157 recipes. Page 6 of 7
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Chicken cartilage gives a crunch first and then a chew. The longer it cooks, the more that crunch turns tough, so the cartilage is marinated for 10 minutes and then stir-fried hard and fast. Gochujang, chili flakes and hot Cheongyang chilies pile up into a fiery bar snack.
Doenjang, not gochujang, seasons this crab stew, so it tastes nutty and savory before it tastes hot, with the chili flakes and Cheongyang pepper staying in the background.
No doenjang or gochujang here; salted shrimp does the seasoning. Its saltiness varies by jar, which is why only one tablespoon goes in at first and the remaining half is added at the end to taste. The base is rice-rinsing water with potato boiled in it for eight minutes, and chili flakes and cheongyang pepper turn it red and sharp.
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.
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.
Boiled pork gets chopped fine and fried hard in butter until the edges crisp, then calamansi juice (from a small sour Philippine citrus) and mayonnaise are stirred in at the end. Any water left on the pork makes it steam before it browns, and without crisp edges this Filipino bar snack loses its point.
Blue crabs in spring are packed with meat and taste noticeably sweet. Here they are halved and simmered in their shells with chili flakes and Cheongyang peppers, and the closer to live the crabs are when they go in, the more of that sweetness comes through.
The broth is reduced until there is just enough to mix into rice or spoon onto a lettuce wrap. With so little liquid, it is hard to fix once it turns salty, which is why only 80 percent of the doenjang goes in at first and the rest is used to adjust at the end. While the pastes fry for 30 seconds, keep the heat low and keep stirring.
Made from the same tiny dried anchovies as crunchy myeolchi-bokkeum, this braise goes the other way: the fish soak up a soy and sugar syrup and stay moist and tender inside. The heat drops further near the end so they never dry out and turn hard, and as it cools, the glaze thickens around each anchovy.
Crunchy seaweed stems carry a layer of salty soy and sharp vinegar over a faint taste of the sea. The stems are blanched for only about 20 seconds and squeezed dry right away; that brief dip is what keeps their snappy chew. Onion lends the brine a natural sweetness and cheongyang chile a hot finish. Salted stems vary in saltiness, so the soaking time is adjusted by tasting a strand.
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.
Cod and pollock are soft-fleshed fish, so once the pieces are in the pot they are never turned; the spicy broth is just spooned over them. That is how the pieces stay whole all the way to the table. Swap in clams or shrimp and it becomes a seafood maeuntang.
Canned whelks need almost no prep: drain them and halve the large pieces. The meat is already cooked, and it goes in only after the cabbage and onion are tender, just to heat through for three minutes at most.
Thick slices of Korean radish line the pot and soak up the soy broth, while the Spanish mackerel rests on top, never touching the bottom, so its soft flesh keeps its shape. A short rest in rice wine before cooking tones down the fishy smell, and the seasoning stays light with just soy sauce and garlic. Cheongyang chili added at the end gives the mild broth a clean, spicy finish, and the radish is as much a part of the meal as the fish.
Brine poured after only three minutes off the boil lightly blanches the surface of the alpine leek leaves, keeping them bright green while the inside stays raw and garlicky. With soy sauce and vinegar at equal volumes, neither salt nor sourness dominates once the leaves soak through. Each leaf is washed front and back and dried flat, since grit left on a single one turns the whole jar bitter. The finished leaves are mostly used to wrap grilled meat.
Smoked duck gives off a lot of fat as it cooks, and all but a thin film is poured off. The duck brings plenty of salt of its own, and soy sauce waits until a taste just before serving.
The wide Chinese glass noodles need about two hours in lukewarm water and should be put to soak well before any cooking starts. Mala sauces vary in salt and oil from brand to brand; stir some into the beef-bone broth first and taste before deciding whether to add more.
Made with plump winter oysters, it smells of the sea from the first spoonful. With lots of tofu and a chili-red broth, it sits closer to a hearty, spicy stew for rice than to a clear oyster soup.
Dried radish greens (siraegi) stay chewy through the braise and soak up the gochujang and soy sauce, so here they are as good with rice as the hairtail itself. The greens are tossed with a little doenjang beforehand, which leaves a nutty, savory note under the braise.
Hot soy brine sets only the outer surface of the cucumber while the center stays crisp even after several days of chilling. Whole garlic cloves slowly release their aroma into the liquid and hot green chilies leave a faint heat at the end of each bite, giving more depth than plain soy pickles. Because the half-moons are cut a thick 1 cm, they need about two days of chilling before the soy and vinegar reach the middle. The first pour is hot, but when the brine is drained and boiled again to keep the slices crisp for longer, it goes back on only after cooling. Serve it over rice or next to gukbap, a Korean rice and soup dish.
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.
The nutty smell of sour kimchi fried in perilla oil meets the briny smell of fresh oysters in one pot. It is a winter stew, made when the kimchi has gone properly sour and the oysters are plump.
Thick wedges cut along the grain are what let these onions stay crisp in soy brine for days; thin slices go limp fast. Sliced cheongyang chilies, a hot Korean green pepper, run some heat under the sweet-salty soy. The seasoning evens out after about three days in the fridge.
Mideodeok, a small sea squirt, holds a pocket of briny liquid inside its tough skin, and it bursts in your mouth when you bite down. To keep that liquid in, the stems are left uncut and the sea squirts get only three minutes in the pot, and the doenjang is dissolved in rice-rinsing water rather than anchovy stock. Around Tongyeong and Geoje on Korea's south coast, it is everyday home cooking.