286 recipes. Page 5 of 12
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In the American South this is everyday home cooking: chicken stew with soft dumplings on top. The batter is spooned onto the broth and puffs up in the steam under the lid, so the dumplings come out light, closer to biscuit than to noodle. The thigh meat is pulled into shreds, so a spoonful gets chicken and dumpling together.
Sea bream fillet is spread flat, layered with cucumber, carrot and oyster mushrooms, then rolled and steamed into a log of white fish wrapped around a core of color. The soy, vinegar and sesame oil sauce sits on the side rather than being cooked in, which keeps the mild bream tasting of itself.
Green cabbage leaves are thinner and firmer than napa, so they take salt quickly and turn tough rather than soft when left too long. Wide leaves and thick stems are cut to a similar size so one part does not finish salting before the other. The moment to stop salting is when a leaf bends but still snaps between the teeth. Draining matters more than it seems: leftover rinse water slides the chili paste off the leaves and thins the brine that forms later. Julienned carrot and scallion keep the color bright, and the jar moves to the fridge once liquid starts pooling after a short room-temperature ferment.
Chewy and clear, sweet-potato glass noodles grab the gochujang-soy sauce tightly and bring a vivid sweet-spicy hit with every lift of the chopsticks. The dish comes from street food sold in Busan's markets, and it is quick: boil the noodles, then toss them with briefly stir-fried vegetables, fish cake, and the sauce. Fish cake adds a soft savory note against the springy noodles, while cabbage and carrot, cooked only until just bent, keep some crunch.
Any vegetables left in the fridge can go into this soup, as long as the order holds: firm ones like carrot and celery soften in oil first, quick-cooking zucchini and beans come later. Ditalini cook directly in the pot, and their starch thickens the broth; if it turns too heavy, hot vegetable stock loosens it without cooling the soup down. Fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil are added after the heat is off.
Mayonnaise thinned with rice vinegar and lemon juice gives this Japanese imitation-crab salad a creamy coating that does not feel heavy. Crab stick pulled into thin shreds along the grain mixes with matchsticks of cucumber and carrot and takes the dressing evenly, and with no cooking involved it comes together in minutes.
Thick veal shanks braise in tomato, white wine and chicken stock until the meat separates under a fork, with the marrow still sitting in the middle of each bone. That marrow is the best part, so the shanks are turned and lifted gently with tongs rather than jolted. A light, well-shaken coat of flour on the shanks browns in the oil instead of scorching. Onion, carrot and celery soften in the same oil until sweet, and white wine lifts the browned bits from the bottom to start the sauce. The shanks braise covered in the oven with their tops just showing above the liquid. Gremolata, a mix of lemon zest, parsley and garlic, is scattered on just before serving to brighten the long-cooked sauce.
A winter side dish from the Tsugaru region of Aomori, where cod was eaten from head to innards and the roe was salted for keeping or saved for New Year and celebration food. Carrot, koya-dofu (freeze-dried tofu) and shirataki are cooked in sake first, then fresh roe scraped from its membrane is stir-fried in until it turns opaque and scatters into dry little grains that cling to every piece.
Rice, onion and carrot simmer in chicken stock, and ground perilla seed stirred in at the end thickens the porridge. The chicken breast is poached on its own and shredded along the grain, then added only once the rice has nearly broken down, just to heat through.
Thin beef that hits the pan in clumps steams instead of searing. So before it goes into the soy and pear-juice marinade, every stuck-together slice is peeled apart and laid flat.
Sweet potato, carrot, onion, squid, and shrimp share one pot of oil here, and they cook at very different speeds. Slicing the dense vegetables thin lets their centers soften before the coating darkens, while dry seafood spits less in the oil and carries a lighter batter. Cold water and a brief stir give a light, shattering shell, and the platter goes to the table with a small dish of soy sauce instead of salt.
The chicken breast is pulled into long shreds, so it hangs off the spoon together with the egg noodles. If you plan on leftovers, lift the noodles out and store them separately; otherwise by the next day they will have soaked up the broth.
