp. We peeled them and deveined them. Keep the shrimp heads and shells. You will use them to make shrimp stock.

Combine shrimp heads, shells, and a piece of dried sea kelp in water. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove your ocean friends from their bath water.

Slice zucchini thinly. Set aside.

Combine miso paste and Korean chili paste in a small mixing bowl.

We used Japanese miso, but Korean bean paste (doenjang) can be used as well for more robust flavor.

Add a few tablespoons of shrimp stock in the bowl to mix and loosen up the paste.

Then, bring the paste mixture to the pot of shrimp stock and mix well together. Now you just created the miso-Korean chili paste-shrimp-soup stock!!!

Bring the stock to a gentle boil.

Take the dough out of fridge and tear off a little portion.

Flatten the small piece of dough with your fingers.

If your fingers stick to the dough, wet them with a cold water. The trick here is to work quickly.

Tear off the small piece and drop into the simmering stock. Try to work fast. Don’t try to make it steady or pretty. Whether it is big or small, thick or thin, it is okay.

Stir them occasionally so that they don’t stick.

Add the zucchini slices and the shrimp

Boil until the shrimps are cooked. Season with salt if needed.

That’s it. Your unfussy meal is ready to serve.

The chewy corn dumpling with shrimp flavored miso soup… Try with any kimchi of your choice on top. It is just so comforting and filling. We were satisfied and regained our strength to move on.

We discovered a piece of our son’s tooth under his bed as we were pulling a container that was stored underneath. The tooth fairy must have forgotten to take and accidentally fell off behind the bed in the crack of mattress and the headboard. Who would have thought we would be discovering a tiny tooth under the bed? But that put a smile on our face. We kept the tooth in a container along with the others(?). Shhhhh! Please, don’t tell the tooth fairy that we have a jar of teeth.

Hope your summer is going fun and exciting. We will be visiting our family in Korea for the next few weeks. We will try to post some pictures of the places we visit while traveling, if we can. We are excited.

Until we visit you with more recipes in the beginning of this fall, have a great summer!

Thanks to all and each of you for your great support for our blog. It means a lot to us. We will be back in September!

• Yield: 4 people
• Prep: 25 minutes
• Cook: 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 fresh corns, kernels cut off
• 1/4-1/2 cup water
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 lb large whole shrimp
• 1 dried sea kelp (dashima)
• 8 cups water
• 1/2 zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and sliced thinly
• 3 tablespoon Korean soybean paste (doenjang)
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Korean chili paste (gochujang)
• salt to taste if needed

Method

1. Put fresh corn kernels and 1/4-1/2 cup of water in a blender and process until smooth.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. Add about 2/3 of the corn puree to the flour and mix with spoon to moisten the flour. Add more corn puree if needed to get the bread dough consistency. Knead the dough with a hand for 1-2 minute and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, clean the shrimp by removing head and shells. Do not discard them. You will use them to make soup base. Devein the shrimp and set aside.
4. Put 8 cups of water in a pot and add reserved shrimp heads and shells, and the dried sea kelp. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Discard the shrimp heads, shells, and the sea kelp.
5. In a small mixing bowl, mix miso and Korean chili paste together. Add 2-3 tablespoonful of shrimp stock to loosen up. Pour the the paste mixture into the shrimp stock and stir well.
6. Bring the seasoned shrimp stock to a simmer. Take the dough out of fridge, and tear off a little portion. Flatten the dough with your fingers to make thin, and tear off to bite size dumpling pieces. Drop the dumpling in the simmering stocks. Try to work as fast as you can.
7. Add Shrimp and zucchini and bring the soup to boil over medium high heat. When the shrimps are fully cooked, the soup is ready to serve.
8. Kimchi is a great accompaniment for this meal.