813 recipes. Page 14 of 34
Curry, stir-fry noodles, and Asian recipes
Beaten egg poured in a thin stream turns into silky floating ribbons on a clear chicken broth, the signature look of this Korean-Chinese noodle soup. Tip it in all at once and it sets into large curds instead. Chicken breast pulled into fine threads tangles with the noodles rather than sitting apart in chunks, and seasoning stays light, just soy sauce and pepper with a few drops of sesame oil.
Roasted until the edges go deep golden, the florets pick up a toasty sweetness that stands up to heavy, nutty tahini, which would simply smother boiled cauliflower. Lemon juice and garlic lighten the sauce, and a generous handful of parsley cuts through the oil.
This dish takes its name from a train line between Manila and the Bicol region in southeastern Luzon, where coconut and chilies go into cooking more freely than almost anywhere else in the Philippines. Pork belly simmers in coconut milk with shrimp paste and chilies until the coconut fat separates and the meat starts frying in it. By the end there is almost no loose sauce, just a creamy coating on every piece.
Daegu's junghwa bibimbap, a Chinese-Korean rice bowl, piles pork, squid, shrimp, and cabbage, stir-fried over high heat until no loose liquid is left, onto rice and tops it with a runny-yolked fried egg. Once the burner is on high there is no time to stop, and the chili powder, oyster sauce, soy sauce, and garlic are measured out beforehand.
Thin strips of kombu are the main ingredient, and the pork belly is only 60 g, though its cooking water becomes the stock. Konnyaku, kamaboko and fried tofu go in too, giving each mouthful a few different textures. The liquid is cooked down until only a glossy coating is left on everything, which puts it closer to a side dish than to anything brothy.
The New Year kuri kinton made with sweet potato and candied chestnuts shares only the name. The Nakatsugawa wagashi uses nothing but chestnut flesh kneaded with sugar, keeping the chestnut's crumbly texture and aroma. Boiled chestnuts stick to their shells once they cool, so only a few come out of the hot water at a time for scooping. Each portion is twisted in a damp cloth, leaving pleats on top that look like the tip of a chestnut.
Toyama turnips from Yonezawa in Yamagata are harder and sweeter than ordinary turnips. Instead of being sliced, they are pried into rough chunks with the heel of the knife, and the sake-lees broth works its way into the torn surfaces. Even so, the flavor only reaches the center once the soup has cooled overnight and been reheated the next day.
Finely chopped wasabi stems and root are folded into sake lees sweetened with sugar, and after a few days the sharp nasal heat of wasabi cuts through the fermented aroma of the lees. After Shizuoka Station opened in 1889, the pickle began selling inside the station and became a standard regional souvenir; it is still eaten in small amounts with hot rice or sake.
From Guilin in China's Guangxi region come these slender rice noodles, smooth and slightly springy, soaking up a clear beef brisket broth as the bowl sits. Pickled radish adds crisp, vinegary bites that cut the beefiness and reset the palate, and chili oil drizzled at the end spreads a slow warmth through the soup.
Kabocha roasted with its skin on turns chestnut-dry and fluffy inside, with caramelized edges outside. Autumn squash, at its sweetest, gives the clearest version of that flavor. White miso loosened with rice vinegar and maple syrup makes a dressing that is salty, sweet, and sour at once, and it makes the squash taste sweeter rather than masking it. With a very salty miso, add the dressing in portions and taste along the way. A bed of peppery arugula keeps the plate from tipping too sweet. Chickpeas and walnuts add chew and enough heft to make this a vegetarian main.
No water or dashi goes into this pot: chicken, gizzards, pork and vegetables cook in sake and whatever moisture the vegetables release. The dish comes from Saijo in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture, where sake brewery workers ate it during breaks in brewing. With so little liquid, each ingredient keeps its own flavor, and diners season their portion with salt and pepper. Cooking it in two rounds, half the ingredients at a time, keeps the napa cabbage and garlic chives from going limp.
