1880 Korean recipes. Page 36 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Kabocha Tempura (Hobak-twigim).
Raw kabocha cut into thin crescents cooks through to a soft, fluffy center before the batter has a chance to darken. The batter is equal parts flour and potato starch mixed with ice water, so the coating stays thin. Eat them warm with vinegar soy sauce.
Soaked white soybeans, boiled briefly and blended with toasted sesame and pine nuts, turn into a thick, cream-colored drink that tastes of the bean itself. Most of the work is rubbing off the skins after soaking: skins left behind bring both a raw beany taste and a gritty texture. Salt and honey stay in the background. Serve it over ice, or pour it over plain cooked noodles as a chilled broth.
Autumn mackerel needs nothing but salt, and that is down to its fat. The fat under the skin melts out and does the frying itself. Grated radish mixed with soy sauce sits alongside. If a pan feels like a chore, an air fryer at 180°C for 15 minutes works too.
Napa cabbage lines the bottom of a wide hot pot, and tofu, shiitake and marinated beef are laid in a ring around the edge, giving the pot its finished look before it ever heats. The kelp broth, seasoned with soup soy sauce and no chili, stays clear, and the pot is served bubbling for everyone to ladle from.
Neulgeun hobak, a large Korean pumpkin harvested fully ripe in autumn, is wetter and less sweet than kabocha. For pancakes, salt the julienned flesh briefly and let the liquid it releases become the batter before reaching for any water. Added water at the start makes the batter run in the pan and leaves the center gummy. Use only enough flour to hold the strands together; more than that and the pancake tastes of flour rather than squash. Strands about 3 mm thick turn translucent inside before the outside burns, and a little glutinous rice flour gives the edges a chewy bite.
The young leaves of the Korean thistle, a plant in the daisy family, are what goes by the name gondeure. No chili here, and only 1.5 tablespoons of doenjang, keeping the bitter, nutty scent of the greens in front. Once the gondeure is in, the heat comes down to a gentle simmer.
Gochugaru and fresh cheongyang chili together make the broth properly hot. The radish is already half cooked when the flounder goes on top, and it ends up absorbing the fat that seeps from the fish as well as the seasoning.
Gondre, a thistle-family mountain green gathered in spring in Gangwon Province, has a quiet aroma that grows clearer once it is pickled. The tough stems get only 20 seconds of blanching, and the greens are squeezed hard afterward so the brine stays clear. Grain syrup (jocheong) softens the sharp edge of the soy sauce, while brown rice vinegar and kelp stock add tang and savory depth. Half a Cheongyang chili leaves only a light heat at the end. After 2 days in the fridge, spoon it over rice with gochujang and sesame oil, or use it as a bibimbap topping.
Japaguri, known abroad as ram-don since a film introduced it to international audiences, cooks a black bean sauce instant noodle and a spicy one together so the roasted-bean sweetness runs straight into chili heat. Onion and green onion fried in oil first lay down a sweet, savory base. Only half the spicy seasoning is added, enough heat without burying the jjajang flavor, and that packet is also the dial for anyone who wants more fire. Once the noodles are about 80 percent cooked, all but roughly 120 ml of the water is poured off: leave more and the sauce tastes thin, leave less and it turns stiff. The pot comes off the heat when the sauce clings glossily to every strand.
Oyster mushrooms seared in a dry pan lose their water, brown at the edges, and concentrate their savory flavor. They are tossed with baby greens and briefly blanched naengi (shepherd's purse), which keeps its earthy spring smell. The dressing loosens doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, with yuja marmalade and vinegar. The result tastes nutty, tangy, and lightly citrusy at once. Halved cherry tomatoes burst with juice that lightens the heavy fermented notes.
Cooked with doenjang instead of soy sauce, bracken picks up a deeper fermented smell and a heavier taste that stands up to its bitterness. The paste is loosened in water before it goes in, which keeps it from catching on the bottom of the pan as it simmers.
