124 recipes. Page 2 of 6
Traditional drinks and bar snack recipes
Dalgona, the Korean honeycomb candy made by puffing melted sugar with baking soda, gets crushed and dissolved into cold milk for a caramel-flavored drink. The baking soda needs only a few seconds of fast stirring; keep going and the bubbles collapse, leaving the candy dense instead of light and brittle.
With no water, fruit or sugar, this juice holds nothing but the mild sweetness and green note of cold carrots. Instead of ice in the juice, the carrots are refrigerated beforehand, and the glasses are chilled with ice that is then tipped out and wiped dry. If the carrots give less juice than expected, it stays that way, never topped up with water or sweetener.
Kabocha steamed in its skin and blended smooth turns milk into a thick, golden latte with a hint of cinnamon. Any graininess in the purée separates from the milk and lingers on the tongue, so it is blended until no specks remain. Lightly whipped cream is spooned on top just before serving.
Steamed kabocha mashed into the finished malt punch turns ordinary sikhye a deep golden orange and gives it noticeably more body. The base sweetness still comes from malted barley working on cooked rice during a long warm hold; the pumpkin adds weight and color rather than replacing that step. Thin slices of ginger steep with the rice, leaving a faint heat in the finish that stops the pumpkin from tasting cloying. Served cold with a few rice grains floating on top, it sits somewhere between a drink and a light dessert.
Deodeok, a Korean root with a bitter, earthy scent, is steeped gently with ginger and then lengthened with fresh pear juice and sparkling water. The root is only tapped until its fibers loosen, not smashed, and the water never goes past a gentle shimmer at the edges. Pear brings the sweetness that keeps the root flavor in the background.
Deodeok root is blanched, blended smooth with milk and warmed, then sweetened with honey and condensed milk. The quick blanch takes the harsh edge off the root, and any tough core comes out before blending. If the root still tastes too strong once the milk is hot, another thirty seconds of stirring over the heat mellows it.
Ground perilla seed (deulkkae, a nutty Korean seed) whisked into hot milk makes a latte with a deep, toasty aroma. Even sifted, the finest particles settle to the bottom of the cup, so give it a stir right before drinking. A light dusting of cinnamon goes on top.
With wild soybean powder and roasted brown rice powder in it, this tastes like a thick version of misutgaru, Korea's roasted grain drink. The banana spends just ten minutes in the freezer first, and that alone gives it a shake-like body with no other thickener.
Unlike makgeolli, dongdongju is strained only once through a coarse sieve, so grains of rice float on top and give each sip a little chew, grainy sweetness and fermented tang. The steamed mix of regular and glutinous rice has to cool completely before the nuruk, a Korean fermentation starter, goes in. Home batches taste a little different depending on the day they were brewed.
Bitter balloon flower root (doraji), hot ginger, then the sweetness of pear and jujube come through one after another in this simmered tea. Doraji, ginger and jujubes go first for 20 minutes; the pear joins only for the last five, and the heat goes off as it turns slightly translucent.
Dried Solomon's seal root gives a clear brown tea with a nutty, rooty aroma. Licorice root and pear simmer along with it and sweeten it enough that honey is optional, and unlike coffee or black tea, it has no caffeine. It is drunk hot in winter and fully chilled over ice in summer.
Eggs, sugar and half the milk are stirred over low heat until they reach at least 71°C, and once the pot is off the heat the rest of the cold milk goes in to start cooling it down. There is no alcohol in it. After an ice bath it still needs three hours or more in the fridge; start several hours before you want to pour it.
No straw here: tip the glass, and the cold cream on top arrives in the same sip as the espresso underneath. The cream, sweetened with a little sugar and vanilla, is whipped only until it slides slowly off a spoon, and the coffee itself gets no sugar at all.
Espresso poured slowly over the back of a spoon floats on cold tonic, leaving a clear, fizzy layer below and a dark coffee layer above. The quinine bitterness in the tonic meets the bitterness of the coffee, and a little syrup plus orange and lemon peel keep the finish bright.
Persimmon vinegar has a deeper, fermented-fruit aroma than ordinary vinegar, and orange and lemon juice layer citrus over that tang. The honey has to dissolve fully into the vinegar and juice before the sparkling water is added, or the sweetness ends up uneven between glasses.
Licorice root and pear do most of the sweetening in this simmered tea, and only a little honey is stirred in at the end. Licorice turns cloying in larger amounts; about 3g per person is enough. The pear goes in late and cooks only until it turns translucent.
Persimmon leaves never reach a hard boil here; they steep gently in water held just short of boiling. A rolling boil, or squeezing the leaves when straining, makes the tea astringent and cloudy. Thin slices of unpeeled pear steep along with them, and the dried tangerine peel is kept to a small pinch.
Sliced ginger simmers in water for ten minutes and is strained out before the milk goes in. Because the ginger never sits in the milk, there are no fibers to catch on the tongue, and its heat comes through as warmth rather than a sting. Honey is added off the heat, with a dusting of cinnamon on top.
Roasted sweet potato is much sweeter than boiled, which is why 220g of it goes into this latte. It is blended with half the milk first to get rid of the fibers, then warmed in a pot with the rest, and the bottom catches quickly unless the spatula keeps scraping.
The dried persimmons go in only for the last eight to ten minutes, and in that time they fall apart, thickening the tea slightly and giving it a jammy sweetness. Their sugar content varies a lot, and very sweet ones can take as little as 20g of dark brown sugar. The strained, reddish-brown tea is topped with a spoonful of walnuts. On holiday tables it sometimes sits beside sujeonggwa.
Goji berries left to boil too long darken the tea but turn it bitter. Jujubes and ginger get fifteen minutes on their own first, and the berries join only for the last five, just long enough to plump up and tint the water red.
Dried gujeolcho, a Korean chrysanthemum that flowers in the ninth lunar month, steeps for just five minutes in water around 90°C, since boiling weakens its scent. Fine shreds of pear go into each cup and soften slightly in the hot tea.
Two jujubes simmer first for five minutes to give sweetness and a reddish tint, then the dried chrysanthemum buds and goji berries steep over low heat for three minutes before the heat goes off. The strained tea comes out pale gold.
Most of this tea's flavor is decided in a dry pan. The cassia seeds are stirred over low heat for about three minutes and taken off the moment they darken a shade and smell toasty; roasting on for more color leaves a burnt taste in the whole pot. Simmered with jujubes and ginger for fifteen minutes, they make a reddish-brown tea.