189 recipes. Page 1 of 8
Hearty steamed and braised dish recipes
The tofu is browned on both sides before it ever meets the sauce, then set on a bed of thinly sliced onion and simmered in soy. By the time the sauce has reduced, the onion has all but melted away. Sliced cheongyang chili and scallion go on top for the last minute.
Finely chopped salted shrimp loosened in water seasons this zucchini side dish instead of soy sauce, a habit handed down from country tables where salted shrimp was the main seasoning. Cooking it covered over medium-low heat lands somewhere between steaming and braising, and the zucchini softens without going mushy.
The short ribs marinate for over an hour in soy sauce with grated Asian pear and onion, then braise over low heat for another hour or more. When the meat slides off the bone at a touch of the chopsticks and the sauce has turned glossy, it all goes over rice. It is a long cook, but the pot does most of the work.
Agujjim began in the 1970s at the fish market in Masan's Odong-dong, where vendors cooked unsold monkfish over high heat with bean sprouts and chili sauce, closer to stir-frying than braising. No water is added; the sprouts release enough liquid to pool in the pan, and a little starch slurry, added bit by bit, sets the thickness. Once the fish is gone, rice often gets mixed into the leftover sauce.
Soy-braised beef, torn along the grain, goes over rice with whole shishito-style peppers (kkwari gochu) and enough of the glossy braising liquid to mix through. The peppers simmer whole for just 6 minutes, long enough to wilt without going limp, and keep a mild heat.
Unlike agujjim, the gochujang-heavy steamed monkfish, this one simmers down in a soy-based broth, where salt and sweetness come before heat. As the liquid reduces, the monkfish and radish take on an amber gloss, and that sauce gets spooned over rice.
Pollock roe and milt are braised together in a chili and soy sauce. They come from the same fish but cook in opposite directions: the roe firms up, each tiny egg popping under the teeth, while the milt turns soft as custard and breaks into tender curds. In east coast port towns, where fresh roe is easy to find during the pollock's winter spawning season, it has long been a winter dish.
Peeled quail eggs turn chestnut brown on the outside while the yolks stay bright yellow. Reducing the soy glaze all the way makes them too salty. Stop while a shallow pool of sauce remains. A sliced cheongyang chili, a sharp Korean green chili, adds a little heat at the end, and a night in the fridge lets the seasoning sink in further.
Instead of a spatula, the pot itself does the stirring: you shake it so the baby potatoes roll through the reducing soy sauce, which keeps the skins on and the glaze even and dark. Cooled and kept in the fridge, they take the seasoning all the way through and last close to a week.
The female crabs, full of roe and tomalley, steam belly-up so that everything inside the top shell stays there instead of leaking into the pot. The soy, oligosaccharide syrup and rice wine mixture is only spooned over the shells, nothing like a heavy braising sauce. Past 15 to 20 minutes, the meat starts to fall apart into mush.
This bulgogi never goes over a flame. It simmers down in its marinade in a wide pan and comes to the table still juicy, with about half the liquid left. Soy sauce is the only seasoning, no gochujang or doenjang, in the inland North Gyeongsang manner, and in Andong it has long been set out in its pan at ancestral rites and family gatherings for everyone to serve themselves.
The dish is done when the glass noodles have drunk up the soy braising liquid and turned glossy brown; they go in only for the last five minutes, since added early they soak up all the sauce and go limp. Its current form is said to have settled in Andong's old market in the 1980s, though chicken braised in soy sauce in Gyeongsang Province goes back much further.
Blanched napa cabbage leaves are rolled around a filling of minced pork and mashed tofu, then steamed. The filling needs two or three minutes of kneading to turn sticky, or the rolls come undone in the pot, and each roll sits seam-side down. Stir a little starch into the leftover cooking liquid and it becomes a sauce to go with them.
Monkfish stomach has a dense, springy chew that ordinary fish fillet lacks, and each bite releases more of the spicy-savory glaze. Most of the work is in the cleaning: if the slime is not scrubbed off with salt and flour, the blanching water smells strong and so does the dish. With only a little water in the pot, the gochugaru sauce reduces to a thick red coating.
Dotted gizzard shad (baendaengi) has fine, soft bones that soften further in the braise, so the fish is eaten bones and all. It is layered with onion over a bed of radish and braised in a gochujang and soy sauce for close to half an hour.
The butter waits until the clams have opened. Added then, it blends with the clam juices into a glossy broth, while butter added at the start just floats as a slick of fat. Soju is boiled hard first to drive off the alcohol smell, and any clam that stays shut after cooking gets thrown away.
Oyster, shiitake and enoki mushrooms differ in thickness and density and cook at different speeds even under the same steam. The firmer shiitake and oyster mushrooms go underneath, the quick-wilting enoki on top, and the dish comes off the heat before the enoki go limp.
This recipe uses only pufferfish sold already cleaned by professionals for eating, never fish you prepare yourself. The lean fillets sit on a wide bed of bean sprouts and steam in a gochujang and chili flake sauce, and the sprouts soak up the spicy liquid while keeping their crunch.
Doenjang and a pinch of instant coffee in the boiling water soften the porky smell without seasoning the meat itself. Five minutes in the broth after the heat goes off keeps the slices moist, and kimchi and fresh wrap leaves supply the seasoning at the table.
Pork shoulder has fat running evenly through it, so it braises tender and pulls apart along the grain without drying out. The garlic chives on top are only just wilted and get picked up with each bite of soy-braised pork.
Bugeo is pollack dried through the Gangwon mountain winter, freezing and thawing over and over, which leaves the flesh loose and spongy. Soy and gochujang seasoning works its way into those gaps, and the flavor deepens over the few days it keeps in the fridge. Soaking should stop at 20 minutes, or the flesh goes mushy.
Pomfret has thin, tender flesh that slips off the bone easily once the whole steamed fish reaches the table. Ginger and green onion are split into two rounds: the first steams with the fish to cut any fishiness, and the second goes on with the warm soy and rice wine sauce for fresh aroma. That sauce is mild and barely salty, letting the clean taste of the fish lead.
Butterfish is so tender that it is never turned in the pot; instead the broth is spooned over every two or three minutes to cook the top. The soy broth carries ginger and only a little chili flake; the heat is barely there.
The pork marinates for three hours in white wine, garlic and massa de pimentão, a Portuguese red pepper paste, before it cooks; the clams wait until the pork is tender and stay in only until they open. The potatoes are fried separately and folded in at the end, where the sauce only coats the outside. Chopped pickles, black olives and coriander go on raw when it is plated.