636 recipes. Page 4 of 27
Everyday Korean side dish recipes
Pomfret has thin, tender flesh that slips off the bone easily once the whole steamed fish reaches the table. Ginger and green onion are split into two rounds: the first steams with the fish to cut any fishiness, and the second goes on with the warm soy and rice wine sauce for fresh aroma. That sauce is mild and barely salty, letting the clean taste of the fish lead.
A day after the beet and onion go into the soy and vinegar brine, the liquid itself has turned deep purple and the salty and sour notes have settled in. It is a fridge pickle, so use a clean utensil each time you take some out.
Without any meat, japchae leans entirely on its vegetables: spinach, carrot, shiitake, bell pepper, and onion each keep their own color and sweetness because they are stir-fried one at a time. The spinach only needs to wilt over high heat and is spread out to cool at once, or it dulls in color and turns tough. The glass noodles soak up soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil before anything else joins them and come out glossy, chewy, and seasoned through. Tossing them with vegetables straight from a hot pan makes the noodles slump and clump, the usual way this dish goes wrong. It works as an everyday side dish or on a holiday table.
The cockles of Beolgyo, on the wide tidal flats of South Jeolla, are plump and notably sweet, and they are fullest from November through March. Stirring in one direction while they boil helps every shell open at the same time, and they come out the moment they gape, before the meat shrinks and turns rubbery. A dressing of chili flakes, soy sauce and vinegar lays a sour, spicy edge over their briny sweetness, and a short rest lets it soak into the flesh.
Pinto beans come out of a long, slow bake glazed in molasses, mustard and bacon, the sauce about as loose as thin syrup. Between the overnight soak, a first simmer on the stove and 4 hours 30 minutes to 5 hours in a covered pot in the oven, this is a start-in-the-morning dish. Hot water goes in a little at a time whenever the liquid runs low.
Dried bottle gourd strips are thin slices of the gourd's inner flesh, and they need more than 30 minutes of soaking to turn chewy again. They cook in perilla oil, and the ground perilla seed goes in while a little liquid remains, soaking it up and clinging to the strips as a thick coating. It is a mild namul to set beside more strongly seasoned banchan.
Halved and scored in a grid, the eggplant cooks cut side down under a lid, and the trapped steam turns the inside creamy while the skin keeps a little bite. The soy and garlic sauce is spooned into the cuts while the eggplant is still hot.
The clam meat is drained well before it goes into the batter, yet as the pancake cooks it still releases salty juice that carries a clam flavor through every part. It is made as one large round about 20 cm across and cut into six to eight pieces.
Butterfish is so tender that it is never turned in the pot; instead the broth is spooned over every two or three minutes to cook the top. The soy broth carries ginger and only a little chili flake; the heat is barely there.
Beets cut into 2 cm cubes get dressed like kkakdugi, the cubed radish kimchi, but this batch is eaten fresh rather than fermented. Whatever is not served right away goes into a lidded container and straight into the fridge at 4°C or below rather than sitting out at room temperature. A kimchi meant for long fermentation needs its own tested ratios and instructions, not this one. The salted cubes are drained well first, because any water they carry thins the paste.
Thin and wiry, kkosiraegi seaweed snaps cleanly between the teeth, a texture nothing like soft miyeok or kelp. Twenty seconds in boiling water is the limit, and an immediate plunge into cold water brings back the spring. Maesil-cheong, a sweet green plum syrup, gives the sour dressing a fruity note, and cucumber strips add a fresh, green aroma against the sea flavor. Served cold, it makes a refreshing summer side.
Roasting broccoli coated in doenjang and gochujang at 200°C browns the floret edges and deepens the savory paste. A one-minute blanch leaves the stems bright green and still firm going into the oven, where the high heat finishes them.
Between the slightly bitter bangpung namul, a spring green also called sea breeze herb, and the sweetness of shrimp seasoned with mirin, the dish needs little more than a tablespoon of soy sauce. The spring leaves are thin, so they go in last with the soy and come off the heat while still bright green.
Salted mackerel from a Korean market is already cured, which firms the flesh and means it needs no extra seasoning before it hits the pan. A quick rinse removes only the surface salt, whereas soaking washes out the seasoning and softens the flesh.
The pollock jeon on Korean holiday tables is usually made from frozen fillets. Thawed pollock gives off more water than you would expect, and pressing it well with paper towels is what lets the egg coating stick.
Fat from the thin brisket slices melts down into the bean sprouts underneath, so even a bite of sprouts alone tastes rich. The dressing is light: soy sauce with garlic, a little sugar and sesame oil.
Cubes of white radish take on the beet's color and, after about a day, turn an even pink all the way through. More beet means a deeper color and a sweeter pickle.
It looks like radish saengchae, but kohlrabi is juicier and lightly sweet, closer to a pear, which gives the salad a noticeably different taste. The vegetable is the swollen base of a cabbage-family stem, and its fibrous outer layer comes off in a thick peel. Fish sauce supplies savory depth and vinegar a sour lift, both framing the mild sweetness. It turns up most in spring and autumn, when kohlrabi is in season.
Peeled and sliced thin, the broccoli stem cooks in the same 1 minute 30 seconds as the florets and goes into the bowl with them, leaving nothing from the head to waste. Pull the broccoli while it is still bright and firm, because overcooked florets break apart as soon as the dressing is folded in.
Oyster mushrooms torn along the grain come apart in thin strands, while shiitake cut 5 mm thick have a fuller chew. Whether the mushrooms were rinsed matters less than whether they go into the pan wet or piled in layers.
Each sheet of laver is brushed thinly with sesame oil, sprinkled with salt, and laid in a pan over low heat, one at a time. Within about ten seconds the dark sheet turns bright green and the edges curl a little, and that is the moment to flip it. Brown spots mean it has already gone too far, and the next sheet gets a lower flame.
Firm tofu is sliced about 1 cm thick, pressed under a weight for at least 15 minutes, then seasoned with salt and pepper. Soy sauce stays on the side for dipping instead of being poured over. Hot from the pan the egg coating is lightly crisp, and it softens as it cools.
Cod is lean and mild, so it gets a punchy sauce of soy, gochujang and chili flakes. The radish under it soaks that sauce up and ends up as good as the fish.
Even a small amount of beet stains the broth red. The radish portion is kept the larger one, since a jar where beet outweighs radish turns muddy and dark. Both are cut into the same thin, flat pieces so a spoonful picks up some of each. The liquid drawn out during salting is added to the jar rather than poured away. Pear juice brings sweetness, sliced garlic and ginger bring aroma, and a cooled rice-flour porridge gives the broth body. A good stir after adding the salt water keeps that porridge from settling on the bottom. It sits out for a day before moving to the fridge.