217 recipes. Page 7 of 10
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Pulling radishes in autumn, at kimchi-making time, leaves a pile of radish greens. Dried, they become siraegi; boiled and dressed right away, they become this namul. It is seasoned with doenjang and soup soy sauce and finished with ground perilla seeds, which thicken it.
Grated mountain yam, loosened with deliberately strong, fully cooled miso soup until it still clings to a spoon, is poured over freshly cooked hot rice. In northern and southern Akita and Yurihonjo, this was eaten during the first three days of the New Year and on the day after a celebration.
Horse mackerel, cut in half on the bone, simmers with napa cabbage in a thin, strained doenjang broth in this Jeju soup. The pieces are left alone because stirring breaks the flesh, and the soup keeps cooking past the point where the cabbage softens until the fish is opaque at the center.
Gangwon style means 300 g of potatoes, which make the broth thick and filling. The oyster mushrooms are torn along the grain and stay chewy even after a long boil. Zucchini, onion and tofu fill out the pot as well.
Beef tripe and small intestine share one plate, so you get two quite different chews in alternating bites. Both simmer a long time in water with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) until tender, and the sliced meat goes out hot with a splash of the cooking broth over it.
Apple snails, diced zucchini, onion, and crumbled tofu are simmered with doenjang and gochujang into a chunky paste, then folded with warm rice into lettuce and perilla leaves. Unlike ureong doenjang jjigae, a soupy stew with the same snails, this version is reduced until a spoonful holds its shape for about five seconds and nothing drips from the leaf.
Three potatoes, anchovy stock and a spoonful of doenjang are all it takes, which makes it a standby when the fridge is running low. Starch from the potatoes thickens the soybean-paste broth slightly as they cook.
A whole blue crab, scrubbed and split, simmers in a doenjang and anchovy broth, and the shell and meat release a briny sweetness that layers onto the earthy paste. Removing the apron and halving the body lets the broth reach the meat inside.
Shepherd's purse is eaten root and all, because the earthy scent lives in the root. That also means scraping dirt off each root with the tip of a knife and washing through several changes of water. Gochujang would bury the scent; the dressing is doenjang instead. The greens are around only briefly in early spring.
Doenjang and chili flakes go in together, turning the pork bone broth red but earthy, and the spine, halved potatoes and dried cabbage greens cook down in it. Two tablespoons of ground perilla seed go in near the end, and leaving them out changes the stew a great deal.
Half a tablespoon of doenjang goes into the gochujang seasoning, smoothing the sharp edge gochujang has on its own into something more savory. The pastes are fried in the pork fat over low heat for just a minute.
Siraegi, dried radish greens soaked back to softness, still carry a tough outer skin on their thick stems, and peeling it off stem by stem is what makes them pleasant to chew. The greens are tossed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) and perilla oil first, then braised in a splash of water so the paste works its way into the stems. Ground perilla seed added at the very end blends with the remaining liquid and leaves a creamy sheen on the surface.
A generous amount of ground perilla seed turns this gamjatang (pork spine and potato stew) pale and creamy, and with the same chili flakes it still tastes milder than the usual red pot.
The young leaves of the Korean thistle, a plant in the daisy family, are what goes by the name gondeure. No chili here, and only 1.5 tablespoons of doenjang, keeping the bitter, nutty scent of the greens in front. Once the gondeure is in, the heat comes down to a gentle simmer.
Young rapeseed greens, a spring vegetable in Korea, keep a crisp stalk and a faint sweetness after blanching. They're dressed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste), worked in over a few rounds once the squeezed greens have been pulled apart.
Nothing in the bowl looks like a loach. The fish is boiled, blended and pushed through a sieve before going back into its broth, and with siraegi and ground perilla seed the soup turns thick and earthy.
Clams and shrimp give this doenjang stew the smell of the sea. The clams bring salt of their own, so start with a little less paste than usual.
Swiss chard has more chew than spinach and a slight bitterness in the leaf, which sits well in a nutty doenjang broth. Korean families make it most in spring and autumn when chard is around; out of season, frozen chard gives much the same broth.
This is the everyday pork belly and sour kimchi stew with one addition: a tablespoon of doenjang, fried briefly with the chili flakes before the water goes in. It gives the bottom of the broth a slightly earthier weight. If the kimchi is not sour yet, use half a teaspoon of sugar rather than a few drops of vinegar.
Blue crab in its spring or autumn season is halved and simmered in a radish broth with a little doenjang and chili flakes. The shells turn red well before the meat is cooked through. Crack the claws with the back of a knife beforehand and the meat comes out easily at the table.
One can of Pacific saury, liquid and all, flavors the whole pot, so no separate stock is needed. The canned fish is already cooked with softened bones, so it needs no prep and is eaten bones and all, while a little doenjang tones down the canned-fish smell.
Soybeans soaked for a full night and day, simmered until their raw beany smell is gone and ground into a smooth paste called go, give this Fukui miso soup its body and a gentle nuttiness, and a soft foam rises as it heats. In Fukui it is still served as temple food at Hoonko, the major Jodo Shinshu observance around the anniversary of Shinran's death, known locally as Honko-san.
The blue crab simmers first and gives the broth its sweetness; clams and shrimp come after. It is a red, chili-heavy stew, but a spoonful of doenjang underneath keeps it from being only hot.
When there is soaked gosari (bracken fern) left over from making holiday namul, it gets fried with beef in sesame oil and turned into a doenjang soup. The bracken keeps its chew even after a long simmer, which makes it a sturdy thing to find in a bowl of soup.