483 recipes. Page 12 of 21
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This version has ground pork in it, and only a little gochujang, so the sour tang of well-fermented kimchi leads. Made with long-aged kimchi (mugeunji), it gets noticeably deeper.
Water parsley, cut into 5 cm lengths, gives this pancake a cool, herbal smell and stems that snap against the soft batter. Heat fades minari's fragrance fast, so the pancake comes off the pan as soon as the edges crisp.
Breaded oysters, fried first, sit in a skillet of eggs as distinct pieces rather than disappearing into a seafood scramble. The bacon goes in already cooked, since the short egg stage can only reheat it, not cook raw pork buried in a thick omelet. A wide pan keeps the egg layer shallow enough to set without long, fierce heat. The lid helps finish the top, though leaving it on too long steams the oyster crust soft.
Shrimp, sweet potato, eggplant, and shishito peppers share the same oil but not the same timing, and each piece comes out as soon as it is done. The batter is cold water and egg with cake flour, stirred only a few times with chopsticks and used while small lumps remain.
Despite the name, there is no pastry anywhere. It is a round sponge split in half, filled with a thick layer of custard and covered with dark chocolate glaze. Most of the time it takes goes into chilling the sponge and the custard separately.
To get the taste of a Korean snack-bar plate, the kimchi is fried with gochujang, dark soy sauce and a pinch of sugar for a sweet edge. Top it with a runny fried egg and crumbled gim (seaweed) and it looks the part too.
Spring water dropwort (minari) is cut into long pieces, stems and all, and fried with shrimp. The stems still crunch after frying, and it comes with soy sauce sharpened by a few drops of vinegar.
Warm corn tortillas carry a layer of half-mashed black beans, a fried egg, and a tomato salsa sharpened with jalapeño. What makes the plate go soggy is water: the salsa should be reduced until a spoon leaves a trail, and the beans thick enough to spread. Cook the whites fully, and use pasteurized eggs for a runny yolk. A squeeze of lime at the end is optional.
Peeled boiled eggs simmer with the pork in coconut water, fish sauce and caramel long enough for the whites to turn deep brown. In Vietnamese homes the sauce is spooned over rice, and the eggs pick up even more flavor if the pot cools overnight and is reheated.
Three onions cooked slowly in butter for more than 20 minutes, until deep amber, are nearly the whole tart. There is only enough egg and cream custard to hold them together, and Gruyere on top bakes into a salty brown crust.
Five minutes in a hot pan turns sour, wet kimchi into something sweeter and more savory, as the moisture cooks off and the edges darken. The pan has to be hot enough that the kimchi sizzles on contact; otherwise it steams in its own liquid.
Fresh oysters and soaked miyeok seaweed share one batter, and a single bite brings a crisp outside, slippery seaweed, and an oyster full of briny juice. Plump winter oysters suit it best. Each oyster gets pressed down into the batter with a spoon, since any that pokes above the surface cooks less than the rest.
Spoonfuls of cornmeal batter with grated onion and buttermilk fry into small golden fritters. The batter relies on self-rising cornmeal mix and self-rising flour, which already carry salt and leavening; plain cornmeal or cornstarch in the same amounts will not rise the same way. Large spoonfuls brown before their centers set, and breaking open the first fritter shows whether the rest should be smaller.
Boned, opened loach and thin shavings of burdock simmer in sweet soy-seasoned dashi in a shallow pan, then beaten egg is poured over to bind it all softly. Unlike marunabe, which cooks the fish whole, this Tokyo hot pot uses split loach, and the burdock goes in first to give the broth its earthy flavor. A sprinkle of sansho pepper goes on just before eating.
Stale bread soaked in an egg, milk and cream custard turns into something close to a soft pudding, while the pieces poking out on top bake into a crisp golden crust. Cinnamon gives the whole dish a warm, spiced smell. It started as a thrifty way to use up old loaves in England and the American South, and it is still best served warm, with vanilla ice cream or a caramel sauce melting over the top.
Pork belly cut into 1 cm pieces renders enough fat to fry the kimchi and rice, so no cooking oil is added and every grain tastes of pork. That only works if the pork gets 4 to 5 minutes, until the edges are golden and the fat coats the pan.
Mu-jeon sits on the Chuseok and Seollal jeon platter next to hobak-jeon and gaji-jeon. The radish has to be sliced an even 3 mm: thicker pieces keep a raw, acrid center, and thinner ones break apart in the pan. A little rice flour goes into the batter with the pancake mix, and a soy-vinegar dip comes alongside.
Short, irregular egg dumplings end up wrapped in stretchy melted Emmental, with slow-cooked onion on top to balance the salty cheese. The batter is dropped from a spoon straight into boiling water, and the rough, uneven shapes that result are part of the dish. Drain the dumplings thoroughly before they hit the pan: clinging water thins the cheese and kills the stretch.
Most of the work happens the night before: bread cubes soak up egg and milk in the refrigerator for eight hours, and the morning only asks for baking. With no sugar, this sits closer to a savory casserole than a bread pudding, with spinach and cheddar carrying the flavor. A crusty baguette or sourdough keeps recognizable pieces after baking, while soft sandwich bread melts into a smoother mass at the same weight. A metal pan also handles the jump from refrigerator to hot oven better than some glass dishes.
Perilla oil and kkaennip (perilla leaves) both come from the same plant, so one bowl carries the toasty smell of the seed and the fresh, minty smell of the leaf. The egg is cooked soft in butter and folded in.
The shrimp are only halved and roughly chopped, which leaves them with some bite among the julienned radish after frying. A little potato starch in the batter makes the pancake slightly chewier.
Meatballs browned on the outside finish cooking in a thick tomato sauce, then go into warm sub rolls under melted mozzarella. Breadcrumbs and egg hold the mixture together, so mix it with your fingertips only until it holds and shape the balls without packing them; heavy kneading makes them dense. The pan only colors the outside, leaving the centers to finish in the sauce. The sauce stays thick on purpose: anything runny soaks the bread before you reach the last bite, so reduce it a little longer if it looks watery. Melt the cheese under a broiler or with a torch just until it blankets the meatballs, and serve before the rolls soften.
With butter at half the weight of the flour plus three eggs, this loaf bakes up yellow inside, with a soft crumb that pulls apart in strands. The crust turns a deep golden brown, and the bread needs to cool completely before slicing or the tender crumb squashes under the knife.
Bean sprouts simmer uncovered in anchovy stock for just 5 to 6 minutes, long enough to drive off their raw, grassy smell but short enough to keep them crunchy. This is the Jeonju style of kongnamul gukbap, a sprout soup poured over rice. An egg is slipped in whole rather than beaten, and it is ready when the white has set around a still-soft yolk. Seaweed flakes and a pinch of chili flakes go on top, and in Korea it is a common hangover meal.