Scored chicken legs are rubbed with yogurt, cumin, coriander, paprika and lemon juice, then left in the fridge for at least four hours, overnight if possible. The dish traditionally comes out of a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven; a home oven heated thoroughly to 230°C still raises dark charred patches over the red coating. Naan and sliced onion often come alongside.
Firm tofu is cut into thick slabs, pan-fried until golden, and served with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, chili flakes, chopped green onion and sesame oil. Left unmoved until the bottom of the first side firms up, the slices hold together when the wide spatula goes under them.
Caught off Hokkaido in spring and early summer, tokishirazu salmon have not yet matured for spawning, so their flesh carries more fat throughout than autumn salmon. A long soak in soy sauce and sake, then brushing with the boiled marinade on the grill, gives a salty, glossy surface. In Hokkaido it was a home feast dish for the June shrine festival, served with sekihan (red bean rice), and it works as both a rice side and a drinking snack. Fresh salmon fillets with moderate fat stand in when tokishirazu is unavailable.
With a long rib bone attached and a thick eye of meat, a tomahawk steak cannot be cooked through by a hard sear alone, so it comes out of the fridge an hour ahead to let the chill leave even the meat near the bone. After the crust forms, the heat drops and butter with rosemary and garlic is spooned over continuously; for medium, it comes off at an internal 54 degrees.
Bellflower root soaks in salt water for ten minutes and blanches for just one, enough to soften its bitterness while keeping its firm crunch. Coated in gochujang, it grills in a pan or over an open flame, and the open flame gives a stronger smoky note.
Ground beef and pork are combined two to one and worked in one direction for more than three minutes, until the mix sticks to the hands and turns smooth; that stickiness gives the thick patties their firm bite. The onion is minced fine and pressed lightly, leaving it a little moist rather than wrung dry.
Udae galbi, thick plate-shaped beef ribs on the bone, carries more fat than ordinary galbi. Lightly scored and marinated in pear juice and soy sauce for at least 30 minutes, the ribs are browned dark over medium-high heat, then brushed with thin coats of marinade at medium. Doneness is checked by pressing the meat beside the bone: little or no red juice means it is ready.
Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, gets mixed with a little gochujang, garlic and honey and spread over rockfish fillets in a coat thin enough to see the flesh through. Any thicker and the paste and honey burn before the fish is done. Laying the fillet skin side down and leaving it alone keeps it from curling.
Grilled chicken thigh picks up a sweet, salty glaze and a few charred edges as the tare, a reduction of soy sauce, mirin, sugar, and sake, is brushed on in thin layers. The scallion pieces between the chicken lose their sharpness on the grill and turn sweet, which softens the saltiness of the glaze. For a plainer version, shio style skips the tare and seasons with salt alone, letting the chicken juices carry the flavor.
Thick onion rings soak up butter and rendered pork belly fat until they turn soft all the way through, with browned undersides. They cook slowly at medium-low and are flipped as little as possible, which is what gets the thick centers tender. A spoonful of soy sauce poured around the edge of the hot pan at the very end sizzles into a toasty aroma; let it reduce for long and the dish turns salty.
This is the cumin-and-chili flavor of a Korean lamb skewer bar, where you roll each skewer through a dish of spice, made at home in a pan or on a grill. Here the cumin and chili flakes are mixed and scattered straight onto the meat as it finishes cooking. If cumin is new to you, a little curry powder in the mix makes it less foreign.
The soy marinade gets its sweetness from grated pear and onion juice as much as from sugar. With honey in there too, the ribs catch easily, so this is not something to walk away from while it cooks. The batch serves four, sized for a holiday table or guests.
Onion rings cut 2 cm thick are pinned through the side with toothpicks, and the layers stay together when turned. Doenjang (fermented soybean paste), gochujang, perilla oil and garlic are loosened with two tablespoons of water into a brushable sauce, which goes on thinly from the first flip onward.
Chicken hearts take longer to prep than to cook. Each one is split open and cleared of vessels and clots, and after that the searing is over in about six minutes over high heat. Sliced scallion goes on top, and they are served as a drinking snack.
Doenjang mixed with honey and lemon juice coats the rich salmon in something salty, sweet and faintly tart. A third of the glaze is set aside before any of it touches the fish, then spread on thinly with a clean spoon once the fillets are turned.
Once the salmon is flipped, butter melts in the pan, and with the pan tilted it is spooned over the fillets again and again. The gochujang, soy and honey glaze gets a second thin coat in the final minute for shine.
The lotus root is cut 0.7 cm thick and browned in a pan first; the soy and rice-syrup glaze only goes on for the last minute or two. It is far crunchier than Korean braised lotus root, which simmers in soy for a long time. Once cool, the glaze that has run into the holes sets and stops being sticky.