217 recipes. Page 6 of 10
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A tablespoon of doenjang is stirred into the red chili broth to tame the fishiness. The frozen pollock is thawed only partly, just enough for a knife to get through the bone, and cut while still firm; fully thawed, the flesh crumbles.
Dried radish greens, called siraegi, bring an earthy, faintly bitter note to an anchovy and kelp broth seasoned with doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste. Rinsing the precooked greens again and squeezing them hard keeps any stale smell out of the pot. Tough stems are sorted out and simmered 2 to 3 minutes ahead of the rest so they are tender by the time the noodles are done. The paste is pressed free of lumps with a spoon so the broth is not muddy or salty in spots, and since brands differ in saltiness, soup soy sauce makes the final adjustment. Onion and zucchini soften the paste's saltiness as they cook, and perilla seed powder stirred in at the end gives the soup more weight.
Fermented skate, boiled pork belly, and aged kimchi are laid side by side, then stacked one piece of each into a single bite. Keeping them in separate rows instead of piling them together shows at a glance what is left, which makes pairing them up easy. The pork is sliced an even 0.5 cm thick so a stack of all three still fits in one mouthful.
Doenjang (Korean soybean paste) is dissolved into anchovy stock, and the porridge tastes close to a bowl of doenjang soup. The rice is toasted in sesame oil before the stock goes in, and the spinach, blanched and chopped ahead, is stirred in just before the heat goes off and served while it is still bright green.
Dried, then soaked and boiled again, the radish greens called siraegi have a chewy, fibrous bite that fresh greens lack. Here they are massaged with doenjang and garlic, simmered for more than twenty minutes, and turned milky white with perilla seed powder added in two batches.
The tough, bark-like base of each dureup (aralia shoot) is trimmed off, and thick stems are split lengthwise or scored with a cross at the bottom. That way three or four minutes in the pot cooks them through while they stay crisp. Gochujang goes in at a third of the amount of doenjang, just enough for a low heat.
A pork bone broth thickened with sesame paste and miso turns creamy and heavy, and pork mince fried with doubanjiang, a Sichuan chili bean paste, sits on top with a slick of chili oil. In this Japanese ramen take on Sichuan dan dan noodles, there is plenty of soup and sesame leads the flavor. The sesame paste and miso get a brief stir over low heat before any stock is added, which draws out their nutty aroma, but they come off before they brown. The stock is then whisked in a little at a time so no lumps remain. The pork fries until its moisture cooks off and the edges brown, and the heat drops to medium if the doubanjiang starts to scorch. Shake the boiled noodles well, since extra water dilutes the thick broth fast.
Young perilla shoots have tender stems and an even stronger herbal scent than the mature leaves. The 40-second blanch is short on purpose to protect that aroma, and a doenjang dressing with perilla oil, pressed from the same plant's seeds, layers the scent instead of covering it.
Siraegi, dried radish greens boiled until tender, steam on top of the rice, and nothing seasons the pot. Each person stirs in a doenjang and soy paste with chili flakes and green onion, a spoonful at a time, and decides how salty the bowl gets.
The water left from rinsing rice becomes the soup base. Doenjang pressed through a sieve into it loses some of its chalky heaviness and tastes softer. The young napa cabbage looks like far too much when it goes in, then wilts down into the broth within about two minutes.
As the clams open they release their briny liquor into the rice-water doenjang broth, and the zucchini stew tastes cleaner and brighter for it. Give the clams about an hour to purge their sand.
Dipping cold-rinsed thick noodles a mouthful at a time into a hot, reduced pork bone broth keeps the chewy bite and the warmth of the soup separate until the end. The dipping broth simmers for about 15 minutes until it tastes far stronger than ordinary ramen soup, strong enough to season cold noodles in a quick dip. The miso has to dissolve completely, since lumps leave the broth uneven and cloudy. The noodles boil a little under the package time, and the cold rinse firms them so they hold their spring. Rubbing off the surface starch and shaking the noodles dry keeps them from watering down the concentrated broth. Chashu, bamboo shoots and a soft-boiled egg sit with the noodles, not in the broth.
Shishito peppers are blanched for just 40 seconds and tossed in a doenjang dressing. Unlike the braised shishito dish, where the peppers simmer in sauce, these stay crisp and bright green. Now and then one turns out to be hot.
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.
It starts with blanched young napa cabbage rubbed with doenjang, gochujang, chili flakes and garlic. The beef simmers separately meanwhile and is skimmed until the broth runs clear; the seasoned greens then go in for twelve minutes, and the paste clinging to the leaves dissolves into the soup.
Plenty of eolgari, young napa cabbage, goes in, and as it wilts its sweetness softens the doenjang. A good amount of tofu keeps the salt in check too.
Soybean leaves are bigger and thicker than perilla leaves, and here they are boiled and dressed with doenjang and perilla oil, country style. Fresh ones appear only in summer and turn up more at rural markets or farm stands than in supermarkets. They need 5 to 6 minutes of boiling to soften the tough fibers, but much longer and their nutty aroma fades.
Soy-marinated beef lines the bottom of the pot, the rice is layered over it, and siraegi (boiled dried radish greens) tossed with doenjang and perilla oil crowns the rice as it cooks. The beef seasons the lower layer while the greens season the upper one. A gentle stir at the end brings the two together.
In Chungcheong, eotang starts with whole freshwater fish simmered for more than forty minutes until even the flesh dissolves into the broth, which is then strained twice through a fine sieve or cloth to catch the small bones. Radish and doenjang go into that broth for a second simmer, and chili flakes and green onion give it a sharp finish.
The soft tofu slowly comes apart in the broth until the whole pot is silky, with crisp bits of young cabbage stem in between. Only a touch of gochujang goes into the doenjang, so it tastes savory more than spicy.
Every butterbur stem has to be peeled end to end, because the outer skin is a layer of tough strings. Some bitterness survives blanching; the stems are dressed with doenjang and ground perilla seeds, and if the bitterness is too much, more perilla powder goes in.
Grated jinenjo, a sticky wild Japanese yam, is worked in a mortar and loosened little by little with cooled miso dashi until it pours in a thick ribbon over hot rice. Mariko, in present-day Shizuoka City, was the twentieth of the fifty-three Tokaido post towns, and travelers stopped there for its tororo-jiru. Jinenjo is dug from mid-autumn into winter, and some communities eat the dish on January second.
Pacific saury is pounded in a mortar until sticky, mixed with miso, egg and sake, and shaped into balls that go into plain water first. The miso and fish in the balls turn that water into broth, and daikon, carrot and tofu follow.
The broth is reduced until there is just enough to mix into rice or spoon onto a lettuce wrap. With so little liquid, it is hard to fix once it turns salty, which is why only 80 percent of the doenjang goes in at first and the rest is used to adjust at the end. While the pastes fry for 30 seconds, keep the heat low and keep stirring.