There’s no tried-and-true salve for the morning after a big night, but this easy recipe is as close as it gets for Eric Kim.
Garlicky, gingery and full of bright flavors, this panacea will heal you from within.David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich.
When Carlos Juarez was growing up in Puebla, Mexico, his father would stay out late on Saturday nights, blowing off steam by drinking and playing soccer with friends.
Come Sunday morning, if he was hung over, his wife, Mr. Juarez’s mother, would boil a whole chicken — one of the hens from their yard — into a soup with jalapeños, onions and a thick bouquet of cilantro. The whole family would eat the soup that day, relishing in the gift of caldo, or broth, as the older Mr. Juarez woke from the dead.
There is no magic cure for a hangover, experts know: It’s really just a matter of time, and water, which might explain why every culture has a hangover soup. What is soup but sustenance suspended in water?
Watch Eric Kim make the hangover kimchi soup.By The New York Times Cooking
During my salad days in Atlanta, it was soup that sustained me (and my friends) after a night of excess, a bowl of pho from the city’s abundant Vietnamese restaurants. In the intervening years, that post-indulgence ritual matured as I grew into someone who keeps a refrigerator stocked with garlic, ginger and ripe kimchi, and a freezer full of stock rich with the fat and flavor of whole chickens.
My hangover kimchi soup will remind you of pho, with echoes of tom yum soup and kimchi guk, all healing and hydrating in their brothy brightness, but it is abundantly itself, a panacea of bright, savory, salty flavors.
The amount of spice you add is up to you, but know that a little red chile lends immeasurable flavor in addition to some heat. Gochugaru works here, but if you’re feeling something else, don’t be afraid to mix and match chile powders. If your ginger root is especially young and tender, consider peeling, then cutting it into fine matchsticks for an even deeper, punchier warmth. White beans offer protein in this dish, which becomes even heartier with white rice or noodles. (You can also sop it up with a slice of cornbread.)
Reheat it throughout the week, adding more broth and various crisper-drawer vegetables you need to use up, like cabbage, kale, arugula, watercress and bean sprouts. Whether you’re hung over, sick with a cold or just plain hungry, this humble, hardworking soup will rouse you from the dead — or even just lift you up when you’re down.
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