135 recipes. Page 2 of 6
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Think of a cream pasta sauce spooned over rice instead of noodles: butter, garlic and onion, then chicken breast seared until browned, all simmered in heavy cream. Scrape up the browned bits from the pan as the cream goes in; much of the sauce's flavor comes from them.
Curry powder turns the rice golden, lighter than a curry-over-rice plate but more aromatic than ordinary fried rice. Chicken breast, onion, carrot and green pepper are all chopped small.
Fatty beef large intestine is glazed in a sweet, spicy soy sauce and set over rice with onion that has soaked in cold water, a raw egg yolk and fresh wasabi. The wasabi stays on the side, unmixed, and goes on a little at a time with each bite.
Mozzarella melted over gochujang-glazed chicken thigh pulls into long strands and softens the chili heat. A pan that is not hot enough lets the cabbage and onion release water, and the sauce ends up thin instead of clinging.
No cheese on this one. The chicken thigh is stir-fried in gochujang sauce alone, and it lands on the rice along with soft, sweet cabbage.
The deodeok browns in butter, but half the butter is held back and melted into the soy and rice syrup sauce just before the heat goes off. The root is peeled first, then pounded and torn along its fibers.
Rice pressed into a hot stone pot keeps sizzling at the table, turning crisp and toasty at the bottom, which is what sets dolsot bibimbap apart from the regular bowl. Scraping up the crust while mixing is part of the meal.
Slice a roll and a wide band of breaded pork fills the middle, with shredded cabbage and tonkatsu sauce tucked beside it. Let the cutlet cool completely on a rack before rolling, or the breading goes soft.
Left undisturbed while it browns, the tofu firms up on the surface and holds together when the egg and soy glaze go into the same pan. Seaweed flakes and sesame oil go on last, over the tofu and egg on the rice.
The tofu is browned on both sides before it ever meets the sauce, then set on a bed of thinly sliced onion and simmered in soy. By the time the sauce has reduced, the onion has all but melted away. Sliced cheongyang chili and scallion go on top for the last minute.
Ssukgat (crown daisy greens) goes in just long enough to wilt, so its bitter, herbal edge comes through clearly against the rich gochujang pork. The pork shoulder is seared in a smoking-hot pan for some browned flavor.
Pork shoulder simmered for about an hour in beef bone broth turns the soup milky and full-bodied. Salted shrimp (saeujeot) and salt come on the side so each person seasons their own bowl, which is how it is eaten in Busan.
Chopped fish cake crisps slightly at the edges in hot oil, and its salty, savory flavor spreads through every grain of rice. Because the fish cake is already seasoned, the soy sauce stays modest and any extra salt waits until after tasting.
The pan goes on until it smokes, and scallions fry for 30 seconds to make a scallion oil. The eggs come last: once the rice is fried, it is pushed to the edges and the eggs are scrambled in the cleared center before everything is mixed. Leftover ham, kimchi, shrimp or canned tuna can go in too.
The eggplant goes into a very hot pan, spread out in one layer and browned only lightly on the outside. Left over low heat, it soaks up oil and turns heavy. Once seared, it is pushed to one side, ground pork and garlic are fried in the space beside it, and both are glazed together with soy sauce and sugar.
The short ribs marinate for over an hour in soy sauce with grated Asian pear and onion, then braise over low heat for another hour or more. When the meat slides off the bone at a touch of the chopsticks and the sauce has turned glossy, it all goes over rice. It is a long cook, but the pot does most of the work.
The beef is braised once as a whole piece, torn along the grain, then braised a second time with quail eggs. Over rice, it gets a heavy crumble of dried gamtae, a thin winter seaweed, added only at the last moment because the braising liquid softens it quickly.
Tofu is mashed into the pot as it simmers and breaks down into the sauce, thickening this gangdoenjang, a reduced soybean-paste sauce for rice, without any starch. Zucchini, onion and shiitake are diced small, no bigger than 1 cm. Doenjang varies in saltiness, and the way to adjust is to mix more or less of the finished sauce into the rice.
The spinach is squeezed hard before it is seasoned, the carrot is sauteed to drive off water, and the rice is left to cool a little before it is spread on the seaweed. All three steps are there to keep the gim from going soggy. The finished roll and the knife both get a thin coat of sesame oil before slicing.
All the usual gimbap fillings land on a bowl of rice instead of being rolled in seaweed: thin egg strips, sauteed carrot, blanched spinach and torn imitation crab. There is no laver, pickled radish or fish cake here, so the seasoning lives in the rice itself, tossed with sesame oil and salt. Each topping keeps its own section until the bowl is mixed at the table.
Chicken thigh glazed in gochujang goes over rice, with mayonnaise piped across it in zigzags. Thigh stays moist through the glazing where breast would dry out.
The mackerel has its pin bones pulled before grilling, so you can break it up with a spoon and stir it straight into the rice and onion soy sauce. A little minced ginger in the sauce keeps the oily fish tasting clean.
The rice has to hit the pan while the eggs are still soft and half set. Then each grain picks up a thin coat of egg, and what you get is evenly yellow fried rice rather than rice with lumps of scramble in it.
Thin-sliced beef and onion simmer briefly in soy sauce, mirin, sugar and ginger and go over rice with their broth, and the ginger leaves a sharp edge at the end of all that sweetness.