1880 Korean recipes. Page 33 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Braised Pork Ribs, Shredded Chili Pickle, Korean Mussel Soup Noodles.
The ribs spend half an hour in cold water and get a quick blanch and rinse before they ever meet the soy braising liquid. It is an extra step, but it keeps the foam and impurities out of the pot, and the finished sauce tastes clean rather than murky.
Equal parts hot Cheongyang chili and mild, crunchy cucumber pepper, sliced into thin strips, balance heat against crunch in every bite. The brine is simply soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and water in the same amounts, boiled and briefly cooled, so the result is sweet, sour and salty at once. Because the strips are only 2 to 3 mm thick, they take on the brine far faster than whole pickled peppers and are ready the next day to serve with grilled meat.
No stock goes into the pot: 500 g of mussels and some radish make the whole broth. The mussels give up a concentrated sea flavor, the radish adds a clean sweetness, and soup soy sauce with cooking wine smooths out the salt the shellfish bring. Each mussel is lifted out as soon as its shell opens and the meat waits on the side until the bowls are filled, which keeps it from toughening. Any that stay shut after cooking are thrown away rather than forced open. Straining slowly through a fine sieve removes sand and shell bits so the broth poured over the noodles stays clear, and garlic with green onion clears away what fishiness remains.
Unlike kimchi, mu-saengchae skips fermentation: the julienned radish is dressed and eaten the same day, with its crunch intact. Ten minutes under coarse salt pulls water from the strips so the chili-flake dressing clings instead of sliding off. Anchovy fish sauce lays a savory base under the radish's clean, mild flavor. Fresh from the bowl it snaps; after a night in the fridge it softens into a lightly pickled side with a different character. It is a standard partner for fatty dishes like samgyeopsal or braised short ribs.
Lightly toasted gim is torn into big pieces and tossed with a soy and sesame oil dressing and thinly sliced scallion. Big pieces matter, because some of the edges stay crisp even after the dressing goes on. The seaweed drinks up liquid within minutes, and only what will be eaten right away gets mixed.
Dureup, the spring shoots of the Korean angelica tree, are around only briefly each spring. They get no more than 30 seconds in salted boiling water before going on top of the rice to cook under the lid; any longer and the bitter, woody scent fades and the green turns dull. The rice cooks in kelp stock.
Seasoned with nothing but soy sauce and sesame oil, it has no heat at all. On the plate, golden pan-fried tofu sits among orange carrot and green pepper.
The word gungjung, royal court, points back to the food of the Joseon palace. Soy sauce and sesame oil do the seasoning, so there is no heat, and bulgogi-cut beef and shiitake go in with the rice cakes. The beef is seared only on the outside and set aside, returning to the pan after the rice cakes have softened.
Sword beans are three or four times the size of ordinary beans, and roasted ones give this tea a heavy, grainy aroma. Once used, the beans can be brewed a second time.
Scallops come off the heat when the outside is dark brown and the center still slightly translucent. Over high heat that takes 1 to 2 minutes a side, and after the flip, butter and minced garlic go into the pan and are spooned over the top.
The point is the ox knee cartilage, cooked until it turns soft and chewy, so it is the texture of the pieces, not the color of the broth, that tells you when to stop. There are no marrow bones in the pot, so don't expect a milky broth. Butchers sometimes sell knee and tendon together, but they are different cuts.
Fresh oysters and soaked miyeok seaweed share one batter, and a single bite brings a crisp outside, slippery seaweed, and an oyster full of briny juice. Plump winter oysters suit it best. Each oyster gets pressed down into the batter with a spoon, since any that pokes above the surface cooks less than the rest.
A whole blue crab, scrubbed and split, simmers in a doenjang and anchovy broth, and the shell and meat release a briny sweetness that layers onto the earthy paste. Removing the apron and halving the body lets the broth reach the meat inside.
This is better ten minutes after it comes off the heat than right away; as it cools, the potatoes keep drinking in the soy sauce until they are seasoned all the way through.
Pepper leaves, the tender greens picked from chili plants, have almost none of the fruit's heat; what they offer instead is a fresh, grassy flavor with a faint bitterness. Packed in a soy, vinegar and sugar brine with garlic and a Cheongyang chili, they become a summer side dish that needs 3 days of refrigeration before it is ready. Lay a single leaf over a spoonful of rice and fold it like a small wrap.
Tiny freshwater corbicula clams, a specialty of Hadong along the Seomjin River in South Gyeongsang, give this noodle soup a broth that tastes strongly of shellfish yet stays light and clear. Restaurants along the river serve the clams in many forms and treat them as the defining local taste. Seasoning is kept to soup soy sauce and a little salt so the clams lead, while one cheongyang chili adds quiet background heat. Skipping the straining step leaves grit and an earthy taste that clouds that clean flavor. The somyeon is boiled separately and scrubbed hard in cold water, since leftover starch would cloud the strained broth all over again.
Chewy brown rice, plump barley, and soft lentils give three different bites in every spoonful. Each grain is cooked separately and cooled completely before mixing, since hot grains would wilt the vegetables. Instead of olive oil, the dressing uses perilla oil, a toasty Korean seed oil, with apple cider vinegar. Halved cherry tomatoes release juice that works as part of the sauce, while cucumber and red onion add crunch between the dense grains. Made ahead, it keeps its flavor and travels well in a lunchbox.
Leaves picked from pepper plants after the chili harvest make this namul, and they are at their most tender in August and September. They keep a slightly bitter, green aroma even after blanching, and the chili flakes are kept to an amount whose heat does not bury it. The thin leaves take the seasoning almost at once and go to the table as soon as they are mixed.
Ssukgat (crown daisy greens) goes in just long enough to wilt, so its bitter, herbal edge comes through clearly against the rich gochujang pork. The pork shoulder is seared in a smoking-hot pan for some browned flavor.
Pork shoulder has enough fat running through it that a fast, very hot stir-fry in gochujang marinade does not dry it out. Color is a poor guide to doneness, though, and a thermometer should show the thickest piece at 75°C or higher for more than a minute.
Egg mixed with finely minced carrot, garlic chives and onion is poured in several rounds and rolled up, then cut into bite-size pieces for skewers, each face showing a vegetable-flecked spiral. Coarse vegetables thicken the layers and the roll loses its shape, which is why they are chopped as fine as possible.
Grapefruit preserves live or die by the white pith. Even a little of it makes the jar harshly bitter, and the tough membranes come off too until only flesh and juice go into the sugar. After a day or more the sugar melts into a thick syrup, which is stirred into hot water by the cup. Mixed with sparkling water instead, it becomes a cold ade.
When a scallop on the grill pops open, a little salty liquor collects in the bottom shell. The top shell comes off, and butter and minced garlic go straight into that liquor to bubble a while longer. Mozzarella covers only about half of each scallop. Cover it all and the cheese is all you taste.
No stock is needed: the salty liquor from the dongjuk, a surf clam, makes the broth on its own. Radish adds a little sweetness, and a single cheongyang chili leaves just a hint of heat.