Story of Braised Monkfish: Agwi Jjim
interesting Buddhist story behind the name of a strange looking fish
This is called Agwi (or, Agu) Jjim (아귀찜, 아구찜), braised monkfish with bean sprouts.
A translator’s notes: Jjim in Korean means something that has been steamed. But this isn’t the correct nomenclature for this dish because the cooking technique calls for braising, not steaming.
As you can see, it looks a little spicy with liberal use of the Korean chili powder—something that chefs worldwide agree that there is no adequate substitute for its sweet pungency and perfect amount of kick.
This looks very traditionally Korean, doesn’t it? But its history on the Korean dinner table is very short, relatively speaking. It is generally accepted among Korean foodies that this dish was invented in the southern port city of Masan (now a part of Changwon) in 1965.
Monkfish, or angler fish, or sometimes even called devil fish for its ugly, threatening, devilish looks, this deep water fish yields rather sizeable fillets and delectable liver (more on this later) and can be cooked many different ways in western cuisines.
This is what a monkfish looks like.
It’s got a huge mouth and covered in slimy skin. When fishermen caught these before people started eating it, they would simply throw them away or use them as fertilizers in the rice fields by letting them rot naturally.
The funny thing is that the fish meat has no fishy smell at all. It really doesn’t. It’s got a very mild flavor and an attractive texture that is akin to alligator tail. It’s uniquely chewy, but soft and doesn’t break into unmanageable pieces like other delicate white-meat fish. In short, the fish has a very gentle and civilized taste to it despite its unfortunate exterior.
And lest we forget, its liver…. Many well-known Korean and Japanese gourmands praise the monkfish liver as a better and more humane substitute for foie gras. You all know the cruel way the geese are forcibly fed to enlarge their livers—no such thing with monkfish, but with very similar texture and flavor. Some even think that the monkfish liver is far superior than foie gras because it’s less greasy but retains all the flavor and texture.
So, where does this Buddhist story fit in with the fish’s name? First, both agwi (아귀) and agu (아구) are correct and used interchangeably. Agu (ah-goo) written in Chinese characters is 餓口, literally meaning “hungry mouth” and agwi (ah-gwee) is written 餓鬼, which means a “hungry ghost, spirit, or monster.” This, of course, stems from the fact that monkfish will eat anything in great amounts. So much so, when monkfish are caught in Korea and they’re gutted, you can easily find loads of small fish in its stomach yet to be digested. There are pictures of it available on the internet but I decided not to post them here—it’s gross. Perhaps that’s why the fish’s liver is quite large for its size.
Somewhat similar to Dante’s visualization of the hell in his Divine Comedy, the Buddhist world is divided up into different levels of hell and heaven. According to its beliefs, the gluttonous and the envious are trapped in the second level of hell, a step above the level of the truly wicked. And the souls that are residing here are called agwi (餓鬼) and they are cursed with an eternal hunger but with a microscopic esophagus. They can never be fully satiated!! Sort of a poetic justice in the Buddhist sense.
And there are three different types. First, whenever a mujae agwi is about to eat something, that something ignites in a spontaneous combustion. Second, sojae agwi can only eat other people’s excrements, blood, and pus. And finally, dajae agwi can only consume leftovers and food wastes.
Agwi is depicted in some of the Korean Buddhist paintings.
And the same subject matter painted in Japan…
