135 recipes. Page 3 of 6
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The eggs are fried first, then the same pan goes up to high for the shrimp and squid, which come off the heat the moment they turn opaque. Whatever juices collect in the pan are poured over the rice along with the seafood.
Shrimp, squid and mussel meat hit the hot pan first, followed by carrot, egg and cold rice in turn. Soy sauce and oyster sauce are measured in teaspoons, enough to season without covering the seafood. Sesame oil goes in only after the heat is off, for its aroma.
As soon as the clams start giving up their liquid, the oyster sauce and soy go in, and thirty seconds later the cornstarch slurry. Cook it any longer and the squid toughens while the shrimp dry out. Thickened like this, the sauce sinks slowly into the rice instead of running straight to the bottom.
Breaded pork cutlet, boiled potato, and softened cabbage share the plate, all under a single coconut milk curry sauce. Singapore's Hainanese curry rice usually comes with braised pork and several gravies; this home version drops those and keeps one sauce. The cutlet is a fully cooked store-bought one that only needs reheating, so there is no frying involved. Pour the sauce over just before eating, or the crust turns soggy.
Most of the time goes into the onions, cooked in butter for eight minutes or more until the edges turn brown. Rush them and they only lose water without turning sweet, and the sauce ends up flat. The beef is cooked just until it changes color, then tomato paste, Worcestershire and flour turn the pan into a sauce that is spooned alongside the rice.
The rice is spread out in the bowls and left to steam off for about three minutes before the cucumber, lettuce, perilla leaves and flounder go on. Straight onto hot rice, the fish would turn lukewarm. Half the cho-gochujang, a sweet-sour chili sauce, is drizzled on for the first mix, and the rest goes in to taste.
Instead of the usual cho-gochujang, this raw fish bowl is dressed with ssamjang loosened with vinegar and sesame oil, and the taste leans toward savory fermented soybean rather than sweet heat. The vegetables are not dressed ahead, and the bowl gets only two or three turns when it is mixed.
Hwangtae (dried pollock) is toasted in sesame oil before the water goes in, which turns the broth milky and savory. There is no chili here, so it is not spicy, and the bean sprouts and radish give it a clean, refreshing taste.
This bowl starts from a 200 g raw, cleaned freshwater eel fillet rather than a packet of cooked kabayaki, and that changes how it has to be handled. The sugary glaze darkens well before the center is done. The signal is the thickest part reaching 63°C/145°F, not the shine.
Rice goes into a single cup and gochujang-glazed pork shoulder is piled over it, the way Korean snack bars (bunsik) serve it. The trick is spreading the rice out first to let the steam escape: spooned into the cup straight from the pot, it turns soggy in its own vapor.
The pork shoulder marinates in gochujang for 10 minutes, then gets spread across a hot pan and left alone for the first 2 minutes. That pause is when the glaze touching the pan catches and browns at the edges.
Ground pork plus onion, zucchini and cabbage all cut to the same 1 cm dice means every spoonful picks up a bit of everything once the sauce is mixed into the rice. The chunjang (black bean paste) is fried in oil for a minute first to take away its harsh edge, lifted out, and returned only after the vegetables have cooked.
Bite-size pieces of webfoot octopus (jjukkumi, a small octopus) are scattered through rice stained red by gochujang sauce. The first sear stops the moment the pieces curl and turn opaque, because they keep cooking while the sauce and rice are stirred in.
Rice seasoned with sesame oil, salt and toasted sesame is spread on plastic wrap, filled with tuna mayo and squeezed into a ball. A little finely chopped carrot and cucumber goes into the filling as well. These are eaten without reheating, which is why they go into lunchboxes and come along on picnics and school sports days.
A single block of store-bought roux thickens the sauce and gives Japanese curry its mild, slightly sweet taste. There is no blending of spices as with Indian curry, which is how it became an everyday family dish in Japan that tastes the same every time. Potatoes, carrots, and onions are cut large so they hold their shape in the thick sauce.
Breaded pork loin fried to a deep golden brown is sliced thick and set beside a Japanese curry made sweet with well-browned onion and carrot. Where the curry touches the cutlet the crust softens while the rest stays crunchy, and each bite shifts between the two. Panko pressed firmly all the way to the edges keeps the coating from peeling away in the oil. The curry base cooks in a little of the reserved frying oil rather than fresh fat.
A freshly fried pork cutlet is warmed briefly in sweet tsuyu broth with onion and bound with softly set egg, so the underside soaks up broth while the top keeps some crunch. Nicking the sinew along the edge of the loin before breading stops the meat from curling, letting it lie flat over the rice.
Big flakes of smoked haddock and halved hard-boiled eggs show through rice tinted yellow with curry powder. Haddock is a cod relative, and the smoked fillets used here are the kind sold for cooking, so they need to be cooked through, not eaten straight from the pack.
Pork leg braised until it pulls apart with chopsticks is sliced over jasmine rice and spooned with a glossy soy glaze. Palm sugar caramel and dark soy sauce set the sweet-salty base, with star anise and cinnamon underneath. It is a staple of Thai night markets, Bangkok's included.
Shrimp fried rice, pale yellow from a little curry powder, goes to the table inside the hollowed-out pineapple shell it was spooned into.
Egg and scallion are about the only other things in the pan, so the sweetness of the crab comes through first. In Thailand it arrives with a wedge of lime on the plate for you to squeeze over yourself.
This version has ground pork in it, and only a little gochujang, so the sour tang of well-fermented kimchi leads. Made with long-aged kimchi (mugeunji), it gets noticeably deeper.
To get the taste of a Korean snack-bar plate, the kimchi is fried with gochujang, dark soy sauce and a pinch of sugar for a sweet edge. Top it with a runny fried egg and crumbled gim (seaweed) and it looks the part too.
Mozzarella is lined up in a single row down the middle before rolling, so every slice shows a white stripe at its center. Around it sit kimchi, stir-fried until no liquid is left in the pan, and yellow pickled radish. Sliced cheese, which melts easily, can stand in for the mozzarella.