167 recipes. Page 6 of 7
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Dried pollock strips toasted briefly in perilla oil give this clear, chili-free stew a nutty base, and napa cabbage softens slowly into it, adding its own sweetness. The pollock only gets a quick dip in water, since a long soak washes out its flavor.
Clams and shepherd's purse both tend to carry grit. Purge the clams well in salted water and rub the dirt from between the naengi roots by hand, or the clear broth ends up with sand in every spoonful.
Dried pollack strips, tofu and eggs make up nearly the whole list. The pollack toasts in sesame oil for two or three minutes, until it smells nutty, and only then does the water go in. The broth stays clear, but that toasting keeps it from tasting thin. Beaten egg poured into the boiling broth spreads into fine threads.
Dried pollack, a winter pantry staple, meets the first shepherd's purse dug up in spring. The pollack strips are not soaked, only rinsed of dust and toasted in sesame oil, because a long soak would leave their savoriness behind in the water.
Each spoonful brings up chewy webfoot octopus (jjukkumi) together with tofu that has soaked up the red broth. The octopus turns rubbery if it boils long, so the vegetable broth is finished first and the octopus gets only a few minutes in it.
The roots of shepherd's purse carry an earthy, mineral smell and the leaves a mild bitterness. Cutting both and mixing them evenly before cooking spreads each flavor through the pot. Pressing the doenjang through a sieve keeps the anchovy stock clear while still giving it fermented depth.
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.
The water used to soak the dried neungi mushrooms is not poured away; it becomes part of the hot pot broth. So much of the aroma has already moved into that water that the broth smells deeply of mushroom without any meat at all.
Sour kimchi is fried with chili flakes, anchovy stock goes on top, and 200 g of soybean sprouts follow. After that, the lid has one rule: if it goes on, it stays on until the sprouts are cooked, and if it is left off, it stays off the whole time. Lifting it halfway brings up a raw, beany smell.
Green laver needs only 30 seconds to a minute in the pot; any longer and both its sea aroma and its bright green fade. That is why the anchovy stock and tofu are fully heated first and the laver goes in at the very end.
Eight frozen kimchi dumplings go in side by side and are left unstirred for the first two minutes, since nudging them while they thaw tears the wrappers. The kimchi inside meets the sour kimchi in the broth, and the stew tastes of kimchi twice over. The dumplings come seasoned, which is why only half the soup soy sauce goes in before tasting.
White fish firms up in about 4 minutes, and after that every stir breaks it apart. The radish cooks halfway first to flavor the broth, then the fish follows and is ladled out as soon as the flesh begins to flake.
Ribbons of perilla leaf sit on a broth made from stir-fried bulgogi beef, and their fresh, faintly minty smell comes through clearly over the meat. It is seasoned with soup soy sauce, which keeps the taste clean.
Each thin slice of beef is held with chopsticks and swished through gently simmering dashi for a few seconds. The name comes from the sound of that swishing. As the napa cabbage, tofu, shiitake and bok choy cook, their flavor builds up in the broth, which gets richer toward the end of the meal, and the last of it takes rice or udon.
A full 120g of water parsley (minari) turns an everyday doenjang stew green and sharply aromatic, with a peppery, grassy bite against the fermented soybean broth. The minari simmers for only 2 minutes and comes off the heat while the stems are still crisp, not limp and stringy.
Spinach brings a faint bitterness to the doenjang broth, and the wilted leaves leave it tinged a pale green.
Long-fermented kimchi (mugeunji) is sour enough that it gets fried in rendered pork fat before the water is added, which takes the harsh edge off its acidity. With plain water as the broth, all the flavor has to come from the kimchi and pork over at least 20 minutes at a medium simmer. Cut that short and the broth stays thin.
Seasoned only with soup soy sauce, the broth stays clear and the grassy note of spinach comes through, a calm bowl to set next to oily or spicy dishes. Firm tofu cut into generous cubes holds together better as it simmers.
No stock goes into the pot: plain water plus 3 tablespoons of salted shrimp (saeujeot) carries all the savory depth. The radish is cut into thin julienne and tossed with the shrimp and chili flakes before cooking, so the seasoning is already in the strands when the water goes in. The broth comes out clearer and more lightly spicy than doenjang or kimchi jjigae.
This royal court hot pot was once served in a special vessel with burning charcoal in its center; here an ordinary hot pot does the job. Meatballs of beef and tofu go in the middle, and shiitake, carrot and napa cabbage are arranged around them in separate sections. The egg never touches the broth. Yolk and white are fried into separate thin sheets, sliced, and laid on top in yellow and white strips.
A whole pollack roe sac (myeongnan) sits in the pot intact, so the outside firms up while the eggs inside stay separate and pop when you bite them. The heat drops to low as soon as the broth returns to a boil; a hard boil breaks the roe apart and dulls that texture. Since the roe is already salty, the stew often needs nothing more, and the broth with pieces of roe is good spooned over rice.
Leaving a little of the purple skin on the turnip gives the doenjang broth a soft tint. Turnip is more delicately sweet than Korean radish, with a faint peppery edge, and the soup tastes different from a radish version because of it. Turnips are in season from autumn into early winter.
The shepherd's purse goes in roots and all, because the roots carry its earthy, bitter spring scent. The trade-off is cleaning: soil has to be scraped off with a knife tip and the greens swished through several changes of cold water. Doenjang brands differ in saltiness, and the paste is adjusted half a tablespoon at a time.
Flattened into flower-like discs, the soybeans cook faster than whole beans, take seasoning right to the center and release a nutty body into the broth. The method grew from storing winter protein in snowy northern Shiga, and the soup is often served as oko-jiru at Buddhist Hoonko gatherings.