1880 Korean recipes. Page 67 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Grilled Sea Snail with Gochujang, Spicy Catfish Stew.
Sliced sora, a Korean sea snail, stays chewy, with the gochujang sauce cooked right down onto it and no liquid left in the pan. A weak flame lets water pool and turns it into a stir-fry, so the pan goes on high. Trim off the tough innard end while slicing.
Pieces of catfish simmer in a gochujang broth, and thin pinches of flour dough go in partway through, so fish and sujebi dumplings come out of the same pot. Before cutting, the catfish is rubbed well with salt to strip off its slippery coating, which otherwise leaves a muddy taste in the broth.
The croaker keeps its white flesh and mild flavor instead of tasting of soy because the soy sauce stays out of the pot until the radish is tender and only then gets stirred into the broth and spooned over the fish. Thick slices of Korean radish line the bottom, shielding the fish from direct heat and sweetening the liquid as they soften. Rice wine and thinly sliced ginger handle any fishiness, which is why the seasoning can stay this light. The green onion cooks for just 1 minute at the end to keep its aroma. Croaker has fine-grained, delicate flesh, and a gentle steam-braise rather than a hard boil keeps the pieces whole for a shared table of four.
Thin stems and tender leaves make young radish easy to bruise, and rough handling leaves a grassy, raw smell. Every stage from rinsing to mixing needs a light hand. As the paste settles in, the greens release liquid that becomes a tangy, chili-flecked brine, and pressing the greens down into it keeps the fermentation even. After roughly half a day at room temperature, small bubbles and a sour smell signal it is time for the fridge. In summer, when fermentation runs fast, it can be refrigerated straight away. Chilled, it is piled onto bibim-guksu or naengmyeon through the summer.
The konjac rice goes into a dry pan with no oil at all. Once the steam dies down and the grains roll around on their own, it comes out, then returns later to a pan of chicken breast, carrot and scrambled egg to be seasoned with oyster sauce and soy sauce. Dried out this way, the konjac rice has a firm, springy chew.
Covered and cooked in a little soy-seasoned water, the radish strands turn translucent and bend easily around a chopstick. Made with winter radish, the dish comes out noticeably sweeter.
Chicken thigh pieces cook skin side down under a lid until the fat runs and the edges darken. Shallow cuts in the thick parts, no deeper than half the thickness, let the marinade in without the meat splitting open.
Buckwheat jelly is plain on its own, and the cold soy and vinegar broth is mixed a little too salty and sour to make up for it once the jelly goes in. The broth is chilled until a few ice crystals remain, and crumbled laver and sesame oil go on just before serving.
With nothing more than radish, soy sauce, sugar, and garlic, everything depends on cooking the thick 2 cm rounds through to the center. Covered first, then uncovered to reduce, the radish turns translucent at the edges and picks up the soy while its own sweetness rounds out the salt. A single green chili and a little sesame oil at the very end add a light kick and a nutty smell to an otherwise plain, everyday side.
The broth stays clear because garlic and ginger are wrapped in cheesecloth and squeezed in cold water for their aroma alone, leaving no solids floating around. Young radish greens (yeolmu) are salted just until they slump slightly, so the stems keep some snap, and thin slices of radish let the broth pick up flavor quickly. Ginger is the one ingredient to hold back on: too much, or left steeping too long, turns the broth bitter. Filtered cold water gives the cleanest taste, since nothing is boiled.
Maesaengi, a seaweed as fine as thread, spreads green through the whole pot, and the oysters bring a briny, salty depth. Maesaengi holds heat and barely steams, so it is much hotter than it looks. Blow on the first few spoonfuls.
Stir-fried in perilla oil, julienned radish loses its raw, peppery sharpness and turns gently sweet. It is one of the basic namul, used for bibimbap and set out on Korean ancestral-rite tables.