The usual way galbi jjim goes wrong is that the liquid cooks down while the beef is still tough. Before reducing the sauce, check that a chopstick slides into the meat; if it doesn't, add a splash of water, cover and keep going.
Raw cabbage and carrot are packed in unblanched, and the hot sweet-sour brine poured over them is what keeps the crunch a day later. Whole peppercorns give the brine a mild aromatic bite. Served cold beside burgers or tonkatsu, it cuts through fried food the way a sharp slaw does.
Spread across a very hot pan and left alone for a moment, the noodles pick up crisp, browned patches while the centers stay chewy, and that contrast defines chow mein. It depends on dry ingredients: noodles boiled just short of tender and cooled, bean sprouts shaken free of water, and vegetables pulled before they weep. A thin coat of sesame oil on the drained noodles stops them from fusing into a clump as they cool. High heat from start to finish keeps liquid from pooling in the pan, where it would steam the noodles instead of frying them. Oyster sauce and soy give the strands a glossy, salty coating.
Wild boar shoulder spends a night in red wine with juniper berries and rosemary, then cooks down slowly into a ragù for wide ribbons of pappardelle. The juniper's piney edge suits the dark, gamey meat. Use boar sold for eating, and cook it through to the center of the thickest pieces.
Okara (soy pulp) is dry-toasted until crumbly, then mixed with vinegar-cured sardine, salted cucumber and carrot, and sweet simmered fried tofu, all held together by a thick peanut and miso dressing. The dish comes from the Boso coast of Chiba, and each portion is squeezed by hand into a small rice-bale shape. Store-bought okara added straight from the pack carries too much water and turns the mix soggy, which is why it is toasted first. The salted vegetables and the vinegar-rinsed sardine also need to be well drained, or the shaped bales slump. Toasty okara, salty fish, sweet vinegared miso and yuzu peel land in a single bite.
Chuck goes into the oven as one piece and comes out soft enough to pull apart with a fork, while the carrots and potatoes, added only for the final hour, still hold their shape. Tomato paste and the browned bits left by searing become the sauce right in the same pot, and the braising liquid ends up serving as the gravy.
Heso daikon starts as thick rounds of blanched radish threaded on skewers and left to freeze at night and thaw by day for about a month. The hole left by the skewer looks like a navel (heso), which gives it its name, and the dried radish keeps until the following summer. In southern Miyagi Prefecture it is simmered with taro, carrot, shiitake, freeze-dried tofu, knotted kombu and kamaboko fish cake until almost no liquid remains.
Stir-fried deodeok root sits beside raw cucumber, carrot, and lettuce, so each bite mixes a cooked, gochujang-coated root with cool, crisp vegetables. Most of the sauce goes into the pan with the deodeok; the rest is added when the bowl is mixed.
Dried tofu cut into thin strips does not break up in the pan; it lifts on the chopsticks in strands, like noodles. Carrot, green pepper and onion cut to the same width make it colorful.
Takasaki zakuni looks like kenchin-jiru, but the vegetables are never fried; soaked dried squid and its soaking liquid supply the savory depth instead. In Gunma it appears at New Year, Setsubun, Ebisu-ko, and household festivals, and one story says oil was left out of wedding versions so the couple would not separate like oil and water.
Salted tiny shrimp (saeujeot) season the eggs instead of salt, and anchovy stock gives them savory depth. Cooked slowly in an earthenware pot (ttukbaegi) over low heat with a gentle stir through the middle, it comes out soft and puffed, nothing like the glassy-smooth custard of Japanese chawanmushi.
Poaching chicken breast directly in the anchovy stock gives the clear broth of janchi guksu, Korea's party noodle soup, an extra savory layer. A little sesame oil tossed through the shredded chicken makes the lean breast meat taste moist, while separate yellow and white egg-crepe strips, zucchini, and carrot add color. The recipe scales up easily, making it practical for feeding a crowd.