Jagalchi Market · Grilled Hagfish
Ggomjangeo (Grilled Hagfish)
Photo: creepyblues / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
The skin stripped from hagfish before grilling is the material sold abroad as 'eel-skin' leather for wallets and handbags.
Live hagfish, skinned right at the stall, is grilled over charcoal or briquettes — either salted plain or coated in a spicy gochujang glaze — until the flesh turns springy and smoky. An alley of hagfish grill houses near Jagalchi Market has sold it for decades, best eaten with soju.
Why it's made this way: Jagalchi, Korea's largest seafood market, made hagfish cheap and abundant on Busan's docks, and grilling it whole over coals became the classic way locals turned this jawless, scaleless fish into a beloved late-night anju.
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