1880 Korean recipes. Page 37 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Eggplant Rice Bowl, Korean Stir-fried Julienne Potatoes.
The eggplant goes into a very hot pan, spread out in one layer and browned only lightly on the outside. Left over low heat, it soaks up oil and turns heavy. Once seared, it is pushed to one side, ground pork and garlic are fried in the space beside it, and both are glazed together with soy sauce and sugar.
This has been a fixture of Korean school lunches and staff cafeterias for decades. The potato is cut into thin, even matchsticks; when the widths vary, the thin strips break while the thick ones stay underdone.
The milk dough is left to rise until nearly doubled, so the steamed buns come out soft and moist. Pull one apart and the sweet red bean paste appears in a puff of steam.
Only dried plum blossoms processed and sold as an edible tea will do; foraged or ornamental flowers are no substitute, rinsed or not. Jujubes simmer first for five minutes, and the blossoms steep in that water once the heat is off. If the package gives its own steeping temperature and time, follow it over this recipe's two minutes.
With beef intestines, the prep takes more work than the grilling. They are rubbed with coarse salt and flour, rinsed and briefly blanched to get rid of the smell, then cooked in a dry pan in nothing but their own rendered fat. Garlic chives go on the side, and soju usually goes with it.
The water left from rinsing rice becomes the soup base. Doenjang pressed through a sieve into it loses some of its chalky heaviness and tastes softer. The young napa cabbage looks like far too much when it goes in, then wilts down into the broth within about two minutes.
Scallions go into the hot pan before the batter, so one side of each stalk touches the metal and browns into a sweet, toasty fragrance that mixing them in would not give. The batter is poured thin, just enough to fill the gaps, which keeps scallion rather than dough in every bite.
Made with plump winter oysters, it smells of the sea from the first spoonful. With lots of tofu and a chili-red broth, it sits closer to a hearty, spicy stew for rice than to a clear oyster soup.
There is no salting the eggplant to draw out water. It softens on its own under the lid, in the same pot as browned pork shoulder, and picks up the rendered fat along with the soy and chili, which makes it far richer than eggplant braised alone.
Salt pulls water out of raw oysters and tightens the flesh. After two to three days of cold curing they turn firm, and the red seasoning liquid soaks right through. The result tastes denser and saltier than a fresh oyster, closer to a seasoning than a side dish. Chili flakes give it the red color and a spicy aroma, and the acidity of plum syrup holds back the fishy smell that rises during curing. A small spoonful goes a long way over warm rice, and a little folded into napa cabbage kimchi filling adds an oyster savoriness that fish sauce alone lacks. The washed oysters are blotted dry before mixing, because leftover water thins the paste and softens the flesh.
Blended with cold water, pine nuts release their fat into a milky, dairy-free broth with a quiet sweetness. Salt is the only seasoning, leaving the nuttiness uncovered, while cucumber and thin slices of Korean pear bring crunch and fruit against the richness. A smooth blend and a pass through a strainer before chilling prevent the oily film and gritty feel of under-blended broth.
Napa cabbage cut into fine shreds and crisped in cold water tastes clean and refreshing, and Korean pear cut to the same width adds a clear sweetness. The pear is sliced only at serving time to avoid browning, and the soaked cabbage is drained well so it does not blur the dressing. The dressing is plain yogurt with rice vinegar and honey, creamy but light enough not to hide the produce. Toasted black sesame goes on at the very last moment so the seeds stay dry and pop with nutty flavor when bitten. With only a pinch of salt, it makes a good palate cleanser after a rich main dish.
Slice this Korean omelette roll and you get yellow rings flecked with carrot and scallion, built from thin sheets of egg rolled up one over another, which leaves the layers soft. It sits in lunchboxes and on the everyday rice table, and a splash of milk keeps it tender even after it cools. Most failures come from the pan: too hot and the outside browns, too cool and the layers refuse to stick together.
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.
The potatoes here are cubed, not shredded, at about 2 cm. Their corners are browned first; then a gochujang, soy and sugar sauce goes in and cooks down until almost nothing loose is left in the pan. What remains is a red, glossy coat on each cube rather than sauce on the plate.
One skewer holds both a sausage and a stick of mozzarella under a thick pancake-mix batter and a breadcrumb coat, so each bite is rough and crunchy outside, chewy in the middle, and stretchy with cheese. What sets the Korean version apart from an American corn dog is the roll in sugar straight out of the oil, which plays against the salty sausage. Ketchup and mustard usually go on top.
Dried liriope root gives a faintly bitter, herbal tea, and shredded pear in the pot takes the edge off that bitterness while adding a natural sweetness. For the full twenty minutes the water should only tremble. A batch kept in the fridge still smells good when reheated.
Salted and dried yellow corvina has dense, concentrated flesh that grills up chewy and deeply savory, with no extra salt needed. A 10-minute soak in rice-rinsing water takes the edge off the saltiness; leaving it longer washes out flavor too. It is salty enough that a small piece carries a whole bowl of rice.
It starts with blanched young napa cabbage rubbed with doenjang, gochujang, chili flakes and garlic. The beef simmers separately meanwhile and is skimmed until the broth runs clear; the seasoned greens then go in for twelve minutes, and the paste clinging to the leaves dissolves into the soup.
Enoki pulled apart strand by strand and only filmed with batter fry into a loose, lacy round, crisp as tempura at the rim and chewy in the middle. A dip of soy sauce with vinegar and a pinch of chili flakes comes with it.
The nutty smell of sour kimchi fried in perilla oil meets the briny smell of fresh oysters in one pot. It is a winter stew, made when the kimchi has gone properly sour and the oysters are plump.
The eggplants are steamed whole, then torn by hand along the grain instead of sliced. The torn surface is rough, and the soy dressing clings to it. It is a summer side dish for when eggplants are everywhere, and it can go to the table chilled.
Dried celtuce stems, soaked until they bend but keep a firm bite, give this soy pickle its springy chew. The 300 g in the ingredient list is the soaked and drained weight. Soaking that much dry gungchae would swell far beyond what the brine can cover. Plain dried stems are the right buy, because fresh wosun stalks and pre-seasoned jars behave differently. Garlic and dried chilies steep in the hot soy, vinegar, and sugar brine, adding a mild warmth behind the sweet-salty taste. Rather than waiting for the hot jar to cool on the counter, split it into shallow containers and chill it right away, and the flavor starts to come through after a day.
Hot gochujang-marinated pork goes straight onto cold rinsed somen (thin wheat noodles), putting warm meat and chilled noodles in the same bite. The pork shoulder sits in gochujang and chili flakes with soy sauce and sugar, which lay a savory sweetness under the heat. A short, fierce stir-fry keeps water from pooling in the pan and lets the edges caramelize while the inside stays moist. Cabbage and onion cook in the same pan, adding sweetness under the chili heat. A rinse in ice water makes the boiled noodles chewier. The two are combined only right before serving, since thin noodles mixed too early soak up moisture and swell.