1880 Korean recipes. Page 51 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Butterbur Stem Kimchi, Perilla Oil Makguksu, Korean Pollock Roe Rolled Omelet.
How long the stems simmer decides this kimchi: seven minutes in salted water, then half an hour in cold water, takes out the bitterness and the toughness, and undercooked stems keep both. Unlike the soy-pickled version, these butterbur stems are tossed in a red chili paste thickened with glutinous rice porridge. Gentle tossing matters, since squeezing hard breaks the crisp fibers.
Without gochujang in the mix, the toasty, nutty perilla oil carries this buckwheat makguksu, dressed with just soy sauce, vinegar, and a little allulose syrup. With such a simple dressing, any water pooling under the noodles dilutes it immediately.
Instead of stirring the pollock roe into the eggs, this version lays it in a single line before rolling, so each slice shows an orange stripe in the middle of the yellow. Bite in and the roe pops with salty little beads against the soft egg. Roe varies in saltiness, so there is no added salt, and low heat keeps the omelette from cracking.
Steamed kabocha is pureed and thickened with glutinous rice flour, so the porridge is completely smooth, with no grains of rice. Milk rounds out the sweetness, and a few pine nuts go on top.
Mussels steamed in butter and rice wine get green chili and scallion, so a sharp heat follows the richness of the butter. The liquor from the shells mixes with the melted butter, and there is no separate sauce to make.
Chapssal sundae, sticky-rice blood sausage, is already cooked, so frying it is not about cooking it through but about a crisp shell and a center that gets hot. The batter is thickened with potato starch, and two rounds in the oil firm it up. A dusting of chili powder while hot, mustard on the side.
Astragalus, angelica root, cinnamon and licorice simmer with jujubes on the lowest heat for 50 minutes or more, giving a brown, bittersweet brew with a distinct cinnamon note. Honey is dissolved in after straining. The instant ssanghwa powder sold for mixing with water is not a weight-for-weight stand-in for these dried herbs; if you are using a powder, follow its own package directions.
Saury is seasoned with nothing but coarse salt and pepper. Ten minutes after salting, beads of moisture show up on the surface again, and wiping those off too is what keeps the skin from sticking. The cooked fish goes straight onto a plate rather than sitting in the pan, with grated radish and lemon alongside.
When there is soaked gosari (bracken fern) left over from making holiday namul, it gets fried with beef in sesame oil and turned into a doenjang soup. The bracken keeps its chew even after a long simmer, which makes it a sturdy thing to find in a bowl of soup.
The shepherd's purse goes in roots and all, because the roots carry its earthy, bitter spring scent. The trade-off is cleaning: soil has to be scraped off with a knife tip and the greens swished through several changes of cold water. Doenjang brands differ in saltiness, and the paste is adjusted half a tablespoon at a time.
Crunchy bean sprouts and chewy squid and shrimp share one platter, all coated in a thick red sauce. It shows up often as a dish to go with drinks.
After two or three days in the fridge in a soy and vinegar brine, the water parsley (minari) stays crisp and its fresh, grassy smell picks up a salty, tart edge. Leftover water is what usually turns it limp, so the washed stalks are spread out and dried thoroughly first.
Shepherd's purse, a spring herb with an earthy, peppery fragrance, goes into a doenjang and anchovy-kelp broth with fresh knife-cut noodles. Its aroma is strongest from mid-March to early April, and it is added only in the final minute over lower heat, since a rolling boil drives the fragrance off. Pressing the doenjang through a strainer keeps the soup smooth and less cloudy. Doenjang brands vary in saltiness, so the broth is seasoned lightly at first and finished with soup soy sauce. Zucchini and onion cut to the same thickness cook through together in a couple of minutes and sweeten the broth evenly.
Korean myeongnanjeot is normally plain salted, not chili-cured like Japanese mentaiko, and here the chili flakes stop at a faint orange tint on the surface. Two or three folds with a spoon and the mixing is over. Burst eggs make it mushy and take away the pop.
The rice is spread out in the bowls and left to steam off for about three minutes before the cucumber, lettuce, perilla leaves and flounder go on. Straight onto hot rice, the fish would turn lukewarm. Half the cho-gochujang, a sweet-sour chili sauce, is drizzled on for the first mix, and the rest goes in to taste.
One bite brings the springy head of webfoot octopus (jjukkumi), its chewy suckered legs and crunchy soybean sprouts. With plenty of gochugaru and cheongyang chilies on top of that, it is properly hot.
Closely scored Vienna sausages, rolled on skewers in a pan, open out like butterfly wings as they heat, and the cut edges brown and crisp. Ketchup and mustard go on the side; thread rice cake between the sausages and you have sotteok sotteok.
The mugwort, a grassy Korean spring herb, is blanched only briefly, so what comes through is its green aroma more than its bitterness. Blended with frozen banana and yogurt, it makes a thick, pale green smoothie.
Split blue crab grills shell side down first, then gets turned so the cut meat can take brushing after brushing of butter, garlic, soy sauce and lemon whenever it dries. Crabs vary in size and any time given is only a guide. The crab is done when the thickest meat reaches 63°C (145°F) and looks pearly and opaque.
With oysters and big cubes of tofu in a clear kelp broth, the salt from the oysters seasons the soup more than you might expect. So the salt goes in only after the oysters, a taste at a time.
Winter oysters, plump at this time of year, share a doenjang broth with bitter-edged shepherd's purse. The base is kelp stock and radish, and the paste is held to 1.5 tablespoons, light enough that the oysters still taste of the sea.
Thick rounds of zucchini are hollowed into little cups and filled with beef, tofu and shiitake before steaming. Soft zucchini and dense filling come in the same bite, with thin strips of egg crepe on top.
Ten minutes of salt is all the water dropwort (minari) gets, so the stems stay crisp and the fresh, grassy aroma comes through intact. Even draining is gentle, a light press with the palm, since wringing the stems would cost them that snap. Anchovy fish sauce gives the light herb a savory base, and the fruity tartness of plum syrup softens the chili heat, while finely grated onion binds the paste into one smooth seasoning. Served with fatty pork belly or boiled pork, the herb clears the richness from the palate between bites. It is best eaten cold on the day it is made, before the stems wilt further.
Blanched spinach, soybean sprouts, and julienned carrot are tossed with thin somyeon in a soy, vinegar, and plum syrup dressing that is salty, tart, and faintly sweet, with no chili paste involved. The spinach and sprouts are blanched separately and squeezed hard, because leftover water thins the sauce and makes the noodles swell and clump as they sit. Dry-sauteing the carrot without oil for a minute brings out a sweetness raw carrot lacks. Dressing the noodles before adding the vegetables seasons every strand instead of letting the sauce cling only to the greens. The garlic is stirred until evenly dispersed so no single bite turns sharp, and half a tablespoon of gochugaru makes a spicy version.