Pollock dried through a winter of freezing and thawing puffs up into hwangtae, softer and chewier than most dried fish. The strips get a thin coat of gochujang, soy sauce and syrup and only a minute or two per side over medium-low heat. Tear them apart while warm for makgeolli or soju, with mayonnaise for dipping if you like.
Before cooking, Atka mackerel gets wiped down with water that has a little vinegar in it. Salt and pepper are its only seasoning, and after the flip the thickest part sits under a lid for a minute to cook through. Half a lemon goes on the plate, and it is served hot.
A whole char of about 25 cm is threaded onto a long bamboo skewer in a gentle wave, salted and nothing else, and grilled slowly by the radiant heat of charcoal embers until the skin is dry and the flesh still moist. Char live in clear mountain headwaters and were hard to catch until Miyagi Prefecture became the first in Japan to farm them, which made the fish a familiar taste around Kurihara.
The eel is seared skin side first to draw out its fat, then glazed over low heat with soy sauce and rice syrup spooned over it again and again. Some of the rendered fat is poured off before the sauce goes in. Laid over rice, it makes an eel bowl, with the sauce soaking down into the rice.
Grilling starts only after the slick film on the skin has been scraped off with the back of a knife. The soy glaze goes on in two or three thin coats rather than one, and each coat leaves the eel a shade darker. On a grill instead of a pan, it picks up more smoke.
With no glaze, only salt, this eel is all about the crisp skin and the rich fat. Over charcoal, dripping fat makes the flames jump, so one side of the grill is kept cooler to move the eel onto. Any sweet sauce stays in its own dish, and the salt-grilled eel gets tasted first.
Abalone scored in a fine crosshatch goes into garlic butter for a minute a side, gets a splash of soy sauce, and comes off the heat right away. The innards can be minced and melted into the butter too. The cooked meat goes back into its scrubbed shell to serve.
This is autumn gizzard shad, the fish whose grilling smell, as the Korean saying goes, could bring a runaway daughter-in-law back home. It is full of fine bones; scored every 0.5 cm on both sides, it grills soft enough to eat bones and all. The dip is minced ginger and cheongyang chili in soy sauce and vinegar.
Two horse mackerel sit in a yuzu-soy marinade for just 10 minutes before going onto a grill pan. The bits of yuzu in the marmalade burn easily, which is why half the marinade is held back and brushed on only in the last minute. Sesame oil and scallions go on after the heat is off.
Wrapped in lettuce and other leaves to eat, this pork shoulder is marinated in gochujang for at least 30 minutes and spread in a single layer over high heat. For the first 2 minutes it is left alone, until the edges go dark brown. The sugar is stirred fully into the marinade beforehand. Any grains left undissolved scorch into black spots.
On the domed jingisukan pan, lamb fat and juices run down the grooves into the bean sprouts, onions and squash ringing the edge. This Hokkaido style skips the marinade and dips the lamb after cooking in a soy-vinegar sauce made with grated apple, pear, garlic and ginger. The fattiest pieces cook first in the center, and their rendered fat coats the grooves so nothing sticks without added oil. Everyone eats as things cook, lifting off meat and vegetables as they are ready, with potatoes and squash taking the longest. Hokkaido began eating lamb when sheep were raised for wool in the Taisho era, and the dish is now cooked at home year-round and outdoors at spring blossom parties and summer barbecues.
Dried filefish is browned on both sides in butter, then the heat drops and a thin glaze of soy sauce and syrup goes on. A pinch of chili powder and sesame seeds, a few snips into long strips, and it is ready to sit next to beer or soju.
Webfoot octopus has a smaller body and thicker legs than nakji, the long-arm octopus. It spends just 10 minutes in the spicy marinade and 3 to 4 minutes over high heat, and the slightly charred sauce that catches on the pan floor is part of the flavor. In spring they often come full of roe, and the leftover sauce goes into fried rice.
Mixed clams soak in salt water for over an hour, then go onto high heat in their shells. As each one opens, it gets a bit of butter, minced garlic and rice wine, and since the clams vary in size, they come off one by one as their butter melts. Any that never open are thrown away.
Yellow croaker is set on ancestral rite tables, but most days it is just a side next to rice and soup. It gets salt, a thin dusting of flour, and a pan over medium heat. Fish usually break because they are turned too early; wait until the underside browns and lets go of the pan on its own, then flip it in one move with two wide spatulas.
Only the surface of the bonito meets the flame, for 20 to 30 seconds a side, leaving a smoky crust around a center that stays red and cold. Since the inside stays raw, the fish has to be bonito sold and cold-handled for eating raw, not ordinary grilling fish. In the Kochi Prefecture style, thick slices are sprinkled with salt, splashed with yuzu vinegar and soy, and patted with the flat of a knife so the seasoning settles in. Paper-thin garlic and onion and chopped scallions are scattered on top, and the plate is eaten right away rather than left at room temperature.
Pen shell scallops never spend more than 4 minutes in the pan. They are seared on both sides in a pan heated until it just starts to smoke, brushed with lemon garlic butter mixed ahead of time, and moved straight to the plate. Thick ones are halved first so they all match.
Napa kimchi aged until it turns sour mellows in a hot pan, the sourness easing into a toasty sweetness. Besides the kimchi there is only a little sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds, so how well aged the kimchi is decides the taste. Eat it while the edges are still crisp.
Cockles are at their plumpest from winter into early spring. They go into boiling water only until the shells start to open, then get a thin layer of spicy sauce and a turn in the pan. Bubbling sauce does not mean the meat is done; the center should hold 85 to 90°C for more than 90 seconds. The sauce left in the pan gets mixed into rice.
Busan-style kkomjangeo, or hagfish, is cooked fast over high heat. Leave it too long in the marinade or the pan and it weeps water and loses its springy chew. The scallions go in just long enough to wilt.
Saury is seasoned with nothing but coarse salt and pepper. Ten minutes after salting, beads of moisture show up on the surface again, and wiping those off too is what keeps the skin from sticking. The cooked fish goes straight onto a plate rather than sitting in the pan, with grated radish and lemon alongside.
Split blue crab grills shell side down first, then gets turned so the cut meat can take brushing after brushing of butter, garlic, soy sauce and lemon whenever it dries. Crabs vary in size and any time given is only a guide. The crab is done when the thickest meat reaches 63°C (145°F) and looks pearly and opaque.
Gochujang paste goes onto the cut faces of the crab and into the gaps in the shell, and it rests 15 minutes at room temperature. It grills shell side down over medium heat first; after the turn, more paste is brushed on the cut side and runs down into the shell over the meat. Whatever collects inside the shell ends up as a dip for the meat.
Each kkwari pepper gets poked once or twice with a fork, then rolled around a dry pan for about 3 minutes until the skin wrinkles and spots brown. The doenjang sauce goes in only after that, for 2 minutes of tossing. As it cools, the seasoning tastes stronger.