636 recipes. Page 25 of 27
Everyday Korean side dish recipes
Crown daisy keeps its bitter, herbal perfume even under a coat of gochugaru and sand lance fish sauce, and two hours at room temperature plus a day of cold storage bring that aroma to its clearest point. The salted leaves are drained in a sieve rather than squeezed, because the tender greens bruise and turn mushy under pressure.
Collard leaves simmer for 75 to 90 minutes with onion, garlic, cider vinegar and bourbon until even the ribs are easy to chew. There is no meat in the pot, only vegetable stock, and the broth takes its flavor from the vinegar's tang and the onion and garlic. The tough center stems come out first. Collards are their own vegetable, and neither kale nor the Korean ssam kale used for wraps stands in for them.
A generous amount of finely shredded ginger gives mild chicken breast a sharp, warming smell. The cabbage and bell pepper are not cooked for long, so they still crunch.
Thin strips of beef and burdock start together in plain water rather than a hot oiled pan. Skimming the foam then keeps the liquid clear, and the beef stays tender. Soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine and garlic go in only after the meat changes color, and the beef's savoriness rounds out the earthy burdock. Leaving a shallow layer of sauce in the pot keeps the strips moist, and once cooled and settled, it packs well for lunch.
Diced turnip ferments submerged in a gochugaru broth, landing between cubed radish kimchi and water kimchi: more liquid than the first, redder and spicier than the second. Turnips are scrubbed with the skin on and only bruised spots are cut away, keeping their sweetness and firm texture. Salting lasts 25 minutes, and the water it draws out is poured away so no bitterness carries over. If turnip greens are on hand, a few chopped in with the roots ferment alongside and improve the aroma. After a day at room temperature, small bubbles and a light sour smell signal that the jar should move to the fridge for two more days.
The bitterness of sseumbagui, a Korean bitter green, is not meant to be removed. A short soak in cold salt water only softens it, and the greens, still pleasantly bitter, are tossed in a sweet and tangy dressing of gochujang, vinegar and sugar.
Because the pan runs on high heat, perilla oil is not used alone but mixed in equal parts with neutral oil. The king oyster mushrooms are cut lengthwise into long strips that keep their grain, and ground perilla seed goes in over low heat for the last minute to thicken the little bit of soy broth.
Blanched outer leaves of napa cabbage are thinner than dried radish greens and, once tossed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) and covered, soften in under twenty minutes. Trimming off the stringy stems and thick ribs first is what makes the texture even; left in, they stay fibrous among the tender leaves. The seasoned leaves are stir-fried in perilla oil before any water is added, laying a nutty base under the salty bean paste. If the liquid cooks off too quickly under the lid, a splash more water is needed before it turns salty or catches on the bottom. Ground perilla seeds scattered in at the end thicken the liquid so it clings to the greens, giving a mellow, nutty side dish for rice.
A few fresh basil leaves in the jar give this soy pickle an herbal note that ordinary jangajji does not have. The brine is cooled completely before it is poured over, because peeled cherry tomatoes turn soft under hot liquid. The skins slip off from a shallow cross cut, since a deep cut makes the flesh split open in the boiling water. Once the jar has chilled for a day, the vinegar settles and the tomatoes' own sweetness comes forward, and the texture holds for about a week when refrigerated. Serve them with rice or rich grilled meat, or on cheese and crackers with drinks.
The longer crown daisy sits in boiling water, the more of its scent it loses. About 20 seconds is enough before it moves to an ice bath. The thick base stays tough even after blanching, and two or three centimeters are cut off beforehand.
Garlic cooked in butter, then soy sauce and sugar bubbling down, leave the shrimp with a sweet-salty shine. Shrimp shrink and toughen soon after they are cooked through, and the soy and sugar are mixed ahead to go in the moment the shrimp are done.
A whole rockfish cooks in a broth of soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), and each spoonful takes some of the spicy liquid, the white flesh and a piece of radish that has soaked up both.
With taro stems, the work is in the prep rather than the pickling. Fresh stems are peeled wearing gloves, boiled, then soaked well in cold water before they go into a soy and vinegar brine with garlic and ginger. It is a fridge side dish meant to be eaten within three or four days of making it.
Fresh corn cut off the cob, lima beans, zucchini and tomato warm through together in one pan, and the vinegar and basil are added after the heat is off for a sharp, herbal finish. The recipe uses cooked canned lima beans, and dried or raw ones would not soften in the same few minutes.
Saltwort (sebalnamul) grows by the sea and is salty on its own, which is why the soy sauce is used sparingly. It is stir-fried with torn oyster mushrooms, and perilla powder and perilla oil are mixed in once the heat is off.
Shallow cuts in the thickest part of the rockfish let the sauce reach the center and help it cook at the same pace as the thinner flesh. The radish simmers first until its edges turn translucent, because radish that is still hard when the fish is added stays firm while the fish dries out.
Burdock browns the moment its cut face meets air. The bowl of vinegar water sits right beside the cutting board, and each stick goes in as soon as it is cut. A brief blanch takes off the raw, earthy edge and leaves the surface just slightly translucent. The soy brine is steeped with kelp, dried chili and peppercorns only briefly so it stays clean rather than bitter, then poured on hot before the jar goes straight into the fridge. Two days later the sticks are seasoned through, and the jar stays in the fridge from then on as a refrigerator pickle, not a shelf-stable preserve.
Bean sprouts go limp if they linger in water that is barely simmering. The pot needs a hard boil, and the sprouts come out the moment their stems turn translucent, under 30 seconds, straight into cold water. Green onion and sesame seeds are not tossed in but scattered over the top once the sprouts are in the bowl.
Celery keeps much of its crunch and scent after a quick stir-fry, so it stays distinct among the soy and oyster sauce beef. The pan the beef came out of is not washed; the celery and onion go straight into it.
Searing the salmon pieces for about a minute per side firms the surface before the soy sauce goes in, so the soft flesh holds together while the sauce is spooned over it. Ginger powder and cooking wine keep the soy flavor light, and a spoon of rice syrup gives the sauce a thin sheen. Sliced onion under the fish sweetens the sauce and keeps the fillets off the pan.
Green cabbage leaves are thinner and firmer than napa, so they take salt quickly and turn tough rather than soft when left too long. Wide leaves and thick stems are cut to a similar size so one part does not finish salting before the other. The moment to stop salting is when a leaf bends but still snaps between the teeth. Draining matters more than it seems: leftover rinse water slides the chili paste off the leaves and thins the brine that forms later. Julienned carrot and scallion keep the color bright, and the jar moves to the fridge once liquid starts pooling after a short room-temperature ferment.
Fresh tot (hijiki) turns from brown to bright green the moment it hits boiling water, and it has a pleasant snap. It's tossed with thin slices of onion in a sour-spicy dressing of equal parts gochujang and vinegar.
How much liquid ends up in the pan depends on how dry the washed spinach is before it goes in. The only seasoning is a teaspoon of soy sauce, with sesame oil and sesame seeds stirred in after the heat is off.
A spoon of gochujang (Korean chili paste) in the soy sauce turns the lotus root a reddish brown and adds a low heat under the sweet-salty glaze. Pork shoulder, marinated briefly with ginger juice and browned with onion first, leaves its fat in the pot for the lotus root to soak up, which makes this heartier than a plain lotus root side. The crunch of the root against the tender pork is the whole point.