1880 Korean recipes. Page 21 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Braised Chicken Feet, Korean Aster Leaf Soy Pickle.
Long cooking turns the skin and cartilage of chicken feet chewy and sticky, and that texture is the whole reason to eat them. Once the red sauce coats them in a glossy layer, they go out with rice or a cold beer. Adjust the heat with the amount of chili flakes.
Ten seconds in boiling water is all the aster leaves get, just enough to relax the tough stems while their sharp, faintly bitter mountain-herb scent survives into the jar. Sliced garlic and one dried chili sit between the layers, so the soy-vinegar brine picks up a quiet bite rather than real heat. In Korea this is a spring side dish: lay a leaf over a spoonful of rice, or chop it fine and tuck it into a rice ball.
Thick-sliced shiitake simmer in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang, layering the mushroom aroma over the paste's mellow, fermented depth before the broth is poured over plump udon. Onion adds quiet sweetness that keeps the salt in check, and a pinch of gochugaru leaves a faint warmth at the finish. Compared with a Japanese dashi-based udon broth, this one is earthier and heavier, closer to a hearty Korean stew.
Ground beef is first browned with soy sauce and sugar for the sweet-savory taste of tteokgalbi, Korean grilled short-rib patties, before tomato puree and gochujang are added and simmered. Gochujang, a fermented chili paste, adds savory depth rather than just heat and sets the sauce apart from a standard meat sauce. Pulled from the water two minutes early, the ziti finish in the 200-degree oven without going soft. Gochujang brands differ in saltiness, and the sauce is tasted only after it has reduced.
Dried persimmon cut into rounds shows a chewy, almost jammy center that contrasts with soft spoonfuls of ricotta. Bitter chicory and peppery arugula balance its concentrated sweetness, and walnuts and pine nuts toasted in a dry pan add a warm, nutty smell. When the persimmon is especially sweet, a little more balsamic vinegar brings the plate back into balance.
Small cubes of cream cheese go into a batter made with grapeseed oil, and they stay as distinct pockets after baking. Omija syrup flavors the batter and is brushed thinly over the warm tops straight out of the oven for a reddish sheen.
In the five-color namul set for Chuseok and Seollal ancestral tables, bellflower root is the white one. The torn root is rubbed hard with salt to draw out its bitterness and rinsed until the cloudy water runs clear, then dressed with gochujang, vinegar, and sugar. Since it is never cooked, it stays crunchy long enough to be made ahead.
Chwinamul (aster greens, a Korean wild herb) is dressed with soup soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic before it goes on top of the rice, so the rice comes out seasoned and needs no sauce on the side. Lift the lid and the first thing you notice is the herb's slightly bitter scent.
Doubanjiang, the Chinese fermented chili bean paste, is salty and hot, and how salty depends on the brand. So the soy sauce here is not poured by the recipe; it is decided after tasting the sauce. There is no meat, just pan-browned tofu and bok choy.
The batter is mixed with cold sparkling water instead of plain water, plus a little gochugaru. It gets only a light stir so the bubbles survive and is used right away, and the eggplant is salted ahead to draw out water. Once fried, the eggplant inside turns creamy.
Thin slices of ginger simmered in sugar syrup until glossy and slightly translucent, then rolled in sugar, taste sweet first and warm with ginger after. Slices cut to an even thickness soften and take up syrup at the same pace. The finishing sugar goes on only once the pieces have cooled and lost their wet surface, because on warm, sticky ginger it simply dissolves instead of forming a crystal coat.
Persimmon leaves never reach a hard boil here; they steep gently in water held just short of boiling. A rolling boil, or squeezing the leaves when straining, makes the tea astringent and cloudy. Thin slices of unpeeled pear steep along with them, and the dried tangerine peel is kept to a small pinch.
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.
Tuna from the can is tipped in along with all its oil, giving the broth a savory richness. The kimchi brine is held back at the start and used at the end, after tasting, to make up whatever salt and sourness the pot still needs.
Meat patties (donggeurangttaeng), zucchini, shiitake and chilies share one platter on Seollal and Chuseok tables. They all wear the same flour and egg coat, but the prep differs: zucchini is salted and blotted, and shiitake lose their stems and get flour on the inside too. Only three or four pieces of one kind go into the pan at a time to keep it hot.
Blanched radish greens, rather than dried siraegi, sit in a broth made thick and nutty with four tablespoons of perilla seed powder. The shrimp are added well after the greens, which need about ten minutes to soften; shrimp left in that long turn firm instead of springy.
Drumettes, potato and onion all go into the pot raw with the gochujang sauce and braise under a lid, with no searing or frying beforehand. As they cook, the meat around the bone turns firm and chewy and holds on to the thickening sauce. With a little extra time, browning the drumettes in a pan first deepens the color and flavor.
Two days in a soy and vinegar brine take the raw sting out of large green onions and leave only their mellow onion fragrance behind. The recipe leans on the white and pale green sections, which stay crisp after pickling.
Cooked straight in the doenjang broth instead of a separate pot, thin somyeon take on the paste's flavor and lend the soup a little body. The bowl needs to reach the table the moment the heat goes off, before the fine noodles drink up the liquid. Potato, onion, and zucchini supply all the sweetness, making it an easy weeknight soup with a short ingredient list.
Olive oil warmed with garlic and red pepper flakes picks up a sweet citrus edge from yuja marmalade in this light oil-based linguine. The shrimp sear for a minute per side but keep cooking while the wine reduces and the pasta is tossed, and past two or three minutes in total they turn rubbery.
King oyster mushrooms sliced lengthwise and seared in a dry pan turn golden outside and stay chewy inside, giving this salad its meaty bite. Perilla oil, nutty and slightly grassy, meets lemon juice in the dressing so a light acidity lifts the browned mushrooms. Shredded perilla leaves bring a sharp herbal aroma that fades quickly once dressed. The bowl is best eaten soon after tossing.
Ground perilla seed, a nutty seed flour common in Korean cooking, goes into both the batter and the tops of these muffins, so its toasty smell comes through first when they leave the oven. Honey and brown sugar share the sweetening, and neutral oil stands in for butter, so there is nothing to melt or cream before mixing. The batter fills one 6-cup muffin tray.
In this Chungcheong-style method the smelt are packed around the pan with every head pointing to the center, and as they fry they fuse into one crisp disc. The oil is poured off only after the disc has set firm, and the gochujang glaze is brushed on thinly, so the underside keeps its crunch. It goes to the table in the pan, scattered with green and red chilies.
Think of a cream pasta sauce spooned over rice instead of noodles: butter, garlic and onion, then chicken breast seared until browned, all simmered in heavy cream. Scrape up the browned bits from the pan as the cream goes in; much of the sauce's flavor comes from them.