157 recipes. Page 5 of 7
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Eggplant is steamed for just five minutes, torn along the grain and tossed with soup soy sauce and garlic so it takes on seasoning of its own. It then goes into cold water seasoned with vinegar and sugar and is topped with cheongyang chili and sesame seeds, a summer side dish. If ice is going in, the seasoning should be a little stronger, since it thins as the ice melts.
With no meat or seafood, the broth depends almost entirely on the doenjang itself. Every brand is salted differently, so the paste goes in a little at a time, tasting as you go.
Once the shells go red and the doenjang (Korean soybean paste) broth has worked its way into every crack, the crab meat gets picked out and eaten over rice. The radish lining the bottom of the pot soaks up the crab too, so it is worth fishing out alongside.
Gondre, a thistle-family mountain green gathered in spring in Gangwon Province, has a quiet aroma that grows clearer once it is pickled. The tough stems get only 20 seconds of blanching, and the greens are squeezed hard afterward so the brine stays clear. Grain syrup (jocheong) softens the sharp edge of the soy sauce, while brown rice vinegar and kelp stock add tang and savory depth. Half a Cheongyang chili leaves only a light heat at the end. After 2 days in the fridge, spoon it over rice with gochujang and sesame oil, or use it as a bibimbap topping.
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.
Horse mackerel, cut in half on the bone, simmers with napa cabbage in a thin, strained doenjang broth in this Jeju soup. The pieces are left alone because stirring breaks the flesh, and the soup keeps cooking past the point where the cabbage softens until the fish is opaque at the center.
Wait until the clams are cooked to check the seasoning. As they open they release briny liquid into the broth, and a broth salted to taste with doenjang alone can end up too salty. Throw out any clams that stay shut.
Whole garlic cloves and rice wine come to a boil before a mix of clams is added, giving the broth they release a slow, mellow garlic note. With the clams bringing their own salt, the measured salt is stirred in only after tasting, a little at a time. Green onion and cheongyang chili steam for just half a minute at the end to perfume the broth; any longer and the clam meat shrinks and toughens. Purging the clams in salted water beforehand matters as much as the cooking, because any sand ends up in the bowl. Clams that stay shut are thrown out, and the leftover broth makes a base for noodles or porridge.
Most soy pickles take their brine boiling hot, but in this recipe the boiled brine cools completely before it touches the perilla leaves, which would otherwise blacken and go limp. Sliced garlic and a cheongyang chile are tucked between the leaves raw rather than simmered in the brine, which keeps their bite sharp against the herbal perilla. From day three, a single leaf wrapped around a spoonful of rice is the usual way to eat it. It stays in the fridge, and this mix is not meant to be kept beyond a month.
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.
Nothing in the bowl looks like a loach. The fish is boiled, blended and pushed through a sieve before going back into its broth, and with siraegi and ground perilla seed the soup turns thick and earthy.
A tablespoon of doenjang is stirred into the red chili broth to tame the fishiness. The frozen pollock is thawed only partly, just enough for a knife to get through the bone, and cut while still firm; fully thawed, the flesh crumbles.
Soft, mild yellow croaker with little fishiness needs nothing more than a simple sauce of soy, gochugaru and garlic. Some croaker is sold already salted and needs less soy sauce. Taste before adding the full amount. Sliced radish under the fish keeps it from sticking and turns sweet and tender in the liquid. Korean families often put this on holiday tables, and the saucy braising liquid is meant to be spooned over rice.
Larger and thicker than perilla leaves, soybean leaves take longer to absorb the brine but reward you with a hearty chew, and a single leaf wraps a whole spoonful of rice. Give them at least two days in the fridge, until the soy color reaches the middle of each leaf; this is not a same-day banchan. Garlic, cheongyang chili, and onion steep in the brine alongside the leaves, giving the soy flavor a sharp, peppery lift. The usual way to eat it is draped over hot rice.
Smoked duck comes already seasoned, so the soy sauce is kept light, and no oil is added because the duck's own fat is enough to cook the onion and sauce. The sauce is gochujang with maesil-cheong (green plum syrup), and two cheongyang chilies go in with the onion.
Blue crab in its spring or autumn season is halved and simmered in a radish broth with a little doenjang and chili flakes. The shells turn red well before the meat is cooked through. Crack the claws with the back of a knife beforehand and the meat comes out easily at the table.
As the clams open they release their briny liquor into the rice-water doenjang broth, and the zucchini stew tastes cleaner and brighter for it. Give the clams about an hour to purge their sand.
Well-fermented kimchi, sour and soft, meets the oil from canned Pacific saury and cooks down into a tangy, concentrated sauce. With no fish to clean, the work is mostly waiting: about twenty minutes of simmering, partly uncovered, until the kimchi turns tender and the liquid thickens. Sliced cheongyang chili goes in near the end to keep its sharp heat. The fish only needs heating through and stays in large pieces as long as nobody stirs it.
Garlic scapes start out sharp and garlicky, and the soy brine slowly rounds that bite off, though it returns with every chew. A piece of kelp simmered in the brine adds a soft sea savoriness, and the sliced cheongyang chiles go in only as the heat is turned off and leave just a little heat at the finish. Pressing out air bubbles with a spoon keeps every piece submerged, and only a clean utensil goes into the jar.
Perilla sprouts are far more tender than perilla leaves and smell only faintly of perilla, and here they are tossed with browned tofu in thinned doenjang (Korean soybean paste). Thickly shredded perilla leaves can stand in when sprouts are hard to find, though the scent gets noticeably stronger and the bite tougher.
Blue crabs go in shell and all, turning red as they cook and flavoring the radish broth, and with cheongyang chilies for heat the pot goes in the middle of the table for everyone to dip into.
Plenty of eolgari, young napa cabbage, goes in, and as it wilts its sweetness softens the doenjang. A good amount of tofu keeps the salt in check too.
Kelp flavors the soy broth only briefly and comes out before the eggs go in, since a long simmer turns it heavy and muddy. Whole garlic cloves braise alongside the quail eggs until soft and mellow, while a single Cheongyang chili joins in the final minutes to add a sharp edge without making the dish fiery. The eggs come out mahogany outside and seasoned toward the yolk, easy one-bite pieces for a lunchbox.
Butterbur stems carry a sharp astringency that a long cold-water soak after blanching draws out, while the stalks keep their fibrous structure. The stringy outer layer has to be pulled off first; left on, it stays tough in the jar. Pouring the soy, vinegar and sugar brine, steeped with kelp, over the stems while it is still hot keeps them crisp for longer. Sliced garlic and cheongyang chili give the salty pickle a streak of heat.