1880 Korean recipes. Page 39 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Red Cabbage Kimchi, Korean Black Bean Noodles.
Red cabbage leaves are thicker and denser than napa and stay crunchy after salting, though salting them longer only makes them tough. During about 12 hours in the fridge the cabbage bleeds its purple into the chili paste, and the kimchi comes out a deep violet rather than the usual red.
Thick black-bean sauce made from chunjang (Korean fermented black bean paste) coats chewy wheat noodles, with diced pork, onion, potato and zucchini giving it body. Simmering until the potato turns half translucent lets the vegetables sweeten the salty paste. In Korea it is the go-to delivery meal on moving day or after a graduation, and it tastes best mixed the moment the hot sauce lands on the noodles.
Squid scored on the inside, blanched briefly, and plunged into ice water stays chewy without turning rubbery. Half-moon cucumber slices add crisp juiciness, and shredded red cabbage brings a purple contrast. The chojang dressing, gochujang (Korean chili paste) thinned with vinegar and maesil-cheong, a green plum syrup, is spicy, sweet, and sour all at once, giving the mild squid a strong accent. Served cold, it makes a light meal on hot summer days when appetite is low.
Fermented skate, boiled pork belly, and aged kimchi are laid side by side, then stacked one piece of each into a single bite. Keeping them in separate rows instead of piling them together shows at a glance what is left, which makes pairing them up easy. The pork is sliced an even 0.5 cm thick so a stack of all three still fits in one mouthful.
The beef is braised once as a whole piece, torn along the grain, then braised a second time with quail eggs. Over rice, it gets a heavy crumble of dried gamtae, a thin winter seaweed, added only at the last moment because the braising liquid softens it quickly.
Flakes of green gamtae are scattered through a glazed stir-fry of tiny anchovies and sliced almonds, giving a familiar banchan an extra sea smell. Gamtae is a seaweed from Korea's southern coast, milder and less bitter than sea lettuce.
No glaze, no syrup: this chicken leaves the fryer and goes straight to the plate. Bone-in pieces get a thin coat of runny batter made from flour, potato starch, and cold water, fry twice, and drain on a rack. Leftovers crisp up again after 6 to 8 minutes in a 200°C oven.
Makgeolli, lemon-lime soda, yuja marmalade and lemon juice go into one large bowl, enough for four glasses. Turn the makgeolli bottle over gently before opening so the sediment at the bottom mixes back in. Once the soda is added, give it one big lift from the bottom, then ladle it out right away so every glass gets ice and a few slices of unpeeled apple.
Shrimp and squid are brushed with a thin layer of doenjang sauce and grilled. There is only half a tablespoon of gochujang in it, so it tastes more savory than hot. You know it is done by smell: once the sauce turns deep brown and smells toasty, it comes off the heat, and a little longer brings a burnt note.
Skewered fish cakes and thick slices of radish simmer in anchovy and kelp broth, a soup Koreans set out alongside drinks. The kelp comes out the moment the water starts to boil, which keeps the broth from turning slick.
Fresh shiitake caps are stuffed with pork seasoned with soy sauce, scallion and garlic, mounded slightly, then coated in egg and fried. The easily skipped step is a very light dusting of flour inside each cap, which acts like glue between mushroom and meat.
Blue crab, clams, squid and shrimp share one pot that keeps simmering on a low flame at the table. The seafood gets fished out first as it's ready; the tofu and zucchini stay in the red broth a while longer.
Each piece of eggplant gets a deep cross cut that stops just short of the base, which opens it up like a pocket for a beef and tofu filling before it is steamed. Stuffing every piece by hand takes time, and the dish was traditionally kept for guests and feasts.
Two fermented fish products go into this southern Korean kimchi, anchovy fish sauce and salted yellow croaker, layered for a saltier, deeper flavor than most napa kimchi. Finely chopped sea staghorn, a branching seaweed, adds a cool, briny savoriness that grows as the kimchi ripens. The chili flakes soak in glutinous rice paste first, which brightens the color and helps the paste cling to each leaf. The seasoning goes in generously, as is typical of Jeolla kimchi, and the heads are pressed down hard in the container because air contact gives fermenting kimchi a stale smell.
Small cubes of potato and zucchini sit in a thick black bean sauce that clings heavily to the noodles, the way it does at Korean bunsik snack shops. Some of the potato breaks down as it simmers and thickens the sauce on its own before the starch slurry is added. Frying the chunjang in oil first takes the edge off its raw bitterness, leaving the slow-cooked onion's sweetness to round it out.
Blanched squid tossed in gochujang, chili flakes and vinegar works as both a drinking snack and a side dish with rice. Timing decides almost everything: past a minute to a minute and a half in boiling water the flesh contracts and turns rubbery, while undercooked squid stays translucent in the middle. An ice bath right after stops the carryover heat and locks in the springy bite.
Live shrimp sold for sashimi are peeled, fanned out on a chilled plate, and served with chojang the moment they are cleaned. The heads are not thrown away: they go straight into the fridge and are cooked through the same day for broth.
The pollock roe never goes over a flame. When the rice is done, the heat is turned off, the lid comes up just long enough to add the roe and a knob of butter, and the residual heat of an 8-minute rest warms them through. That keeps the eggs from tightening, and they still pop. The gamtae seaweed is crumbled over with the scallions once the rice has finished resting.
The Gangwon version of soy bulgogi includes shiitake. Thick slices of the mushroom soak up the marinade along with the onion, and even with pear juice in the mix, the salty soy comes through before any sweetness.
Butter-toasted bread stays crisp underneath while warm slices of injeolmi, a soft rice cake usually coated in roasted soybean powder, stretch on top, finished with more of that nutty powder and a thin line of honey. Too much honey soaks the bread. A thin drizzle, eaten right away, keeps the toast crisp underneath.
The matcha is whisked to a froth in water around 80°C before it meets the warm soy milk, and acacia honey sweetens it. Roasted soybean powder sifted over each cup brings the bean flavor of the soy milk back once more.
Squid, shrimp, scallops and clams all cook at different speeds, so even on one grill each comes off on its own schedule. The clams are lifted out as soon as they open, juices and all. With nothing but olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon on them, any overcooked, rubbery piece gives itself away.
In Chungcheong, eotang starts with whole freshwater fish simmered for more than forty minutes until even the flesh dissolves into the broth, which is then strained twice through a fine sieve or cloth to catch the small bones. Radish and doenjang go into that broth for a second simmer, and chili flakes and green onion give it a sharp finish.
Butterflied flat along the belly, the shrimp cook evenly and hold a thin flour-and-egg coat better than whole ones would. The trap with saeu-jeon is color: the coating turns pale gold and the surface turns pink well before the thickest shrimp are opaque at the center. Translucent flesh in the middle means more time in the pan, while firm, opaque shrimp should come out right away so they do not toughen. Lemon wedges on the side add a bright finish.