636 recipes. Page 9 of 27
Everyday Korean side dish recipes
Firm tofu cut into thick slabs and steamed comes out with a slight spring on the outside and a silky center. The soy and gochugaru sauce, left to sit until the chili flakes swell and thicken it, is spooned onto the hot tofu and seeps into each cut face with salty, mild heat.
Bok choy makes a lighter, crunchier kimchi than napa cabbage, ready to eat within a day. The salt goes mainly on the thick stems, and 20 minutes is the limit before the stems toughen. The halves drain thoroughly in a sieve after rinsing, because leftover water thins the paste until it slides off the leaves. Blending the salted shrimp and fish sauce into the sweet rice paste first makes the seasoning easy to spread thinly between leaves. Julienned carrot and scallions add color and a varied bite. After 4 hours at room temperature it moves to the fridge.
Yuzu syrup, sweet and fragrant with citrus peel, coats chewy-crisp lotus root and makes a bright side for rich main dishes. Thickness decides the texture: even 3 mm rounds stay pleasantly chewy after blanching, while slices cut too thin lose their crunch. A quick rinse in cold water right after blanching stops the cooking while the cut faces are just turning translucent. The rinsed slices are then spread out to drain so leftover water does not dilute the dressing. A rest of about 5 minutes and one more toss let the dressing reach the hollow channels. If the yuzu syrup tastes too sweet, a drop more vinegar brings it back into balance, and the dish is chilled before serving.
A warm side to spoon next to a steak: chopped spinach bound in a thick sauce of cream cheese and cream. Once wilted, the spinach is pressed hard in a sieve before it meets the sauce.
Doubanjiang, the Chinese fermented chili bean paste, is salty and hot, and how salty depends on the brand. So the soy sauce here is not poured by the recipe; it is decided after tasting the sauce. There is no meat, just pan-browned tofu and bok choy.
Garlic scapes stay tough if they go into the pan raw. So they spend just 30 seconds in boiling water, get rinsed in cold water right away, and then cook with the gochujang sauce in a pan for about 3 minutes. Done, they bend easily but still snap when you bite.
Ham, imitation crab, king oyster mushroom and scallion, all cut to the same length and threaded in turn, make up kkochi-jeon, a regular on ancestral rite and holiday tables. One bite brings the salt of the ham, the spring of the crab stick, the firm grain of the mushroom and the scallion's green smell all at once.
A well-made dubu jorim has three layers in one bite: a dark, slightly chewy glazed surface, a seasoned middle, and a soft white center. That outer layer forms in the frying pan, where the tofu browns on both sides before the sauce is added. Blotting off surface water first keeps the oil from spitting.
Laid on a spoonful of hot rice, one of these peppers delivers salty, funky soybean paste and lingering heat in a single bite. Pricking each Cheongyang chili all over with a fork lets the doenjang brine reach the inside instead of sitting on the skin.
Steamed cabbage leaves wrap around pan-cooked chicken tenderloin, and slicing the rolls 2-3 cm thick shows a white center inside green layers. Both the chicken and the cabbage are mild, so the ssamjang served alongside, a thick Korean dipping paste, carries most of the flavor. Pressing the thick cabbage ribs flat before steaming lets the leaves roll without splitting.
Halved lengthwise and laid cut side down in a very hot pan, the bok choy cooks stalk first and only then gets flipped so the leaf edges char a little. The oyster sauce, loosened with soy sauce and a splash of water, is just enough for a thin, glossy coat on the stalks. Properly cooked, the leaves have wilted but a stalk still pushes back with some crunch when bent.
The skin of the sea bass fillets is dried twice: once while trimming, and again five minutes after the coarse salt and pepper go on, when fresh moisture has come up. The frying oil is olive oil warmed over low heat with crushed garlic and thyme, and after the flip it gets spooned over the flesh.
The flower crab is not picked; it is halved shell and all, floured, dipped in egg and fried, and you end up eating it the way you would any crab, holding the shell and pulling the meat out. Before frying, minced ginger is rubbed into the gaps between meat and shell and left for a short while to tame the fishy smell and season the thick meat inside.
The longer the kimchi has sat in the fridge and the sourer it has become, the better it suits this braise. Simmered with soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), its sharp acidity softens, and the tofu, laid in raw without frying, soaks up the red liquid to the middle.
Ponytail radishes go into the kimchi whole, greens and all, and after a day at room temperature they bite back with a fizzy tang. Long greens turn tough, so they are trimmed short first.
Both the small bulbs and the leaves of dallae, a Korean wild chive, go in raw, tossed in soy sauce, vinegar, gochugaru and sesame oil. Cleaning takes the longest: soil hides between the bulbs, and the dark core and loose outer skin have to come off.
Mung bean jelly (cheongpomuk) is nearly tasteless and breaks easily, and keeping the pieces whole takes most of the care in a stir-fry. A 30-second blanch firms the surface a little and washes off loose starch, which helps the soy sauce stick.
Okdom, the tilefish most associated with Jeju, is grilled whole and seasoned with nothing more than coarse salt and pepper. The flesh is firm and flavorful enough on its own; even the ginger juice is brushed on only thinly, just to deal with any fishiness.
Little more than blanched soybean sprouts held together by a thin film of batter, this pancake comes out with nutty heads and stems that stay crunchy.
This is better ten minutes after it comes off the heat than right away; as it cools, the potatoes keep drinking in the soy sauce until they are seasoned all the way through.
Ten seconds in boiling water is all the aster leaves get, just enough to relax the tough stems while their sharp, faintly bitter mountain-herb scent survives into the jar. Sliced garlic and one dried chili sit between the layers, so the soy-vinegar brine picks up a quiet bite rather than real heat. In Korea this is a spring side dish: lay a leaf over a spoonful of rice, or chop it fine and tuck it into a rice ball.
The sautéed carrot that goes into bibimbap and gimbap, served as a side dish of its own. Cut into fine matchsticks and cooked only briefly, it stays bright orange with a little crunch left.
Before the rehydrated chwinamul (aster scaber, a Korean mountain green) goes near the pan, it is dressed by hand with soup soy sauce, minced garlic and perilla oil, the way a namul side would be. Seasoned first and cooked second, every strand ends up evenly salted.
A sauce of yuja cheong (Korean citron marmalade) and soy sauce, brushed into the gills of fresh shiitake caps and left for ten minutes, seeps between the folds and stays on after grilling as a sour-salty glaze.