Hoe (food)
Hoe is a Korean seafood dish that is eaten by trimming raw meat or raw fish. In addition to fish, it is also made with other marine products such as shrimp and squid, raw meat of land animals, and vegetable ingredients, but without any special prefix, it mainly refers to raw fish.
Varieties
There are uncooked hoe as well as blanched sukhoe.
Raw
Hoe, the raw fish or meat dish, can be divided into saengseon-hoe, filleted raw fish, and yukhoe, sliced raw meat. Saengseon-hoe can be either hwareo-hoe made from freshly killed fish, or seoneo-hoe made using aged fish. Mulhoe is a cold raw fish soup.
Blanched
Sukhoe is a blanched fish, seafood, meat, or vegetable dish. Ganghoe is a dish of rolled and tied ribbons made with blanched vegetables such as water dropworts and scallions.
''Khe''
There is a variant of the dish in Sakhalin Korean cuisine called khe. One reported version of the dish served in the Uzbek Korean restaurant Cafe Lily in New York City used catfish that was cured in vinegar, then seasoned.''''
Preparation
Hwareo-hoe is prepared by filleting freshly killed fish, while seoneo-hoe is made with aged fish in a similar way as Japanese sashimi: removing the blood and innards and aging the fish at a certain temperature before filleting. Fish or seafood hoe is often served with gochujang-based dipping sauces, such as cho-gochujang and ssamjang. Hoe is often eaten wrapped in ssam vegetables, such as lettuce and perilla leaves. After eating hoe at a restaurant, maeun-tang made with the bones, head, and the remaining meat of the fish, can be served as an add-on dish.
History
According to records, hoe appears to have been eaten from Goryeo Dynasty at the latest. During the Joseon period, the state promoted Confucianism, and, as Confucius was known to have enjoyed eating raw meat, hoe consumption greatly increased.