311 recipes. Page 8 of 13
Quick and delicious stir-fry recipes
Dried tofu cut into thin strips does not break up in the pan; it lifts on the chopsticks in strands, like noodles. Carrot, green pepper and onion cut to the same width make it colorful.
Through the doenjang-fried pork comes the faintly earthy smell of Swiss chard. The leaves go limp as they cool, so it is eaten straight from the pan, spooned over rice.
Despite the japchae in its name, there are no glass noodles. Pork tenderloin, green bell pepper and onion are all cut into long strips of the same thickness, the starch-coated pork is seared first over high heat, and oyster sauce finishes it. With everything the same size, meat and pepper come up together in one pinch of the chopsticks.
With 700 g of pork neck cooked in one go, there is enough for four people to wrap in lettuce. Gochugaru goes in alongside the gochujang, adding a drier, more powdery heat on top of the paste's.
Maesil-cheong (green plum syrup) in the marinade gives this gochujang pork neck an unusually tart finish. Perilla leaves, barely cooked, are mixed through the meat.
Done right, the gochujang sauce does not pool in the pan but clings to every piece of fish cake with a shine. The square fish cakes are dipped briefly in boiling water first to rinse off their surface oil.
Mayonnaise stirred in after the heat is off keeps the dried squid strands soft and moist even once the dish cools. The pan comes off the heat as soon as the strands start to clump together, since a sauce cooked any longer scorches and turns bitter.
The pork belly goes into a dry pan with no oil at all. After three or four minutes it has rendered plenty of fat and browned at the edges, and that fat cooks the onion before a quick coating of gochujang, soy sauce and sugar.
Peeling is most of the work here: the thin outer skin has to come off the whole length of each stem, because leftover fibers stay stringy no matter how long they cook. Peeled and blanched, the sweet potato stems turn a clear olive green, and ground perilla seed added at the end thickens the little pan liquid into a nutty, clinging coat. The last step stays brief because that coating sticks to the pan quickly.
Canned whelk is warmed briefly in a gochujang sauce sharpened with vinegar, then tossed off the heat with raw onion, cucumber and scallion. Unlike the cold whelk salad, the sauce here is warm while the vegetables stay raw and crunchy.
The doenjang is thinned with three tablespoons of water before it goes in, because boiled gondre (a wild mountain green) comes in tangled strands. Thinned paste can work its way between them. Tofu, browned separately in perilla oil, joins at the end.
Oily mackerel and boiled gondre, a rustic, grassy Korean thistle green, share one gochujang and soy glaze. The mackerel is pan-browned separately and added near the end, so it is still in large flakes on the plate.
Blanched beef intestines (gopchang) go into a dry pan first and give up their own fat, and that fat, not cooking oil, is what the gochujang sauce and vegetables are fried in. The chewy gopchang carries a strong hit of chili from both gochujang and chili flakes.
Bracken fern is first coated in perilla oil and then simmered briefly in soy-seasoned water, so it ends up tender and seasoned all the way through. That second stage is closer to braising than frying, and stopping while a little liquid remains keeps the ferns moist. Use bracken that has already been soaked and boiled; dried or raw fern should not go straight into this pan. Splitting the thick stems by hand evens out the seasoning.
No champuru goes without firm Okinawan island tofu. Here it is torn into large pieces and browned first; thin slices of goya get a short stir-fry and a coating of egg, and then boiled pork belly and the tofu go back in. It started as summer home cooking and is now on Okinawan tables all year.
Briny fresh oysters go into the pan with minari (Korean water parsley), a strongly grassy herb, and are stir-fried with chili flakes and soup soy sauce for a little heat. The oysters are barely cooked, so they stay plump.
One zucchini and a spoonful of salted shrimp (saeujeot) are about all this side dish needs. The shrimp brings a savory saltiness, so extra salt is rarely needed.
Cut into thin julienne rather than half-moons, the zucchini mixes evenly through rice when this namul goes into bibimbap. The decisive step is squeezing the salted strands hard with both hands; water left behind makes the stir-fry soggy and the bibimbap wet. With only salt, garlic and sesame oil, the pale green color stays bright, and it works warm or cooled.
Only soy sauce, cooking wine and garlic season it, and lightly, so the sweetness of Korean zucchini (aehobak) and the shrimp come first. It holds up well at room temperature.
Pumpkin leaves get tougher and more fibrous as they grow, so this uses young ones picked in summer. The stringy fibers are peeled from the stems, and the leaves are blanched, squeezed dry and stir-fried with shrimp in perilla oil, seasoned with soup soy sauce.
Mussels steamed in butter and rice wine get green chili and scallion, so a sharp heat follows the richness of the butter. The liquor from the shells mixes with the melted butter, and there is no separate sauce to make.
The name means meat returned to the pot: pork belly is simmered whole, cooled, sliced thin, then fried again in the wok. That second round crisps the edges while the fat turns pleasantly chewy, and doubanjiang (chili bean paste) with fermented black beans coats it in a salty, spicy sauce. Leek and green pepper go in at the end and stay crunchy. How much soy sauce to add depends on the doubanjiang, as brands vary a lot in saltiness.
One bite brings the springy head of webfoot octopus (jjukkumi), its chewy suckered legs and crunchy soybean sprouts. With plenty of gochugaru and cheongyang chilies on top of that, it is properly hot.
Hwangtae is pollock dried through a winter of freezing and thawing in mountain air, which leaves the flesh light and full of tiny holes. Soaked and stir-fried, the shreds take the gochujang glaze all the way in and turn red, moist and chewy.