636 recipes. Page 8 of 27
Everyday Korean side dish recipes
Celery leaves usually end up in the bin, but here they go into the pan with the stalks and give the chicken breast an herby smell. The stalks get only a short time on the heat, so they still crunch.
Napa kimchi aged until it turns sour mellows in a hot pan, the sourness easing into a toasty sweetness. Besides the kimchi there is only a little sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds, so how well aged the kimchi is decides the taste. Eat it while the edges are still crisp.
Korean zucchini sliced 0.5 cm thick and salted for five minutes gives up water and tastes sweeter for it. Fried yellow in its egg coat, it turns up on everyday dinner tables as well as on holiday ancestral-rite and guest spreads.
The tofu is cut into thick slices and pan-fried golden before it goes into the doenjang broth. That browned surface lets it take constant ladlings of sauce without falling apart, and it turns a deeper brown as the doenjang soaks in.
Firm Korean melon, sliced into thin half-moons, keeps a cool sweetness under the salty, tangy soy brine. Fully ripe melon goes soft in the jar, so hard fruit is the one to buy.
Glasswort grows near tidal flats and its thin stems already taste salty, which leaves the seasoning to chili flakes, vinegar, plum syrup and sesame oil with no added salt. The stems pop when bitten, and keeping that snap explains the 10-second blanch and the plunge into cold water right after. Mixing it for too long makes the stems go limp and leaves water on the plate. For that reason the chili flakes are soaked in the vinegar and plum syrup first, and a quick toss then coats the greens. Paper-thin onion adds a little sweetness, and the fruity plum syrup rounds off the vinegar's sharpness.
Slightly bitter chwinamul is blanched for 2 minutes and dressed with doenjang, soup soy sauce and sesame oil, then finished with perilla powder and scallion. The doenjang is worked in with spread fingers so it reaches between the leaves, and the greens rest five minutes before serving. In winter, when fresh chwinamul is not around, dried chwinamul soaked until soft can stand in.
No oil goes in the pan. Well-aged, sour kimchi is fried in the fat that melts out of thin-sliced brisket (chadolbagi), and comes out tasting of beef.
Saury is seasoned with nothing but coarse salt and pepper. Ten minutes after salting, beads of moisture show up on the surface again, and wiping those off too is what keeps the skin from sticking. The cooked fish goes straight onto a plate rather than sitting in the pan, with grated radish and lemon alongside.
Perilla leaves have a strong scent, so the pork and tofu filling is seasoned simply, with only soy sauce and black pepper. A thin layer goes inside each leaf, which is folded, fried, then cut in half again into single bites.
The oyster mushrooms are torn by hand into thick strips along the grain, and they stay chewy even after the braise. The sauce starts from plain water rather than stock; the mushrooms give it all the savoriness it needs.
Cheonggak, a branching green seaweed, gives this radish kimchi a firm, almost crunchy chew and a marine aroma that land-vegetable kimchi lacks. Half the paste is massaged into the julienned radish first so it seasons evenly; the seaweed joins the remaining paste and is tossed quickly, because long handling toughens it. A day in the fridge lets the seaweed's salinity merge with the fish sauce paste, and the briny result sits naturally beside seafood and mild rice soups.
A brief dip in boiling water firms the surface of acorn jelly, which helps the soft slices survive being tossed in a soy, vinegar and chili dressing. Mixing them takes a few gentle lifts from the bottom rather than stirring, as they still break easily.
Despite the name, this muchim spends time in a skillet: the blanched greens are stir-fried in perilla oil and simmered briefly in water, giving them the softer texture of a sauteed namul. Perilla powder stirred into the remaining liquid thickens it into a pale, nutty paste that coats every leaf and stem. Seasoning the greens with soup soy sauce, garlic, and green onion before they hit the pan lets the stems absorb salt as they simmer.
Young bok choy leaves spend just over a minute on high heat, enough to char the tips lightly. The garlic goes in first over low heat to scent the oil, and the flame jumps up the moment the greens hit the pan.
Each kkwari pepper gets poked once or twice with a fork, then rolled around a dry pan for about 3 minutes until the skin wrinkles and spots brown. The doenjang sauce goes in only after that, for 2 minutes of tossing. As it cools, the seasoning tastes stronger.
Tuna batter, mixed with chopped onion and carrot, is spread thin on single perilla leaves, and each leaf works as a base plate that keeps the patty in one piece when it is flipped.
A few shallow cuts in each boiled egg let the soy sauce get past the slick white, which turns brown in the pot. The tofu and eggs keep for about five days in the fridge, and they are better after a day or two, once the seasoning has gone deeper.
Thick white bok choy stems stay crunchy while the green leaves soak up the brine and soften, so one piece holds two textures. Cheongyang chilies are sliced with their seeds and layered through the jar, leaving a clean, lingering heat in every stem. The ginger comes out after a 2-minute rest so its scent stays faint. Well-drained heads keep the brine clear, and turning them once after two days evens out the seasoning.
Thin lotus root slices are blanched just until the edges turn translucent, leaving a firm bite at the center, then dressed in a sweet-sour mix of soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Dropping each slice into cold water with a little vinegar as soon as it is cut stops the surface from browning. A splash of vinegar in the blanching water keeps the slices white. The slices cool spread out in a single layer, because piled hot they keep cooking and lose their crunch. Letting the dressed root sit briefly and then turning it again carries the seasoning into the holes. Liquid that gathers during cold storage is shaken off lightly before plating.
Canned corn kernels end up loosely bound in a milk and cream sauce, thick enough to eat with a spoon but neither set like a casserole nor brothy like chowder. Instead of more flour, part of the corn is mashed and stirred back in to thicken it, and the heat comes off while the sauce still flows, since it firms up as it cools.
Chamnamul, a Korean mountain green, smells a little like parsley or celery leaves, only cleaner and stronger. Stir-fried with soy-marinated beef, its fresh scent sits clearly on top of the heavier meat.
Half-dried pollock, kodari, is chewier than fresh pollock and much less fishy. It soaks in cold water for 10 minutes, both sides are seared plain, and only then does the soy, gochujang and syrup glaze go on, a thin coat at every turn.
Each perilla leaf is folded around a thin layer of beef and tofu, and a bite goes through the egg coating to the leaf's aroma before it reaches the meat. Packing in more filling would bury that aroma under the beef, which is why it is spread thin, right to the edges of the leaf.