-
1
Combine the dried anchovies and dashima in 1.2 litres of cold water, starting cold so the stock draws a clean, full flavour from both solids before any heat can turn them bitter. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and hold for 15 minutes, then remove both solids and discard. The finished stock should be pale gold and smell cleanly of the sea.
-
2
Stir the gochugaru, gochujang, doenjang, and minced garlic into the hot stock, adding them now rather than later so each paste blooms into the broth and loses its raw edge before the crab goes in. Raise the heat to bring the seasoned broth to a full, rolling boil. Taste: the broth must be assertively spiced — the crab's sweetness will round it during cooking.
-
3
Add the radish pieces to the boiling seasoned broth and cook for 5 minutes, giving the radish a head start so it softens enough to drink in the spiced broth without turning slack by the time the crab is done. Cook until the radish begins to yield at the edges but retains its bite.
-
4
This is where the dish lives or dies. With the broth at a fierce boil, add the crab halves — cut face down — and the tofu, so the violent heat seizes the flesh at once and drives the fat and roe out of the scored body cavity and into the broth rather than away with escaping steam. Cook uncovered at a maintained boil for 7 to 8 minutes only, watching the broth: when it turns a deep, opaque orange-red — the fat and roe dispersing visibly through the liquid — the stew is ready. Do not exceed 8 minutes.
-
5
Remove from the heat. The shells should be uniformly vivid orange; the claw meat, checked by pressing the cracked shell, should feel just firm. Serve immediately in the pot or a deep clay vessel, with steamed rice alongside into which the broth is poured.