Each spoonful brings up chewy webfoot octopus (jjukkumi) together with tofu that has soaked up the red broth. The octopus turns rubbery if it boils long, so the vegetable broth is finished first and the octopus gets only a few minutes in it.
This is the everyday pork belly and sour kimchi stew with one addition: a tablespoon of doenjang, fried briefly with the chili flakes before the water goes in. It gives the bottom of the broth a slightly earthier weight. If the kimchi is not sour yet, use half a teaspoon of sugar rather than a few drops of vinegar.
Sour kimchi is fried with chili flakes, anchovy stock goes on top, and 200 g of soybean sprouts follow. After that, the lid has one rule: if it goes on, it stays on until the sprouts are cooked, and if it is left off, it stays off the whole time. Lifting it halfway brings up a raw, beany smell.
Eight frozen kimchi dumplings go in side by side and are left unstirred for the first two minutes, since nudging them while they thaw tears the wrappers. The kimchi inside meets the sour kimchi in the broth, and the stew tastes of kimchi twice over. The dumplings come seasoned, which is why only half the soup soy sauce goes in before tasting.
Ribbons of perilla leaf sit on a broth made from stir-fried bulgogi beef, and their fresh, faintly minty smell comes through clearly over the meat. It is seasoned with soup soy sauce, which keeps the taste clean.
Gochugaru and soup soy sauce are used lightly here, and twelve sliced perilla leaves go in right before the heat is cut, letting the herb come through ahead of the chili. For a richer broth, add a teaspoon of perilla seed powder.
One can of Pacific saury, liquid and all, flavors the whole pot, so no separate stock is needed. The canned fish is already cooked with softened bones, so it needs no prep and is eaten bones and all, while a little doenjang tones down the canned-fish smell.
The blue crab simmers first and gives the broth its sweetness; clams and shrimp come after. It is a red, chili-heavy stew, but a spoonful of doenjang underneath keeps it from being only hot.
Kodari, pollock dried only partway, has a dense, chewy flesh that keeps its grain through a long simmer. It can still break if flipped, so it sits on the bed of radish and gets the broth spooned over it two or three times instead. Rice-rinse water forms the broth and tones down any fishy smell.
Bite into a sea squirt and the little sac bursts, releasing a salty, briny juice. To keep that, the radish and zucchini are cooked through first and the sea squirts get only three or four minutes over high heat at the very end. In April and May, when they are in season and full of juice, the broth itself tastes different.
Only half a tablespoon of gochugaru goes in. The broth stays clear and tastes mostly of clams. Minari and a Cheongyang chili are added after the heat is turned down and cook for just a minute. With the clams purged ahead of time, the cooking itself takes about ten minutes.
A full 120g of water parsley (minari) turns an everyday doenjang stew green and sharply aromatic, with a peppery, grassy bite against the fermented soybean broth. The minari simmers for only 2 minutes and comes off the heat while the stems are still crisp, not limp and stringy.
Long-fermented kimchi (mugeunji) is sour enough that it gets fried in rendered pork fat before the water is added, which takes the harsh edge off its acidity. With plain water as the broth, all the flavor has to come from the kimchi and pork over at least 20 minutes at a medium simmer. Cut that short and the broth stays thin.
No stock goes into the pot: plain water plus 3 tablespoons of salted shrimp (saeujeot) carries all the savory depth. The radish is cut into thin julienne and tossed with the shrimp and chili flakes before cooking, so the seasoning is already in the strands when the water goes in. The broth comes out clearer and more lightly spicy than doenjang or kimchi jjigae.
A whole pollack roe sac (myeongnan) sits in the pot intact, so the outside firms up while the eggs inside stay separate and pop when you bite them. The heat drops to low as soon as the broth returns to a boil; a hard boil breaks the roe apart and dulls that texture. Since the roe is already salty, the stew often needs nothing more, and the broth with pieces of roe is good spooned over rice.
The shepherd's purse goes in roots and all, because the roots carry its earthy, bitter spring scent. The trade-off is cleaning: soil has to be scraped off with a knife tip and the greens swished through several changes of cold water. Doenjang brands differ in saltiness, and the paste is adjusted half a tablespoon at a time.
Winter oysters, plump at this time of year, share a doenjang broth with bitter-edged shepherd's purse. The base is kelp stock and radish, and the paste is held to 1.5 tablespoons, light enough that the oysters still taste of the sea.
Octopus (nakji), beef small intestine (gopchang), and shrimp (saeu) give this Busan-style hot pot both its name and three distinct chews under one spicy sauce. With only 200ml of stock, it cooks down to a thick, saucy stew rather than a soup, and once the glass noodles have soaked up the seasoning it is meant to be spooned over rice.
Springy pieces of octopus (nakji) turn up between soft curds of tofu. The egg goes in after the heat is off; break the yolk into the broth and the spice mellows.
Ninety grams of scorched rice, broken into chunks rather than crumbs, is added for the last three minutes. It is served while the edges have melted into the broth and thickened it but the centers still have some bite. Seasoning waits until the rice has swelled and the stew has thickened.
Gochujang alone seasons this squid stew, giving the red broth a sweet, rounded heat, and one whole squid goes in as rings and tentacles. Scoring the inside of the body makes the rings curl as they cook and pulls the sauce in between the layers. The squid joins only after the zucchini and tofu have had about five minutes, and two or three minutes is all it takes.
Well-fermented sour kimchi is cut without shaking off its seasoning, so that paste goes into the broth too, and it simmers with pork shoulder that has a good streak of fat before thick slices of tofu go on at the end.
Mackerel or beltfish both work for this spicy fish stew. The radish gets a five-minute head start, then the fish pieces are laid in a single layer and simmered with the lid slightly open to let the fishy steam escape.
Kimchi, ham, and tofu, all common refrigerator staples, come together into something close to a pared-down budae jjigae. Frying the kimchi for 2 minutes first tames its sourness so it blends with the salty ham and the sweet heat of gochujang instead of competing.