A single block of store-bought roux thickens the sauce and gives Japanese curry its mild, slightly sweet taste. There is no blending of spices as with Indian curry, which is how it became an everyday family dish in Japan that tastes the same every time. Potatoes, carrots, and onions are cut large so they hold their shape in the thick sauce.
Breaded pork loin fried to a deep golden brown is sliced thick and set beside a Japanese curry made sweet with well-browned onion and carrot. Where the curry touches the cutlet the crust softens while the rest stays crunchy, and each bite shifts between the two. Panko pressed firmly all the way to the edges keeps the coating from peeling away in the oil. The curry base cooks in a little of the reserved frying oil rather than fresh fat.
A freshly fried pork cutlet is warmed briefly in sweet tsuyu broth with onion and bound with softly set egg, so the underside soaks up broth while the top keeps some crunch. Nicking the sinew along the edge of the loin before breading stops the meat from curling, letting it lie flat over the rice.
Big flakes of smoked haddock and halved hard-boiled eggs show through rice tinted yellow with curry powder. Haddock is a cod relative, and the smoked fillets used here are the kind sold for cooking, so they need to be cooked through, not eaten straight from the pack.
Pork leg braised until it pulls apart with chopsticks is sliced over jasmine rice and spooned with a glossy soy glaze. Palm sugar caramel and dark soy sauce set the sweet-salty base, with star anise and cinnamon underneath. It is a staple of Thai night markets, Bangkok's included.
Regular khao man gai tops the rice with poached chicken; this version swaps in chicken thighs seasoned with soy and fish sauce, dredged lightly in flour, and fried skin side first to a deep gold. The rice cooks with garlic and ginger, giving it more aroma than plain steamed rice to stand up to the fried chicken. Excess flour is shaken off before frying, since a heavy coat tends to slip away in the oil. Sliced chicken goes over the rice with a sauce on the side.
A whole piece of chicken thigh, rubbed with turmeric and cumin, comes on top of rice cooked in coconut milk. The spice and coconut reach right into the rice, and a spicy dipping sauce on the side sharpens the whole plate.
Fish sauce and oyster sauce do all the seasoning, which gives the rice a briny savoriness quite unlike a soy-based fried rice. Shrimp, egg, and onion are about all that goes in, and in Thailand the shrimp is often swapped for chicken or crab, or dropped so the egg carries the dish alone.
Sold from morning to night at Thai street stalls and restaurants, this chicken fried rice keeps its seasoning short: fish sauce, oyster sauce, and a little sugar. The diced chicken thigh goes into a very hot wok first, spread in a single layer to brown. At the table, fish sauce, dried chili flakes, sugar, and vinegar are always within reach, and each diner reseasons their own plate.
Shrimp fried rice, pale yellow from a little curry powder, goes to the table inside the hollowed-out pineapple shell it was spooned into.
Egg and scallion are about the only other things in the pan, so the sweetness of the crab comes through first. In Thailand it arrives with a wedge of lime on the plate for you to squeeze over yourself.
This version has ground pork in it, and only a little gochujang, so the sour tang of well-fermented kimchi leads. Made with long-aged kimchi (mugeunji), it gets noticeably deeper.
To get the taste of a Korean snack-bar plate, the kimchi is fried with gochujang, dark soy sauce and a pinch of sugar for a sweet edge. Top it with a runny fried egg and crumbled gim (seaweed) and it looks the part too.
Mozzarella is lined up in a single row down the middle before rolling, so every slice shows a white stripe at its center. Around it sit kimchi, stir-fried until no liquid is left in the pan, and yellow pickled radish. Sliced cheese, which melts easily, can stand in for the mozzarella.
Five minutes in a hot pan turns sour, wet kimchi into something sweeter and more savory, as the moisture cooks off and the edges darken. The pan has to be hot enough that the kimchi sizzles on contact; otherwise it steams in its own liquid.
Ground pork and chopped kimchi are fried in sesame oil until the oil turns red before the rice is added, which gives this porridge a meatier backbone than kimchi alone. Over a 30-minute simmer the chili's sharp edge fades and the fermented tang spreads evenly through the pot. Chop the kimchi smaller than bite size, since big leaves stay stringy in soft porridge. Cubes of tofu stirred in make a soft, filling addition.
Slippery strips of acorn jelly (dotorimuk, a firm, mild starch jelly) sit over rice in an ice-cold broth of kimchi juice and water, with chopped kimchi in the middle for crunch. Sesame oil tossed through the rice and a scattering of seaweed flakes give a nutty, toasty note that cold broth would otherwise lack. Apart from the rice, nothing needs cooking, which makes it a summer bowl.
Pork belly cut into 1 cm pieces renders enough fat to fry the kimchi and rice, so no cooking oil is added and every grain tastes of pork. That only works if the pork gets 4 to 5 minutes, until the edges are golden and the fat coats the pan.
Finely ground toasted sesame and a splash of milk turn plain rice porridge creamy and nutty, and a spoonful of honey on each bowl leaves a gentle sweetness at the end. The seeds are ground very fine in a mortar or blender, since coarse bits make the porridge gritty. Because the rice soaks for 30 minutes first, this is not a last-minute porridge. Once the milk is added, the bottom catches easily and needs steady stirring.
Perilla oil and kkaennip (perilla leaves) both come from the same plant, so one bowl carries the toasty smell of the seed and the fresh, minty smell of the leaf. The egg is cooked soft in butter and folded in.
Half sheets of seaweed are spread with a very thin layer of rice and rolled tightly around just three fillings: yellow pickled radish, spinach, and carrot. The result is a slim roll that cuts into small coins, each one a single bite. Carrot is stir-fried only until it wilts so it keeps some crunch and sweetness, and the spinach is blanched briefly, squeezed dry, and dressed with sesame oil.
In spring, when cockles are in season, their meat goes into this bowl with raw water parsley (minari) and a gochujang dressing. The cockles come out of the boiling water after 30 seconds; any longer and they shrink and turn rubbery.
Even the liquid from the can of mackerel pike (kkongchi, a Pacific saury) goes in, two tablespoons of it, adding the taste of the fish to the kimchi sauce. Once the fish is in, the spatula splits it only two or three times, and it still sits on the rice in large chunks.
Cleaned blue crab sits on the rice, which cooks in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang dissolved in it, and the crab's sweetness and the earthy paste soak down into every grain. After the rice has rested, one more minute over low heat builds a layer of nurungji (scorched rice) on the bottom. Doenjang varies in saltiness from brand to brand, so start with a tablespoon and taste the stock.