When cooking Asian soups I have a rule, if you can’t eat it with rice then I’m not making it. The perfect example of an Asian soup recipe you can eat with rice is Instant Pot Galbitang. It is a Korean soup with short ribs, onions, and korean radish, in a wonderful beef broth. My family knows this soup as radish soup, but that’s because I think that’s just what my wife called it when we first ate it. It kind of makes sense too, the thing I most remember from this soup is radish. My kids Halmeoni (Grandma in Korean), always seems to have this soup when we come over, and my kids are soo happy when they see it. I’m sooo happy when I see it too, it is easily one of my favorites Korean foods.
I have probably tried to make this soup at least 5 different ways, and it always has come out not quite tasting correct. So instead of trying, and probably failing again, I just asked my mother-in-law how to cook it. If you know Asian Mom’s then you know they never use measuring cups or spoons, they just have finely honed tasted buds. After much experimenting, we think this is the correct amount of the ingredients.
The Instapot Galbitang recipe is actually a mix of my mother-in-laws recipe combined with JinJoo at Kimchimari. JinJoo is a good website for all things Korean and I highly recommend her site if you are wondering how to cook most Korean dishes.
I much prefer the instant pot method when making this soup because I just think it is more consistent. When you are doing the boiling, there is just some much room for error with the steam escaping and messing up your water to broth. With the instant pot you are able to get it perfect most of the time.
Tips for Cooking Instant pot Galbitang
- It is ok to substitute the Short Ribs – You can always use flank steak too. Sometimes you can’t make it to the Asian grocery store, but the grocery store around the corner always has flank steak.
- Make sure to skim the fat off the top – Unappetizing, and it tastes mucky.
- Radish cuts – If you are serving this to kids, I would suggest cutting the radish slices smaller than usual. You don’t want them too small or else they will fall apart, but you don’t need them thick.
- Reheating – When reheating the next day you will notice that there will be fat deposits at the top of the soup. Feel free to scoop those out to keep the soup base looking nice and clean.
What to eat with Galbitang
- Rice – Do not serve without rice, period.
- Salt and Pepper – Though if you are adding dashi-da, then you probably do not need the extra salt and pepper. I always add the dashi-da.
- Kim Chi – I’m partial to the napa cabbage kim chi or the white radish kim chi when I’m eating Galbitang. However, choose what you have on hand, or what you can easily make.
If you are wondering what the exact ingredient dashi powder that I work with the most, it is the Korean brand Dasida.
Instant Pot Galbitang
Equipment
- Instant Pot
Ingredients
- 3 cloves Garlic
- 1 Yellow onion
- 1 bunch Green Onions
- 1 tsp Soup soy sauce
- 3 tsp Dashi powder
- 8 cups Water
- 2 lbs Short rib
- 1/2 Korean radish or daikon
Instructions
- Get Ingredients
Preparation
- Peel and cut your korean radish or daikon into cubes 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches.
- Peel your onion.
- Mince your garlic cloves.
- Wash and cut 3 stalks of green onions into 2-3 inch long pieces.
- Wash and cut the rest of the green onions into thin slices for garnishing.
- Put your short ribs in cold water for 30 minutes. This gets rid of any outside stuff on the meat. You can cut your vegetables while they soak to save time.
Cooking
- After the short ribs have soaked for 30 minutes, get a pot of water boiling that is tall enough to cover your ribs with water.
- Par boil your short ribs for 2-3 minutes. Then take them out of the water and transfer them to your instant pot.
- Add your garlic, green onions, onion, and cut korean radish or daikon to the instant pot.
- Add 8 cups of water to your instant pot.
- Add 1 tsp of soup soy sauce to your instant pot, and mix.
- Add 3 tsp of dashi powder (I use Dashi-da) to the instant pot and mix until the powder has dissolved. It might not be completely invisible, that is ok.
- Seal the instant pot lid, and make sure the sealing switch is set to seal and not vent. Press the "Soup/Stew" button on the Instant Pot, and set the timer to 30 minutes.
- After the timer is done cooking, I would have it on natural release for 20 minutes. Then after 20 minutes you can do the quick release, but just a note you might get some water splashing out of the vent release. This can happen with soups.
- Take out the onion, green onions, and then use a hand strainer to scoop out any loose pieces at the top of the soup.
Serving
- Serve hot in a bowl. I put one short rib with 3-4 pieces of cut korean radish or daikon into the bowl with the soup. Then top with the green onions and serve with hot rice.
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