217 recipes. Page 4 of 10
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Cleaned blue crab sits on the rice, which cooks in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang dissolved in it, and the crab's sweetness and the earthy paste soak down into every grain. After the rice has rested, one more minute over low heat builds a layer of nurungji (scorched rice) on the bottom. Doenjang varies in saltiness from brand to brand, so start with a tablespoon and taste the stock.
Perilla sprouts are far more tender than perilla leaves and smell only faintly of perilla, and here they are tossed with browned tofu in thinned doenjang (Korean soybean paste). Thickly shredded perilla leaves can stand in when sprouts are hard to find, though the scent gets noticeably stronger and the bite tougher.
Seasoned with doenjang instead of gochujang, this pork neck tastes savory and fermented rather than hot or sweet. The basting portion of the marinade is set aside before any of it touches raw meat. At 1.5 cm thick, the slices can look browned well before the center is done, and a thermometer makes the final call.
Rice-rinsing water gives this doenjang broth a faint starchy body and takes the edge off the paste's saltiness. Spring cabbage (bomdong) supplies the sweetness at the center of the bowl. Its stems should keep a little bite, while the leaves only need to wilt.
The wild chives keep their bulbs: only the papery skin is peeled off, and they are cut, roots and all, into 4 cm pieces. The bulb end is where the scent is strongest. They go into the doenjang broth after the heat is turned down, and the burner is off within a minute.
Dried radish greens (siraegi) stay chewy through the braise and soak up the gochujang and soy sauce, so here they are as good with rice as the hairtail itself. The greens are tossed with a little doenjang beforehand, which leaves a nutty, savory note under the braise.
Jeju-style pork noodle soup usually means a dense, milky bone stock; this version simmers 500 g of pork bones for at least an hour and aims for a lighter, relatively clear broth instead. Soaking and blanching the bones first, plus a spoonful of doenjang in the pot, keeps porky off-notes down.
Jjokpa, a slender Korean green onion, is milder and sweeter than the thick daepa leek and can be dressed raw without much sting. That gentle bite cuts through the fat of grilled pork belly or grilled fish.
Bok choy usually ends up in stir-fries, but blanched and dressed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) it becomes a namul with crisp stalks and an earthy, salty seasoning. Rub the dressing right into the hollow of each stalk with your fingers.
Young soybean leaves have a fresh, grassy aroma that sits well against gangdoenjang, a thick, salty soybean paste here cooked down with shiitake, onion, and garlic until it barely moves. That thickness is the point: a runny paste loosens the rice and leaks out of the leaf. The amount of rice is matched to each leaf, since they vary in size, and the parcels are set seam side down so they hold until serving.
Instead of being stirred into liquid, the doenjang (Korean soybean paste) is fried at the edge of the pan in the fat from the pork, which cooks off its pasty smell, before the blanched cauliflower goes in. There is no broth at all, and the heat goes off while the cauliflower stems still have a little firmness.
Boso Peninsula fishermen in Chiba used to carry namerou, mackerel chopped fine with miso, up into the hills in abalone shells and grill or steam it there, and sangayaki grew out of that habit. The fish and miso are chopped together until the paste is sticky enough to lift as one mass, then mixed with ginger, onion and green pepper. Each shell is topped with a shiso leaf and grilled until the mound puffs and turns opaque all the way through. It goes with rice or with drinks.
Chamge is a freshwater crab, and the shells and the joints of the legs need a good scrub with a brush if the broth is to taste clean. Halved and simmered in a radish broth with a little doenjang (Korean soybean paste), the crabs give it a deep crab flavor, sharpened with chili flakes and cheongyang peppers.
The deodeok root is peeled, tapped lightly to open the grain, then sliced on the diagonal about 5 mm thick; cut thinner, it loses its scent. The broth is rice-rinsing water with a tablespoon of gochujang and half a tablespoon of doenjang stirred in.
Doenjang and ground perilla seeds turn dried radish greens into a soft, nutty side dish with just enough broth left to spoon up. Peeling off the stringy outer skin of the stems matters more than cooking time; left on, it stays tough however long the pot simmers.
Gochujang and doenjang dissolved together into anchovy-kelp stock give this Gangwon-style knife-cut noodle soup its red, fiery broth. It comes from the province's mountainous interior, where it warmed workers through the cold seasons. The chili paste brings rounded sweetness and heat, the soybean paste an earthy depth, and an extra spoon of gochugaru sharpens the finish. Potato breaks down at the edges as it simmers, thickening the soup with no added starch, so the noodles end up in something closer to a stew than a clear broth. Fresh noodles need constant stirring for the first 30 seconds or their starch clumps, and after that a steady medium heat with the odd scrape of the bottom keeps the thick broth from catching or reducing too far.
Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, is whisked into plain yogurt, and the result is a light, creamy dressing that keeps the paste's savory depth while softening its weight. Pan-seared shrimp bring a clean sweetness, and minari (Korean water parsley) adds a fresh, green aroma.
Slightly bitter chwinamul is blanched for 2 minutes and dressed with doenjang, soup soy sauce and sesame oil, then finished with perilla powder and scallion. The doenjang is worked in with spread fingers so it reaches between the leaves, and the greens rest five minutes before serving. In winter, when fresh chwinamul is not around, dried chwinamul soaked until soft can stand in.
Butterbur leaves are steamed for 4 minutes rather than blanched, which leaves them pliable enough to fold. Their bitterness softens once each bite also holds sesame-oil rice and a salty ssamjang of doenjang and gochujang.
Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste) does most of the seasoning, with only a little gochujang, so the pork comes out savory and salty rather than hot. The crown daisy goes in after the meat is cooked and comes off the heat just as the leaves wilt, keeping its slightly bitter scent.
Doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, is stirred into melted unsalted butter with garlic and lemon juice, brushed over large shrimp and grilled in a very hot grill pan. The paste already brings plenty of salt, which is why the butter is unsalted and any extra salt waits until the cooked shrimp have been tasted.
Bok choy turns up more often in Chinese cooking, yet it suits doenjang soup well. It sits in supermarkets all year, which makes it a handy replacement when there is no napa cabbage, and zucchini and tofu fill out the bowl alongside it.
Blanched radish greens, rather than dried siraegi, sit in a broth made thick and nutty with four tablespoons of perilla seed powder. The shrimp are added well after the greens, which need about ten minutes to soften; shrimp left in that long turn firm instead of springy.
Seasoned radish greens (siraegi) go into hot perilla oil before any liquid, which toasts the doenjang and carries its savory smell into the plain water added afterward. Soup soy sauce (guk-ganjang, a lighter, saltier Korean soy) backs up the seasoning. Splitting the thick stems lengthwise lets them soften at the same pace as the leafy parts, and the slow, low simmer turns tough stems pliable. It finishes with just a shallow pool of liquid in the pot, good for mixing into rice.