Halved garlic cloves go into the pan first and lose their raw bite, turning sweet and soft. The gizzards get nothing but salt and pepper, which leaves the garlic to do the work of a sauce.
The kabocha spends 2 minutes in the microwave before it goes into the pan. That head start lets the center turn tender before the soy and corn syrup glaze has a chance to burn. The skin stays on.
Taro, small potatoes, tofu, konjac and buckwheat dumplings share one skewer, so each bite changes texture. In this dish from Iya in Tokushima, every piece is steamed or boiled on its own first, then the skewers are browned, brushed with a sweet miso glaze and grilled until it bubbles and spots dark. Each skewer is finished with a sansho leaf.
The texture comes down to pounding the peeled deodeok root flat with a mallet or rolling pin. Once the fibers loosen, the gochujang paste seeps into the gaps, and the grilled root chews pleasantly instead of turning stringy. Honey in the paste scorches quickly, and medium heat with a close eye on the color keeps it from burning.
Soy sauce, pear juice and sesame oil give this thick sirloin a flavor close to bulgogi, while the cooking itself follows steak: a hard sear, a rest, then slicing against the grain. Pear juice tenderizes, but the marinade stays short because past 30 minutes it turns the surface mushy.
With nothing but coarse salt on the pork, the meat itself carries almost all the flavor, and the quality of the belly or neck shows in every bite. Garlic roasted at the edge of the same pan, a sesame oil and salt dip and lettuce leaves turn each piece into a wrap.
Dokdo shrimp are sweet enough that a splash of rice wine to take off any off odor is the only seasoning they get. They cook briefly on a bed of coarse salt under a lid, and the heads, pulled off, are stir-fried in butter as a second small dish.
Sea bream fillets get nothing but coarse salt and pepper before they go in the pan. For a white fish, sea bream has a fair amount of fat, and that is enough to keep it from tasting plain. Minced garlic and sliced scallion go on top once it is cooked, with lemon alongside.
In spring, when dureup is in season, the blanched aralia shoots are rolled up in thin pork belly, threaded onto skewers, brushed with gochujang paste and grilled. The shoots get only 20 seconds in boiling water to keep their crunch and bitter, green aroma.
Cheek meat comes from a muscle that works constantly. Its grain is fine and dense and the collagen gives a springy chew. Fat and lean alternate across each slice, with richness shifting from bite to bite.
Under foil in a 180°C oven, the ribs first cook through and soften, then come uncovered at higher heat so the soy and honey glaze turns glossy. Splitting it into two stages tenderizes the meat near the bone before the surface has a chance to burn.
Pear, onion and garlic are blended smooth as the base of the marinade, and the ribs can sit in it overnight. The leftover marinade has held raw pork, so it gets boiled once in a small pot before being brushed on as the ribs grill. Eat them wrapped in lettuce or with rice.
Blanching time decides the texture of pork skin, which is almost pure collagen: too short and it stays rubbery, too long and it goes limp. On the grill the skin buckles into ridges that trap the gochujang glaze, concentrating spicy-sweet flavor in every groove.
When buying pork neck, look less at any particular fat ratio than at an even thickness and fat spread through the lean. Cut 1 cm thick, it is seasoned with salt and pepper and seared, with garlic browned beside it and lettuce on the side.
The name dwitgogi (roughly, back meat) is said to come from butchers quietly setting the tastiest cuts aside for themselves. It is a mix of specialty pork cuts, springier and chewier than pork belly. Grilled with salt and pepper, it is dipped Jeju-style into warm meljeot, a salted anchovy sauce.
Thin slices of sirloin are laid on a grill grate with their edges overlapping, so they cook as one wide sheet rather than as loose strips in a pan of juices. Cut 2 to 3 mm thick and kept in a single layer, the beef cooks fast and evenly, and the edges brown on the grate.
Sweetfish, a summer river fish with a delicate fragrance, is grilled under a thin scatter of coarse salt and no other seasoning. Left in, the innards give a bitter edge; taken out, the fish turns much milder. The tail and fins, which scorch before the body, get a thicker coat of salt.
Flounder is thin-fleshed and mild, so salt and rice wine are all the seasoning it gets. The surface has to be patted completely dry before it goes into the pan, or the skin will not crisp.
Halved and scored in a grid, the eggplant cooks cut side down under a lid, and the trapped steam turns the inside creamy while the skin keeps a little bite. The soy and garlic sauce is spooned into the cuts while the eggplant is still hot.
Soy-marinated short rib meat, seared over high heat, comes topped with a pile of green onion shreds that have been soaking in cold water. Each pick of the chopsticks takes hot meat and cold, crisp onion together.
With thin skin and soft flesh, a piece of beltfish flipped while still stuck to the pan tears apart. Waiting until the edges brown and the steak releases on its own, then sliding a wide spatula underneath, keeps each piece whole.
Pork skirt comes from the diaphragm. The coarse grain gives a firm chew, and the meat is cut across it. Browning tells you when to turn the pieces, not when they are done; that is decided by the center of the thickest piece reaching 63°C.
Salted mackerel from a Korean market is already cured, which firms the flesh and means it needs no extra seasoning before it hits the pan. A quick rinse removes only the surface salt, whereas soaking washes out the seasoning and softens the flesh.
As halved blue crab grills, the innards in the top shell thicken into a rich paste that serves as a dipping sauce for the meat. That is why the crab is split carefully, without letting them run out. Whatever innards and glaze are left, spooned over rice and mixed in, make a meal on their own.