167 recipes. Page 2 of 7
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Perilla leaves have a strong scent, so the pork and tofu filling is seasoned simply, with only soy sauce and black pepper. A thin layer goes inside each leaf, which is folded, fried, then cut in half again into single bites.
White kimchi, fermented without chili flakes, gives this stew a clear, pale broth with a gentle lactic tang instead of the red heat of regular kimchi stew. Skipping the usual frying in oil keeps it far lighter, and soft tofu and enoki fill out the pot.
A few shallow cuts in each boiled egg let the soy sauce get past the slick white, which turns brown in the pot. The tofu and eggs keep for about five days in the fridge, and they are better after a day or two, once the seasoning has gone deeper.
Tofu, shiitake and thick udon all cook in one pot of kimchi broth that goes to the table as is, nabe style. Frying the sour kimchi in sesame oil first takes off its raw sharpness and leaves the anchovy-kelp broth spicy yet rounded. Tofu pressed dry with a paper towel keeps the broth from clouding, and it simmers while broth is spooned over it, since stirring hard breaks it apart. Only half the soup soy sauce is added early because kimchi varies in saltiness, and the rest is added bit by bit once the noodles are in. Once the udon has soaked up the soup it is ready, and any broth left in the pot can take a scoop of rice to finish.
Once the salt-blanched tofu is in the doubanjiang sauce, the spatula is put away and only the pan gets shaken, which keeps the cubes square all the way to the rice. A sprinkle of Sichuan pepper at the end pushes it toward a proper mala taste.
After 12 to 15 minutes in the steamer the wrappers go translucent, showing the filling of pork, tofu, glass noodles, and garlic chives. The dip is soy sauce with vinegar and chili flakes. Fold a big batch and freeze some, and a few can go straight from the freezer into the steamer later.
There is kimchi in this soup but no chili flakes, so the broth stays clear while the sourness of white kimchi and its brine works its way into the clam stock. The clams come out as they open, and the stock is strained through a fine sieve before the kimchi goes in. If the kimchi is salty, the salt is left out.
Each perilla leaf is folded around a thin layer of beef and tofu, and a bite goes through the egg coating to the leaf's aroma before it reaches the meat. Packing in more filling would bury that aroma under the beef, which is why it is spread thin, right to the edges of the leaf.
The broth here comes from a generous 700 g of hard clams. Thick slabs of tofu go in only after the clams open and simmer for five minutes, long enough to soak up the clam juices that come out again when you bite. The shells bring their own salt; soup soy sauce is kept light.
A well-made dubu jorim has three layers in one bite: a dark, slightly chewy glazed surface, a seasoned middle, and a soft white center. That outer layer forms in the frying pan, where the tofu browns on both sides before the sauce is added. Blotting off surface water first keeps the oil from spitting.
Soaking water from dried shiitake, with no meat or bonito, forms the broth for this Japanese vegetable soup, and potato starch thickens it just enough to coat a spoon. In southern Miyagi it is a Buddhist meatless dish served around the spring and autumn equinoxes, at Obon, and at memorial gatherings. That light body holds taro, burdock, carrot, tofu, and fried tofu in suspension, letting each spoonful bring up both broth and filling. The umen noodles are boiled in a separate pot, since cooking them in the soup would release enough starch to cloud and weigh it down. Shiraishi umen, shirataki, and small wheat gluten puffs (mame-fu) make it something between a soup and a noodle dish, and a scattering of mitsuba adds a fresh herbal note at the end.
Gardenia fruit turns the rice a clear yellow, and a brothy stew of crumbled tofu, minced lizardfish and root vegetables is spooned over it. The dish comes from Usuki in Oita. One story credits the frugal local domain, which used yellow rice in place of costly red bean rice; another ties the color to paella seen through Nanban trade. Merchant households cooked a large pot of kayaku on New Year's Eve and reheated it through the first three days of the year.
Chopped kimchi goes into the pork filling, so its sourness and heat cut through the richness of the meat. Browning, steaming and crisping all happen in one pan, and the soy dip gets an extra splash of vinegar.
It is a doenjang soup, but with less doenjang than usual. The clams are already salty, and too much paste would bury their flavor. A little zucchini and tofu round out the pot.
A Gangwon province dish: buckwheat batter is cooked crepe-thin, rolled around a stir-fried filling of aged kimchi, tofu and pork, then crisped in the pan a second time. Buckwheat has no gluten, and the batter needs more than 10 minutes' rest before it can be spread thin without tearing. Unrinsed aged kimchi keeps its fermented sourness in the filling; rinsing it makes the filling milder.
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.
Each piece of eggplant gets a deep cross cut that stops just short of the base, which opens it up like a pocket for a beef and tofu filling before it is steamed. Stuffing every piece by hand takes time, and the dish was traditionally kept for guests and feasts.
Kimchi goes in at nearly the same weight as the pork, so the first thing you taste is its sourness. Short-cut garlic chives and pressed tofu fill out the mix, seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil.
Oyster mushrooms are torn along the grain, shiitake sliced thin and king oyster mushrooms cut on the bias, and each of the three has its own chew in the bowl. The base is an onion stock, yet perilla seed powder and tofu make it filling, and two minutes of rest off the heat lets the thick broth settle.
Ground chicken and pressed tofu make a filling with little fat, and against that mild filling the perilla leaf's sharp aroma comes forward. Sliced straight out of the pan, the pieces lose their juices onto the plate. Serve them whole or cut them just before eating.
A clear mushroom stew seasoned with kelp water and soup soy sauce, made without a drop of oil. To keep the broth from clouding, the foam is skimmed and, once the tofu is in, the pot is gently shaken instead of stirred. The mushrooms are rinsed quickly rather than soaked, since soaking washes out their scent.
Mild Korean green peppers are halved and packed with a pork and tofu filling, the same idea as pan-fried stuffed peppers, but steamed instead of fried for a lighter result, with skins that turn just translucent. The thin dusting of flour inside each pepper is not decoration: it glues the filling to the pepper so nothing slides out during steaming. Leaving a short stem on gives each piece a handle.
There is no meat in the filling, only king oyster mushroom, tofu and garlic chives. Both the mushroom and the tofu hold a lot of water, so the minced mushroom is dry-fried in a pan without oil first and the tofu is wrung out hard in a cloth.
Oyster and shiitake mushrooms go straight into boiling water, and after about four minutes the broth turns light brown; soup soy sauce and salt do the seasoning. Cubed tofu is slid in at the edge of the pot and never stirred, which keeps its corners sharp.