69 recipes. Page 2 of 3
As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
With no glaze, only salt, this eel is all about the crisp skin and the rich fat. Over charcoal, dripping fat makes the flames jump, so one side of the grill is kept cooler to move the eel onto. Any sweet sauce stays in its own dish, and the salt-grilled eel gets tasted first.
Bok choy makes a lighter, crunchier kimchi than napa cabbage, ready to eat within a day. The salt goes mainly on the thick stems, and 20 minutes is the limit before the stems toughen. The halves drain thoroughly in a sieve after rinsing, because leftover water thins the paste until it slides off the leaves. Blending the salted shrimp and fish sauce into the sweet rice paste first makes the seasoning easy to spread thinly between leaves. Julienned carrot and scallions add color and a varied bite. After 4 hours at room temperature it moves to the fridge.
This is autumn gizzard shad, the fish whose grilling smell, as the Korean saying goes, could bring a runaway daughter-in-law back home. It is full of fine bones; scored every 0.5 cm on both sides, it grills soft enough to eat bones and all. The dip is minced ginger and cheongyang chili in soy sauce and vinegar.
Ponytail radishes go into the kimchi whole, greens and all, and after a day at room temperature they bite back with a fizzy tang. Long greens turn tough, so they are trimmed short first.
Saury is seasoned with nothing but coarse salt and pepper. Ten minutes after salting, beads of moisture show up on the surface again, and wiping those off too is what keeps the skin from sticking. The cooked fish goes straight onto a plate rather than sitting in the pan, with grated radish and lemon alongside.
Wild chive stems should only just bend after salting, which takes eight minutes and leaves their green, oniony scent intact. The roots are left long because the root end carries the aroma this kimchi depends on.
Minuh, a Korean brown croaker, has enough savory depth that coarse salt and white pepper are all it needs. With a whisper of flour and left undisturbed skin side down, the skin crisps lightly. It is at its best in July and August, but frozen fillets grill up the same way.
Chili flakes stirred into the brine and never strained out leave flecks of red through the pale, cool broth of this clear spring water kimchi. Shredded Korean pear sweetens the liquid gently, and 8 to 12 hours at room temperature give it a light, refreshing tang. Sedum, a small succulent spring green, gets only a quick swish in cold water, since long washing makes it grassy. It joins the jar last and is folded rather than pressed so its tiny leaves stay crisp. Because the ferment is short, the broth and greens are best eaten cold within a day or two, ladled over rice.
The skin of the sea bass fillets is dried twice: once while trimming, and again five minutes after the coarse salt and pepper go on, when fresh moisture has come up. The frying oil is olive oil warmed over low heat with crushed garlic and thyme, and after the flip it gets spooned over the flesh.
As dongchimi ferments, the clear brine around chunks of radish turns cool, tangy and faintly fizzy, with a soft fruitiness from pear and a clean finish from ginger. The radish is cut large, 4 to 5 cm, because small pieces go soft once the kimchi ripens, and a firm, medium-sized radish holds up better than a small one. Keeping every piece under the brine stops stray microbes, and the jar moves to the fridge once small bubbles appear. In winter the chilled broth becomes a base for cold noodles or is ladled alongside rich, fatty meat. Strained, the ripe broth tastes cleaner, and it keeps refrigerated for 2 to 3 weeks.
Okdom, the tilefish most associated with Jeju, is grilled whole and seasoned with nothing more than coarse salt and pepper. The flesh is firm and flavorful enough on its own; even the ginger juice is brushed on only thinly, just to deal with any fishiness.
Young spring napa cabbage (eolgari) soaks up seasoning quickly through its thin leaves and tender stems and turns pleasantly sour by the next day. That speed cuts both ways: 20 to 30 minutes of salting is plenty, and longer turns the stems tough. The stems are a better signal than the clock: the cabbage is turned once midway, and salting stops as soon as they bend slightly. Salted shrimp and fish sauce fill in savory depth that a short ferment would otherwise lack, while glutinous rice paste helps the chili seasoning cling to every leaf. Koreans make this lighter kimchi in spring, when aged winter kimchi starts to feel heavy.
Only coarse salt and black pepper season the duck itself; the flavor partners come at the table, where slices are wrapped in perilla leaves with ssamjang, a fermented soybean and chili paste. Cooked from a cold pan in its own fat, the skin turns hard and crackly.
Mustard greens (gat) carry a nose-tingling mustard bite that is harshest right after mixing and settles over 2 to 3 days of ripening into something rounder and tangier. This style comes from the southern Jeolla region and has a much sharper kick than napa cabbage kimchi.
The heads and part of the shells stay on these medium shrimp. Tossed for ten minutes with olive oil, rosemary, thyme and garlic, they cook for two minutes a side on a thin layer of coarse salt in a very hot pan, and the shells that were left on turn crisp.
Swiss chard has two textures in one leaf: thick, crunchy stems and soft greens that wilt fast. The stems go into the brine first and the leaves join later; salted together, the leaves turn mushy before the stems are seasoned. Firm, thick-stemmed bunches keep their crunch longest after salting. The paste is built on cooled glutinous rice porridge with plum syrup for a soft sweetness, and half a day on the counter before chilling helps it ripen.
Chuck flap is so well marbled that coarse salt, pepper and a quick, hard sear are all it takes, and it stays juicy. While the steak rests, asparagus goes into the same pan and picks up the beef fat and butter left behind.
Thick-skinned green chilies hold their crunch through salting and a short ferment, and the heat concentrated around the seeds bursts out when you bite down. Only about half the seeds are shaken out, and the pods are best eaten within 2 to 3 days while still crisp.
The thin coat of olive oil over the salted tenderloin is there to keep the coarse salt from falling off into the pan. Tenderloin is lean, so it gets basted at the end with butter infused with garlic and rosemary, and the lemon is squeezed over sparingly, right before eating.
A quick thirty-second blanch strips the raw bitterness from pepper leaves and wilts them enough for the chili seasoning, thickened with glutinous rice paste, to coat them evenly. Even under that spicy dressing they keep a green, almost herbal note that sets this kimchi apart from napa cabbage or young radish kimchi.
Sweet potato stems need their tough outer skin peeled away, a fiddly job, but it is what lets a 2-minute blanch leave them bright and pleasantly crisp. Plunging them into cold water straight from the pot, until no warmth remains, is what holds that color and snap. Mixing the glutinous rice paste into the other seasonings first helps it coat the stems thinly between the fibers. Thin onion and scallion round out the dressing with sweetness and fragrance. The stems snap easily, so the seasoning is worked in with fingertips rather than pressed, and even packing the container takes only a light touch.
Red cabbage leaves are thicker and denser than napa and stay crunchy after salting, though salting them longer only makes them tough. During about 12 hours in the fridge the cabbage bleeds its purple into the chili paste, and the kimchi comes out a deep violet rather than the usual red.
Salted shrimp and anchovy fish sauce layer two kinds of seafood savoriness, and glutinous rice paste thickens the seasoning so it clings to the scallions even after they release water. Six hours at room temperature plus a day of chilling make it ready for grilled pork belly or bossam, and after three days or more its lactic sourness suits stews and stir-fries.
Kale's strong green smell mellows as it ferments while the leaves keep a firm bite, giving a kimchi that chews more than napa cabbage kimchi does. Julienned radish adds crunch, and soup soy sauce, rather than fish sauce, supplies the salty depth. Pear puree, or apple puree in its place, wraps the chili heat in fruit sweetness and balances the slightly bitter finish of the kale. It tastes best from the day after making, once the seasoning has settled into the leaves overnight.