Pounded glutinous rice studded with grated taro, black sesame, and torn nori is sliced thin, air-dried for about two weeks, and only then fried. In oil that is not too hot, each dry slice puffs up into a light, crisp cracker. The rice has to be pounded longer than for ordinary mochi, until no grains show, or the thin slices crumble at the edges. Before frying, a test piece should snap with no damp layer at its center, and any piece with a mold spot or musty smell is thrown out along with its neighbors. A cool, dry, well-ventilated spot is needed before starting, because the drying takes weeks.
Ketchup, chili sauce and sugar form the base, and sweet-tangy comes through before any heat. The sauce is thickened twice: first with starch slurry added a little at a time, then with a beaten egg trickled in around the edge of the wok for soft ribbons. Bread or rice goes on the side.
Grated bottle gourd is sautéed in ghee, simmered down in milk, and finished with sugar and cardamom until it is thick as jam and holds the trail of a spatula. Only the firm white flesh goes in, with the soft seedy core scooped out, and the gourd is cooked until its water is driven off before any milk is added.
Two glutinous rice dumplings filled with sweet bean paste float in each bowl of clear soy-seasoned broth, sweet and savory in the same spoonful. They are shaped like small eggs, which is where the name keiran, meaning egg, comes from, and in the Shimokita area of Aomori they were made for the autumn harvest and festive days.
Thin daikon rounds, dried for a full day in sun and wind, are rolled around fine strips of yuzu peel and left in sweet vinegar until the citrus perfume runs through the jar. Gunma's dry winter, with its karakkaze wind, supported a wide habit of drying konjac, persimmons and daikon, and this pickle grew from that practice. It appears at winter celebrations and can take the place of red-and-white namasu in osechi. Only the thin colored zest of the yuzu is used, with the bitter white pith cut away. Drying makes the slices pliable enough to roll without cracking while keeping a pleasant chew.
Squid and shrimp take the place of pork, so the familiar black bean sauce picks up a briny note as the seafood releases its juices into it. Potato, onion and zucchini soften into the sauce for sweetness and body, and a little starch slurry gives it the glossy, clinging texture that coats the noodles.
Tofu mashed until smooth, with ground sesame and a little sugar, coats the carrot and konjac in a white dressing that is more gently sweet than salty. Any warmth or liquid left in the vegetables thins it out, so after their simmer in dashi they are drained and cooled completely.
Thin beef and thick onion rings are tossed in a salty, tangy sauce of soy sauce and lime juice, a regular weeknight dish with rice in Filipino homes. It is the Philippine version of Spanish bistec, and there calamansi is squeezed in where wine or vinegar would go; lime takes its place in this recipe. The onions cook only until translucent with lightly browned edges and keep some crunch.
A single block of store-bought roux thickens the sauce and gives Japanese curry its mild, slightly sweet taste. There is no blending of spices as with Indian curry, which is how it became an everyday family dish in Japan that tastes the same every time. Potatoes, carrots, and onions are cut large so they hold their shape in the thick sauce.
Boiled pork gets chopped fine and fried hard in butter until the edges crisp, then calamansi juice (from a small sour Philippine citrus) and mayonnaise are stirred in at the end. Any water left on the pork makes it steam before it browns, and without crisp edges this Filipino bar snack loses its point.
About twenty dried persimmons are joined into one tight cylinder, so a thin slice shows amber flesh and white sugar bloom layered like a rose. In Uki and Yamato in Kumamoto it carries the wish of raking in good fortune and is given as a year-end gift and eaten at New Year. Momi-gaki, kneaded by hand several times while drying, give the tightest and clearest pattern.
The first things in the pot are 8 tablespoons of oil and firm tofu crumbled by hand. Once the tofu has broken into loose crumbs, daikon, burdock, zenmai, warabi and butterbur are fried with it, and only after that are the dashi and light soy sauce poured in. There is no meat.
Dried yuzu peel, cut into fine strips, simmers until translucent in sugar, dark soy sauce, mirin and dashi, and the liquid turns sticky as the peel releases its pectin. Regional yubeshi elsewhere stuffs whole yuzu with miso or glutinous rice, while this Tokushima version cooks the chopped peel into a sweet and savory condiment instead. Boiling the peel in three changes of water takes off the harshest bitterness while leaving a controlled bitter edge under the soy sweetness. A bit of chili, if used, gives a brief warm finish.