135 recipes. Page 5 of 6
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A shallow crosshatch on the inside of the squid makes each piece curl into a thick, bouncy roll the moment it hits the heat, and the opened cuts give the gochujang sauce more surface to grab. Onion and cabbage go into the pan first to cook off their water so the sauce stays glossy.
Ketchup rice, fried in butter with ham, vegetables and peas, is folded inside an egg still moist in the middle, using the curve of the pan. Cut into, the half-set egg runs over the rice, and the peas show up as flecks of green.
Korean snack bars serve omelet rice in its plainest form: ketchup fried rice with ham, onion and carrot, wrapped in thin egg and topped with more ketchup. The ketchup and Worcestershire sauce bubble at the edge of the pan before being stirred into the rice. Turned out onto the plate, it takes the familiar oval shape.
Chicken thigh and onion simmer in nothing more than water, soy sauce and mirin, with no dashi. The eggs are beaten only lightly, so streaks of white remain, and poured in two goes: the first half sets around the edges, the second stays soft and barely trembling, and the topping ends up marbled yellow and white. A little broth is left in the pan to soak into the rice underneath.
Pyongyang once ate this chicken and rice soup for breakfast. With no doenjang or gochujang and salt as the only seasoning, any cloudiness in the broth shows up in the taste. The chicken, scallion and garlic are kept at a bare simmer for 45 minutes. Rice goes into the bowl first, then the broth with its shiitake, and the shredded chicken on top.
Rajma means kidney beans and chawal means rice, and that is the whole idea: a thick tomato and bean curry ladled generously over rice and eaten together. Onions cooked slowly until their edges brown give the sauce its body without any cream.
Large shrimp are split lengthwise before rolling, which packs the middle of every slice with pink shrimp. Egg strips, sauteed carrot and cucumber go in too, but nothing strongly seasoned, and it eats lighter than most gimbap.
Five minutes in soy and sesame oil is all the salmon gets: long enough to turn the surface glossy, short enough that the inside still eats like sashimi. The fish comes out of the marinade as soon as a light soy tint appears, before the soy takes over its flavor.
Fernbrake, bellflower root and chwi-namul (aster greens) each get their own treatment: the fernbrake turns soft in sesame oil, the bellflower root is salted to draw out bitterness yet stays crisp, and the aster is blanched just until bright green. Cooked separately, they still taste and bite differently after mixing, and the gochujang sauce is served alongside to add a little at a time.
Despite the Korean name, which points to gim (roasted laver), this bowl is built on rehydrated wakame. A short toss in sesame oil with garlic keeps the seaweed slippery and chewy while turning its sea smell nutty. With only five ingredients, water left in the wakame does the most damage: it spatters in the hot oil and thins the soy sauce until the whole bowl tastes flat.
Boneless mackerel means you can pour the doenjang broth straight over rice without picking out bones. Siraegi (dried radish greens) simmered until the stems are tender makes the broth deep and earthy, and the chili-seasoned fish gives it a little bite.
Chicken cooked down with soy sauce, mirin and ginger juice, and sweetened egg scrambled into tiny yellow grains, each take half of the bowl. Left unmixed, they let you change the balance with every spoonful. Both need to end up as fine crumbles, and the chopsticks keep moving in the pan the whole time.
With 180 g of king oyster and shiitake mushrooms to 200 g of beef, there is nearly as much mushroom as meat in every bite. The mushrooms are wiped clean rather than washed, added to beef already browned in butter, and stir-fried hard until they wilt before soy sauce goes in around the edge of the pan.
Browned ground beef gives this fried rice its savory base, with onion, carrot and zucchini diced just a little larger than the rice so they keep some bite. The beef is left alone in a hot pan before breaking it up, and the browned bits stuck to the bottom carry much of the flavor.
Thinly sliced beef and onion, glazed in a sweet soy and garlic marinade much like bulgogi, go over rice with whatever sauce is left in the pan. Unlike a brothy Japanese gyudon, this one is stir-fried hard and fast so only a small pool of glossy sauce remains to soak the rice.
The filling is just four things: beef marinated in soy and sugar and stir-fried, spinach, carrot and strips of thin omelet. The beef is sliced thin against the grain and cooked until the marinade clings with no liquid left, which keeps the rice dry and the cut slices clean.
The Spam does most of the seasoning. There is only a splash of soy sauce, and cubes of Spam browned at the edges give salty, crisp bites all through the rice.
Spam with a thin soy-and-sugar glaze and big, soft curds of egg go over rice, finished with mayonnaise and shredded roasted seaweed. The cubes brown best spread out and left untouched, and those crisp edges are what set them apart from the soft egg.
Tuna, rice, chopped pickled radish and cucumber are bound with gochujang mayonnaise and packed tight into seasoned tofu pouches, the kind used for inari sushi. More gochujang makes it hotter; more mayonnaise makes the filling softer.
Lettuce and perilla leaves each take a small spoonful of rice, a dab of ssamjang (a thick soybean and chili paste), thin slices of raw garlic and some chili, then get folded into a single bite. Wet leaves let the rice and paste slide right out; after washing, they stand in a sieve to drain and are patted dry.
Butter-seared steak, sliced thin and fanned over rice, gets a soy, mirin and garlic glaze made in the same pan. With no stock of its own, the sauce leans on the browned juices left after searing, and a deep crust on the meat pays off twice.
Peppers turn sweet and soft in the oven, which is why the beef, rice and tomato filling is seasoned a little saltier than would taste right on its own. Mozzarella goes on for the last 10 minutes and melts into a cover over the filling.
As the rolls cook slowly over low heat, the cabbage gives up its sweetness and softens the sharpness of the tomato sauce. Pack them tightly into the pot so they hold together while they simmer.
Think of soft tofu stew (sundubu jjigae) made with just a cup of broth and poured straight over rice. Pork belly is cooked first so gochugaru and garlic can bloom in its fat, which gives the small amount of broth its heat. An egg cracked into the center and cooked only until the white just sets adds a soft, rich finish.