217 recipes. Page 2 of 10
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Half the pleasure is digging out the meat lodged between the vertebrae and cartilage, which after an hour's simmer comes away with no effort. The broth is seasoned with a spoonful of doenjang plus chili flakes and soy sauce. It works as a companion to soju or as a meal, with the broth spooned over rice.
Pressed tofu coated in sugar, wrapped in gauze and buried completely in miso loses moisture over about 40 days in the refrigerator, ending dense and almost cheese-like. Local accounts in Kumamoto tie the dish to Heike fugitives roughly 800 years ago, and older versions could sit in miso for about half a year. The salty-sweet flavor is strong enough that it is sliced thin and served in small amounts with rice or drinks.
Pushing the doenjang through a fine sieve before it meets the broth keeps lumps out, and lumps are where bitterness concentrates. Anchovy stock and fermented soybean paste reinforce each other, so the soup tastes complete without extra seasoning.
There is no cream here and no added salt; the butter sauce is seasoned with doenjang, a Korean fermented soybean paste, and Parmesan. Most of the flavor comes from button mushrooms left alone in the pan until their edges brown.
Soft lentils soak right up a thick, savory dressing of doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste), Dijon mustard, and cider vinegar. Broccolini, halved lengthwise and charred at the edges, and coarsely chopped walnuts give the bowl its crunch. It holds well cold or at room temperature, so it is easy to prepare ahead.
Boiled edamame, crushed into a thick bean dressing called go and seasoned with sugar, miso, and dashi, coats soft eggplant and fine strips of crisp myoga. In season the dressing turns a vivid green. The dish comes from mountainous Nichinan in Tottori, where scarce farmland made soybeans an important protein and ground beans were used to dress vegetables and mushrooms. Served cool, it is a mild summer side for rice.
Black sesame paste turns the crumb a dark gray and adds a roasted, nutty taste between the coarse grains of cornmeal. Only a little doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste) is stirred in, not enough to taste of doenjang itself, just enough to leave a salty, savory base underneath.
Perilla powder goes in last, after the boiled napa cabbage has been dressed with doenjang. It soaks up the water left on the leaves, so the seasoning clings to each strand instead of pooling in the bowl. One tablespoon is enough; more turns the dish pasty.
The seasoning comes from brisket stir-fried in doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, rather than from the usual chili paste. Let the slices sit untouched for about 30 seconds so the fat renders before the paste is added, then keep turning so the doenjang does not catch and burn.
The tofu is pan-fried in perilla oil until golden before anything else, so it keeps its shape when it is tossed with the broccoli in the doenjang sauce.
Brushed thinly with doenjang and grilled, the cod forms a thin, dark-brown skin of paste on top while the white flesh below stays moist and breaks into thick flakes. Sliced scallion or perilla leaves go alongside.
Mallow leaves give this doenjang soup a slightly thick, silky broth, so it feels different in the mouth from a spinach or radish version. Koreans have grown mallow in home gardens and made this soup since the Joseon era, and fresh mallow is at its most tender in early summer.
Shiitake stays chewy, oyster mushrooms go soft and silky, and enoki keeps a light crunch: three textures in one doenjang stew. The mushrooms go in equal amounts but not all at once. Shiitake and oyster simmer first to flavor the anchovy broth, and enoki joins near the end so it does not collapse. The doenjang is pressed through a sieve so the broth stays smooth rather than gritty.
The tofu is cut into thick slices and pan-fried golden before it goes into the doenjang broth. That browned surface lets it take constant ladlings of sauce without falling apart, and it turns a deeper brown as the doenjang soaks in.
Thick-sliced shiitake simmer in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang, layering the mushroom aroma over the paste's mellow, fermented depth before the broth is poured over plump udon. Onion adds quiet sweetness that keeps the salt in check, and a pinch of gochugaru leaves a faint warmth at the finish. Compared with a Japanese dashi-based udon broth, this one is earthier and heavier, closer to a hearty Korean stew.
Charred until deep brown, Korean daepa (a thick green onion similar to a leek) loses its sharp bite and turns soft and sweet inside. With tender potatoes and a dressing of doenjang, lemon juice, and honey, it makes a salty, earthy potato salad with no mayonnaise in sight.
Diamonds of buckwheat and rice flour dough, boiled and coated in junen miso: toasted perilla seeds ground with sugar and miso. Hatto belongs to Hinoemata, where it marked the end of rice planting or roof work. One story links the name to gohatto, an Edo-period ban on eating too much grain, with villagers making the food in secret; another says a lord liked it so much that commoners were allowed it only at celebrations.
Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, goes into the filling here, beaten into butter with maple syrup and spread between thin sheets of enriched dough. The slices stand upright in a loaf pan and bake into a loaf you tear apart layer by layer, each sheet carrying salty, savory paste and maple sweetness together. The bread pulls apart most easily while still warm, before the filling firms up as it cools.
Bangpung grows on seaside cliffs and sandy shores and is picked along the coasts of Gangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do and Jeju from March to May. Its aroma is strong and celery-like. The seasoning stops at doenjang, garlic and sesame oil, and the greens get only a minute in salted boiling water.
The freshwater fish disappears entirely, its flesh dissolved into a spicy gochujang and doenjang broth thick with both rice and thin somyeon noodles. Perilla seed powder and perilla leaves are strong enough that the muddy taste river fish can have barely registers. Fine bones can survive even several strainings, so eat slowly.
The name still says pork (buta), but in Amakusa, Kumamoto, octopus from the bay took the place of pork that was once hard to come by. Boiled octopus and eggplant get a sweet miso glaze with mirin and sugar.
Shrimp and squid are brushed with a thin layer of doenjang sauce and grilled. There is only half a tablespoon of gochujang in it, so it tastes more savory than hot. You know it is done by smell: once the sauce turns deep brown and smells toasty, it comes off the heat, and a little longer brings a burnt note.
Perilla seed powder turns the broth a pale cream color and brings a grassy, nutty smell unlike sesame oil or sesame seeds. The base is doenjang dissolved in rice-rinsing water rather than a fish stock. It belongs with the Korean perilla soups made from dried radish greens or mushrooms, and it comes to the table with white rice once autumn starts to turn cold.
Little rounds of brisket fat float on top, and the stew tastes nuttier and heavier than a vegetable-only doenjang jjigae. The sliced cheongyang chili is there because of that fat.