Eggplant and ground pork are stir-fried in green onion oil, then piled, oil and all, on top of the soaked rice, so the eggplant cooks with the rice while soaking up the pork fat and onion aroma. Cut it thick, about 1.5 cm, and pull it off the heat before it goes limp, or it collapses once the rice is done. Soy sauce splashed onto the hot edge of the pan adds a slightly smoky note.
Salt is the only seasoning. The heat goes off when a strand of potato bends without snapping, which leaves a little crunch in the middle.
Thin batter baked in a walnut-shaped mold wraps around sweet red bean paste and a toasted walnut half, leaving a lightly browned shell and a moist center. Toasting the walnuts at 160 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes beforehand gives the finished cakes a noticeably stronger nutty aroma. The snack began as a specialty of Cheonan in South Chungcheong Province and is now sold at highway rest stops and traditional markets across Korea.
Korean pear is full of water and barely acidic; blended with cold water and strained, it makes a pale, mild juice. Pressing the pulp hard in the strainer clouds it, and the spoon is used only lightly. A little lemon and ginger juice leave a faint ginger bite at the end, and a sweet enough pear needs no honey.
Mackerel is cut into pieces, brushed with gochujang, soy sauce and ginger juice, and left for 30 minutes before it cooks. Skin side down, the pieces stay untouched for 4 to 5 minutes until the edges set red. Any piece sitting where the sauce starts to blacken gets moved aside.
Zucchini, onion and tofu simmer in anchovy broth, and the shredded perilla leaves get only the last thirty seconds. Any longer and the leaves darken and their aroma goes dull. The tofu is scooped in with a spoon instead of cut, leaving rough surfaces for the broth to soak into.
No flour or egg goes into this batter; the starch in the ground mung beans is what holds each pancake together. Soaking the beans yourself takes more than 6 hours, and that time has to be planned in. Pressed over medium heat, the outside forms a golden crust around the pork and kimchi.
Bracken fern tossed with soup soy sauce, garlic, and gochugaru before simmering carries its seasoning right into each stalk, while beef brisket and radish keep the broth fairly clear with a sharp chili edge. The fern turns tender only over a gentle, medium-low simmer.
No meat goes into this braise, only eggplant and tofu sold for pan-frying; the eggplant drinks up the soy and chili sauce and turns silky, while the tofu, browned first, keeps its shape around it.
Bracken fern, usually served as a seasoned namul, goes into a sweet-sour soy brine in this recipe, and its boiled stems stay springy and chewy with a nutty flavor that builds as you chew. Vinegar clears away the fern's earthy smell for a clean finish, while dried chili and garlic add a gentle warmth. Once cooled, the jar rests refrigerated for about 2 days before eating.
The noodles, beef, spinach, carrot and onion are each cooked on their own and only combined at the end. There is a single batch of soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil: a little goes on the beef as a marinade, and whatever is left seasons the noodles.
Seared in butter just until golden outside, the scallops pick up a caramelized aroma while their centers stay translucent and tender. Keeping them chilled until the moment they hit the pan helps them sear better. Blanched naengi (shepherd's purse) brings a bitter spring note and arugula a peppery bite, both contrasting with the scallops' sweetness, while orange segments add sweet acidity and color. Yuja marmalade, from a fragrant Korean citron, is whisked into white wine vinegar and olive oil, and its floral citrus scent ties the seafood to the greens. The salad is dressed only just before eating, so the naengi keeps its aroma. The plate works well as a starter for guests.
Gwamegi is Pacific saury, or traditionally herring, half-dried by freezing and thawing repeatedly in cold sea wind on Korea's southeast coast. It is eaten without cooking, so buying and storage matter more than technique. Choose a refrigerated product, put it in the fridge as soon as you get home, and prepare only what you will eat that day; seal and freeze the rest. Most gwamegi is now sold half-trimmed, already split into two fillets with the skin on. Lift the skin at the end where the head was and pull toward the tail, and it comes off in one piece. The fish is rich and oily, so it is wrapped in plain napa cabbage or laver with raw garlic, scallion and green chili, and dipped in vinegary chogochujang to cut the fat.