1880 Korean recipes. Page 73 of 79. Compare ingredients and cooking times. Korean Braised Radish Greens, Korean Shiitake Mushroom Rice.
Doenjang and ground perilla seeds turn dried radish greens into a soft, nutty side dish with just enough broth left to spoon up. Peeling off the stringy outer skin of the stems matters more than cooking time; left on, it stays tough however long the pot simmers.
Thick slices of fresh shiitake sit on the rice as it cooks, staying moist in the steam while their aroma drifts down into the grains. With dried shiitake instead, the soaking water becomes the cooking water and the mushroom flavor gets deeper. The finished rice is mixed with a sauce of soy, sesame oil, green onion and sesame seeds.
Ketchup sets a sweet base and half a spoon of gochujang adds only a mild heat, giving these cocktail sausages a sticky glaze that settles into shallow scores and sits well in a lunchbox. Once the ketchup and syrup start to thicken they stick fast to the pan, so nothing stays still after the sauce is poured in.
Olgaengi is what people in Chungcheong Province call the small freshwater snails known elsewhere in Korea as daseulgi. Their tiny meat cooks with mallow leaves in a doenjang broth, and a spoonful of ground perilla seed leaves it slightly thick.
Seasoned radish greens (siraegi) go into hot perilla oil before any liquid, which toasts the doenjang and carries its savory smell into the plain water added afterward. Soup soy sauce (guk-ganjang, a lighter, saltier Korean soy) backs up the seasoning. Splitting the thick stems lengthwise lets them soften at the same pace as the leafy parts, and the slow, low simmer turns tough stems pliable. It finishes with just a shallow pool of liquid in the pot, good for mixing into rice.
Most of the flavor here comes from the scallions. Thinly sliced and fried until their edges turn golden, they leave behind an oil that coats the shrimp and every grain of rice, so soy sauce and oyster sauce are all it needs.
Square fish cake sheets are blanched for 20 seconds before frying to shed surface oil, which lets the gochujang glaze cling more cleanly. No water is added; the onion goes in first, and the moisture it gives off loosens the sauce on the pan floor.
A 1.5 kg duck is stuffed with soaked glutinous rice and simmered in water already steeped with a Korean herbal pack of astragalus and eumnamu. By the end the rice inside has turned to porridge, served together with the meat. Duck is tougher than chicken and needs more than an hour and a half.
Because the eye of round is boiled first and its strained stock becomes the braising base, the soy glaze carries a meaty depth rather than just salt and sugar. Quail eggs simmer in the same liquid and turn brown from the outside in, then keep absorbing seasoning as everything cools. Once fully cold, the braising liquid firms up into a thin coating around the beef and eggs, and a night in the fridge drives the seasoning deeper. If it tastes too salty, 2-3 tablespoons of water and a brief return to the boil bring it back in line. The beef is torn into long shreds along the grain, the classic jangjorim texture for spooning over rice from a container in the fridge.
Large shrimp are split lengthwise before rolling, which packs the middle of every slice with pink shrimp. Egg strips, sauteed carrot and cucumber go in too, but nothing strongly seasoned, and it eats lighter than most gimbap.
Bulgogi-style beef marinated in soy sauce and pear juice gets ssamchu, a leafy cabbage, at the very end, stems first and leaves a minute later. That split leaves crunchy stems next to leaves that have only just wilted, and any longer in the pan would drain the greens of their sweetness and moisture.
Eight tablespoons of ground perilla seed turn this duck broth milky and thick, provided they are stirred in after the duck is fully cooked; added too early, the powder turns gritty with a bitter finish. Plain raw duck slices, not smoked or marinated, keep the broth tasting only of duck and radish.
Twelve whole garlic cloves braise alongside the beef until their raw bite disappears and they turn soft and mellow. Shiitake mushrooms take on the soy glaze and a glossy sheen, and they add an earthy aroma to the beef stock that plain jangjorim, Korean soy-braised beef, does not have. An overnight rest in the fridge lets the seasoning soak all the way in, and the flavor is noticeably darker the next day.
The shrimp are split into two uses. Heads and shells simmer into the stock the rice cooks in, while the meat is minced, given a quick turn in sesame oil with garlic, and set aside until the grains have fully broken down.
Crown daisy is slightly bitter and oyster mushrooms are mild, and the two stay distinct on the plate. The mushrooms are torn along the grain and cooked dry in a wide pan first; the crown daisy goes in right before the heat is turned off.
Green laver needs only 30 seconds to a minute in the pot; any longer and both its sea aroma and its bright green fade. That is why the anchovy stock and tofu are fully heated first and the laver goes in at the very end.
In this braise the radish matters as much as the beef: thick rounds go into a soy broth that has already simmered with brisket and drink up its meaty flavor as they turn translucent at the edges. Trimming the sharp corners of each piece keeps them whole through the long, low braise. Serve the radish with a spoonful of the salty-sweet liquid over rice.
Fernbrake, bellflower root and chwi-namul (aster greens) each get their own treatment: the fernbrake turns soft in sesame oil, the bellflower root is salted to draw out bitterness yet stays crisp, and the aster is blanched just until bright green. Cooked separately, they still taste and bite differently after mixing, and the gochujang sauce is served alongside to add a little at a time.
Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste) does most of the seasoning, with only a little gochujang, so the pork comes out savory and salty rather than hot. The crown daisy goes in after the meat is cooked and comes off the heat just as the leaves wilt, keeping its slightly bitter scent.
You pick the meat off the pork back bones in your bowl as you go, between spoonfuls of cloudy broth and napa greens soaked in doenjang seasoning. What decides the broth is pouring away the first blanching water, where the scum and porky smell collect.
Beef head meat spends at least three hours in cold water and gets a short first boil that is thrown away before the real simmer in fresh water with scallion, garlic, ginger, peppercorns and soju. Because skin and lean meat are layered together, slicing while hot makes them slide apart. Let it cool until you can hold it firmly, then cut thin, even slices for the platter.
Despite the Korean name, which points to gim (roasted laver), this bowl is built on rehydrated wakame. A short toss in sesame oil with garlic keeps the seaweed slippery and chewy while turning its sea smell nutty. With only five ingredients, water left in the wakame does the most damage: it spatters in the hot oil and thins the soy sauce until the whole bowl tastes flat.
The bean sprouts are not pulled after 30 seconds but cooked through, which makes this a soft stir-fry rather than a crunchy one. The oyster mushrooms are torn along the grain instead of cut, and the seasoning is soup soy sauce and salt.
White fish firms up in about 4 minutes, and after that every stir breaks it apart. The radish cooks halfway first to flavor the broth, then the fish follows and is ladled out as soon as the flesh begins to flake.