Spicy Turkey Dakgaejang
칠면조 닭개장·(chil-myeon-jo dak-gae-jang)
First-Generation Sunday Suppers: Gatherings & Feasts
It’s the Friday after Thanksgiving. The house smells of pie and roasted bird, but your palate is craving something deeply savory, spicy, and restorative. Enter Turkey Dakgaejang, a masterpiece of first-generation immigrant ingenuity. By treating a massive, picked-over turkey carcass exactly as a Korean grandmother would a boiling hen, you extract a milky, liquid-gold broth. We take the leftover dry meat, massage it aggressively with an umami-rich chili paste, and plunge it into the broth with handfuls of earthy fernbrake and sweet green onions. It tastes exactly like the homeland, born out of American thrift.
Ingredients
- leftover turkey carcass1
- yellow onion1 med
- garlic1 bulb
- fresh ginger1 large
- water12 cup
- leftover roasted turkey meat3 cup
- pre-boiled gosari8 oz
- daepa2 large
- sukju namul8 oz
- oyster mushrooms1 cup
- gochugaru4 tbsp
- gukganjang3 tbsp
- garlic2 tbsp
- toasted sesame oil2 tbsp
- doenjang1 tbsp
- kosher salt1 tsp
- black pepper1/2 tsp
- neutral oil1 tbsp
Method
- 01
Extract the liquid gold.
Place the turkey bones, halved onion, garlic bulb, and ginger slices into a large pot or electric pressure cooker, covering with the water. For a pressure cooker, cook on high pressure for 90 minutes, then naturally release; for a stovetop, bring to a boil, skim the scum, and simmer covered for 2 to 3 hours. Strain the milky broth through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl, discarding the solids, and skim off the excess fat.
- 02
Massage the flavor paste into the meat.
In a large bowl, combine the shredded turkey, gosari, and mushrooms with the gochugaru, gukganjang, minced garlic, sesame oil, doenjang, salt, and pepper. Put on a disposable kitchen glove and rigorously massage the seasonings into the ingredients for a minute or two. This grandmother's secret forces the flavors deep into the dry turkey, rehydrating it from the inside out. Let it rest for 15 minutes.
- 03
Bloom the chili oil.
Place a large soup pot over medium-low heat, add the neutral oil, and gently sauté the marinated meat and vegetable mixture for 3 to 4 minutes. You want the sesame oil and turkey fat to coax the bright red pigment from the chili flakes without burning them, creating a fragrant, natural chili oil base.
- 04
Execute the layered boil.
Pour 8 cups of your strained turkey broth into the pot and bring it to a rolling boil over medium-high heat. Drop in the daepa, cover the pot, reduce the heat to medium, and boil for 15 minutes to allow the green onions to melt and release their sweetness.
- 05
Add the final crunch and serve.
Remove the lid from the fiery red broth, drop in the mung bean sprouts, and boil for exactly 3 minutes. Taste for seasoning, adding a splash more gukganjang or salt if needed, then ladle the steaming stew into deep bowls and serve immediately alongside freshly steamed short-grain white rice.
Notes
The non-holiday shortcut.
If it isn't the week after Thanksgiving, the bones and shredded meat of a standard store-bought rotisserie chicken work flawlessly here.
A note on daepa.
If you cannot find Asian giant green onions (daepa) at your local market, substitute with the white and light green parts of three large leeks.
From Cook Korean in America.