Ssukgat (crown daisy greens) goes in just long enough to wilt, so its bitter, herbal edge comes through clearly against the rich gochujang pork. The pork shoulder is seared in a smoking-hot pan for some browned flavor.
Pork shoulder simmered for about an hour in beef bone broth turns the soup milky and full-bodied. Salted shrimp (saeujeot) and salt come on the side so each person seasons their own bowl, which is how it is eaten in Busan.
The freshwater fish disappears entirely, its flesh dissolved into a spicy gochujang and doenjang broth thick with both rice and thin somyeon noodles. Perilla seed powder and perilla leaves are strong enough that the muddy taste river fish can have barely registers. Fine bones can survive even several strainings, so eat slowly.
Chopped fish cake crisps slightly at the edges in hot oil, and its salty, savory flavor spreads through every grain of rice. Because the fish cake is already seasoned, the soy sauce stays modest and any extra salt waits until after tasting.
The pan goes on until it smokes, and scallions fry for 30 seconds to make a scallion oil. The eggs come last: once the rice is fried, it is pushed to the edges and the eggs are scrambled in the cleared center before everything is mixed. Leftover ham, kimchi, shrimp or canned tuna can go in too.
Shucked clams and thick-cut scallion simmer briefly in miso broth, and the whole pot, liquid included, is poured over hot rice to be eaten while the broth runs between the grains. In the Edo period, Fukagawa was a tidal fishing settlement full of clams, and vendors sold the meat already out of the shell, so fishers could cook it fast and eat between jobs.
Minced crucian carp and root vegetables simmer in a sweet-salty dashi with two kinds of soy sauce, and the hot soup is ladled generously over rice, then topped with sliced green onion and torn nori. The dish grew up around the reclaimed land of Kojima Bay in southern Okayama, where rice paddies, canals, rivers, and Kojima Lake held plenty of winter carp. Its other names, tontoko-jiru and tontoko-meshi, echo the rhythmic chopping of fish on a board.
The name comes from fusuberu, the work of grilling freshly caught loach and drying it in the smoke of the hearth. That dried loach is ground to powder and simmered for about an hour with grated burdock, grated daikon and a red chili into a thick, spicy sauce, which is poured over hot, freshly pounded mochi. In Kurihara, Miyagi Prefecture, it has been eaten at New Year, weddings, memorial services and the turning points of the farming year.
A half sheet of nori is joined to a full one to make the wrapper wider, and inside goes a generous line of sashimi-grade tuna, tsuyu-seasoned rolled omelet, cucumber, pickled radish and simmered burdock. Tuna, radish and omelet are cut into bars of about the same thickness, with fine strips of cucumber filling the gaps, and that is what gives each slice a full, even center.
Eggplant and ground pork are stir-fried in green onion oil, then piled, oil and all, on top of the soaked rice, so the eggplant cooks with the rice while soaking up the pork fat and onion aroma. Cut it thick, about 1.5 cm, and pull it off the heat before it goes limp, or it collapses once the rice is done. Soy sauce splashed onto the hot edge of the pan adds a slightly smoky note.
The eggplant goes into a very hot pan, spread out in one layer and browned only lightly on the outside. Left over low heat, it soaks up oil and turns heavy. Once seared, it is pushed to one side, ground pork and garlic are fried in the space beside it, and both are glazed together with soy sauce and sugar.
The short ribs marinate for over an hour in soy sauce with grated Asian pear and onion, then braise over low heat for another hour or more. When the meat slides off the bone at a touch of the chopsticks and the sauce has turned glossy, it all goes over rice. It is a long cook, but the pot does most of the work.
Chunks of cutlassfish (galchi), seasoned for ten minutes with soy sauce and ginger, sit on the very top of the pot as the rice cooks. After resting, the flesh falls apart at the touch of a paddle. The scallions are scattered over and everything is folded together with a light hand.
With butter, milk and cheddar, this tastes closer to potato soup than to a typical rice porridge. Starch from the finely chopped potato thickens it, and since the cheese is salty, taste before adding any salt at the end.
The beef is braised once as a whole piece, torn along the grain, then braised a second time with quail eggs. Over rice, it gets a heavy crumble of dried gamtae, a thin winter seaweed, added only at the last moment because the braising liquid softens it quickly.
The pollock roe never goes over a flame. When the rice is done, the heat is turned off, the lid comes up just long enough to add the roe and a knob of butter, and the residual heat of an 8-minute rest warms them through. That keeps the eggs from tightening, and they still pop. The gamtae seaweed is crumbled over with the scallions once the rice has finished resting.
Tofu is mashed into the pot as it simmers and breaks down into the sauce, thickening this gangdoenjang, a reduced soybean-paste sauce for rice, without any starch. Zucchini, onion and shiitake are diced small, no bigger than 1 cm. Doenjang varies in saltiness, and the way to adjust is to mix more or less of the finished sauce into the rice.
Gondre, a mild wild thistle green from the mountains of Gangwon Province, cooks right on top of the rice, so the rice itself stays plain with a soft, grassy aroma. The seasoning comes at the table: soy sauce mixed with green onion, garlic, chili flakes, and sesame oil brings salt and heat against the gentle greens. Fresh gondre is most fragrant in spring, but properly soaked dried gondre gives nearly the same result year round.
Black soybeans cooked soft and blended with their cooking water turn the rice porridge a deep purple-black, with a toasty, nutty bean aroma throughout. The beans and rice each need at least 4 hours of soaking before cooking begins.
Small balls of sesame-oil rice and a dab of garlicky ssamjang, a Korean dipping paste of soybean and chili, are wrapped in Swiss chard leaves blanched for just 30 seconds. The one bit of prep that matters is shaving down the thick rib on the back of each leaf with a flat knife; left whole, it stays stiff and pokes through when you fold.
The spinach is squeezed hard before it is seasoned, the carrot is sauteed to drive off water, and the rice is left to cool a little before it is spread on the seaweed. All three steps are there to keep the gim from going soggy. The finished roll and the knife both get a thin coat of sesame oil before slicing.
All the usual gimbap fillings land on a bowl of rice instead of being rolled in seaweed: thin egg strips, sauteed carrot, blanched spinach and torn imitation crab. There is no laver, pickled radish or fish cake here, so the seasoning lives in the rice itself, tossed with sesame oil and salt. Each topping keeps its own section until the bowl is mixed at the table.
Chicken thigh glazed in gochujang goes over rice, with mayonnaise piped across it in zigzags. Thigh stays moist through the glazing where breast would dry out.
The mackerel has its pin bones pulled before grilling, so you can break it up with a spoon and stir it straight into the rice and onion soy sauce. A little minced ginger in the sauce keeps the oily fish tasting clean.