Firm tofu is cut into thick slabs, pan-fried until golden, and served with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, chili flakes, chopped green onion and sesame oil. Left unmoved until the bottom of the first side firms up, the slices hold together when the wide spatula goes under them.
Butterbur stems are peeled, blanched and left to soak in cold water for a good while to draw out their acrid edge. Ground perilla seed with a little glutinous rice flour makes the broth thick enough to cling to a spoon, and the thick-cut stems and king oyster mushrooms give it something to chew.
Blanched radish greens, the leafy tops of Korean radish, soak up the pear-and-soy braising liquid from the beef and bring an earthy flavor with a slight chew. Short rib meat is soaked in cold water first to draw out blood, which keeps the sauce clean-tasting rather than murky. Pear juice adds a gentle fruit sweetness under the garlic and ginger, and the reduced sauce clings to both meat and greens, ready to spoon over rice.
A splash of vinegar in the blanching water keeps lotus root slices pale and clean, and a quick dunk in cold water right after locks that color in. After thin peeling, each piece is rinsed right through the holes, where soil tends to hide. The soy brine gets bay leaf and black peppercorns and only a short simmer, because reducing it makes the pickle too salty. Even slices cook and season evenly, and shaking off the water keeps the brine from going thin. Poured on hot, the brine runs into every hole, and after two to three days in the fridge the centers are seasoned while the slices still have a crisp, fibrous chew.
Garlic scapes, a spring vegetable, keep their sharp garlicky smell and firm snap even when stir-fried. Here they cook briefly over high heat with thin slices of pork shoulder in a gochujang sauce and go onto the rice while still crunchy, along with every bit of sauce scraped from the pan.
Sour, long-aged kimchi and canned tuna are stir-fried together and spooned over hot rice. The tuna goes in last and is turned over just a few times in big folds, so it stays in chunks that take on the kimchi seasoning rather than breaking into flakes. Very sour kimchi can take about half a teaspoon more sugar, and canned mackerel works in place of tuna.
Bellflower root soaks in salt water for ten minutes and blanches for just one, enough to soften its bitterness while keeping its firm crunch. Coated in gochujang, it grills in a pan or over an open flame, and the open flame gives a stronger smoky note.
Butterbur stems, peeled of their stringy outer skin, simmer in doenjang broth until they bend limply under a chopstick. Their sharp, acrid taste is the main hurdle: unless the stems are blanched and soaked in cold water first, that harshness spreads through the whole pot.
Sour, long-fermented kimchi and pork back ribs braise down together in one pot, so the first impression is tangy and savory before it is spicy. The riper the kimchi, the stronger its sourness and savory depth, which makes the state of the kimchi the biggest factor in how the dish turns out.
Starting with sliced lotus root boiled in vinegar water helps remove bitterness while keeping the vegetable pale and crisp. The seasoning combines gochugaru, minced garlic, and anchovy fish sauce with the addition of fresh pear juice. This pear juice provides natural sugars and necessary moisture so the chili paste coats each slice evenly without becoming dry or clumping. Even after the fermentation process begins, the lotus root maintains its signature firm and crunchy texture. Sliced scallions are tossed in to add a fresh aromatic quality that balances the spicy garlic paste. One full day of refrigeration allows the flavors to settle into the flesh before serving. Because the seasoning gets trapped inside the characteristic holes of the root, the paste should remain thick rather than watery to ensure consistent flavor. When left to ferment for a few more days, the developing acidity helps cut through the richness of grilled meats or fried dishes.
Once the salt-blanched tofu is in the doubanjiang sauce, the spatula is put away and only the pan gets shaken, which keeps the cubes square all the way to the rice. A sprinkle of Sichuan pepper at the end pushes it toward a proper mala taste.
Mild, pan-browned tofu breaks up the sharp sourness of aged kimchi in every bite. The finishing oil is perilla rather than sesame, drizzled once the heat is off so its nutty aroma survives and smooths out the kimchi's fermented intensity.