A puff foodie

 

If you are a foodie looking for unique taste and texture, then puffer fish dishes are for you. Fugu sashimi and other Japanese cuisine are famous and have a long history. Today, I am talking about Korean puffer fish dishes. Because of its potentially lethal poison in many parts of this types of fish, they are considered edible only in few countries including Japan, Korea, and China in the world with strict restrictions in treatments and cooking.

In Korea, puffer fish is called bokeo and is served in both cooked and raw. There are 21 species that can be used for cooking, but only three or four species are found in menus in Korean restaurants. I recently visited bokeo restaurant Namdobokguk, which specialize in puffer fish soup. That is near subway 7 Sinjungdong station. As in the photos below, I ordered Milbok (Green rough back puffer fish) set menu that comes with soup, fries and salad made with puffer fish with several side dishes. Each table in the restaurant has electric stove, so you can decide how long the puffer fish soup boiled. The rule of thumb is that you have to boil until vegetables in the pot is thoroughly cooked. If your vegetables are cooked, then it is safe to say that fish in the pot is also cooked enough to eat. The fried fish is prepared in the Japanese tempura style. The bok salad is mixture of puffer fish skin, sliced spring onions and seasoning of vinegar and red chili pepper paste.

If you are not familiar with average Korean food with relatively stronger and spicier seasoning, with yeonpotang, these cuisines are right choice for you. The soup has water parsley (Korean parsley) and a bundle of winter mushrooms. In this soup, water parsley plays a central role to make both soup and fish savory. Side dishes are sliced seasoned Chinese radishes, bean sprouts, stems of seaweed, white kimchi (non-spicy kimchi), a rice bowl, and tempura source with sliced green papers.

These days, most of puffer fish supplied to restaurants in Korea are farm raised and it is hotly debated whether farm raised puffers are 100% toxin free because in wild, puffers have poisonous chemical called tetrodotoxin. Aquaculture thought to be a solution to remove and produce safe puffers. In 2004, scientists at Nagasaki university had succeeded in culturing non-toxic puffers by restricting fish’s diet. During this experiment, about 5000 fish were raised. After intensive studies, the research team concluded that the amount of tetrodotoxin in all those parts of fish were non-toxic. However, even nowadays when farm raised fish dominate local culinary scenes, experts are still warn that caution must be exercised. In the tanks of restaurants, chances are both wild caught, and farm raised fish can be housed, then for instance, toxin can be transferred through skins. That is why still licensed chefs are only allowed to cook then in Korea and Japan. 

Of course, you may be able to find out puffers in the local sea food markets, but in my humble opinion, you need to be careful than be sorry and rather than preparing yourself, it is better to go to specialized restaurants to have them.

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