167 recipes. Page 7 of 7
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Winter oysters, plump at this time of year, share a doenjang broth with bitter-edged shepherd's purse. The base is kelp stock and radish, and the paste is held to 1.5 tablespoons, light enough that the oysters still taste of the sea.
Simmering the whole rockfish, bones and all, gives the broth a body that fillets alone cannot. Its many fine bones call for care at the table, but they are also where the broth gets its flavor.
Gochujang alone seasons this squid stew, giving the red broth a sweet, rounded heat, and one whole squid goes in as rings and tentacles. Scoring the inside of the body makes the rings curl as they cook and pulls the sauce in between the layers. The squid joins only after the zucchini and tofu have had about five minutes, and two or three minutes is all it takes.
Meatballs of ground beef and tofu simmer in anchovy broth, and when they fail, it is usually the mixture's fault. Tofu that still holds water, or a ball with a cracked surface, tends to fall apart in the pot. The tofu gets squeezed hard, and each ball is pressed smooth wherever it splits.
Well-fermented sour kimchi is cut without shaking off its seasoning, so that paste goes into the broth too, and it simmers with pork shoulder that has a good streak of fat before thick slices of tofu go on at the end.
Simmered in doenjang broth, summer young radish greens (yeolmu) see their stems lose the raw, grassy taste and turn tender. Rice-rinsing water makes the broth smoother than plain water would, and a small amount of chili flakes adds a mild warmth under the soybean paste.
Kimchi, ham, and tofu, all common refrigerator staples, come together into something close to a pared-down budae jjigae. Frying the kimchi for 2 minutes first tames its sourness so it blends with the salty ham and the sweet heat of gochujang instead of competing.
Octopus and flat slices of tofu share the pot with anchovy broth seasoned with soup soy sauce and garlic, no chili, and water dropwort and green onion are laid on top. It stays on a low flame at the table for everyone to serve themselves. The octopus is most tender right when the legs curl and turn opaque, and toughens the longer it simmers.
There is no chili anywhere in this tofu stew. Garlic and onion soften for a minute in a teaspoon of perilla oil, the stock goes in, and a tablespoon of soup soy sauce is all the seasoning it gets. Spinach is added at the very end, and the heat goes off while it is still bright green.
Country-style doenjang gives this stew a dense, earthy body, and the Cheongyang chili added at the very end cuts through it with a sharp, clean heat. Half a block of tofu is torn by hand into rough chunks and simmered gently for 3 minutes so the pieces hold together.
Thin bulgogi-cut beef, oyster mushrooms and shiitake simmer in a clear broth seasoned with soup soy sauce. With no chili in the pot, how well the beef browns decides the flavor, and if it is not patted dry with paper towels first, it steams instead of searing.
Thinly sliced beef brisket, not the usual anchovy stock, supplies the savoriness, giving this doenjang jjigae a meaty rather than oceanic lean. Rice-rinse water forms the base and softens the soybean paste, and the edges of the potato break down a little as they cook, thickening the broth on their own.
Soybean sprouts give this stew its clean, light broth, and a tablespoon of chili flakes adds the heat. Pork is optional: with it, the broth picks up fat and savory depth; without it, the stew stays lighter and sharper.
The grassy bitterness of spring mugwort (ssuk) sits on top of a nutty perilla seed broth made with rice-rinse water. Tough stems are pulled off and mostly the leaves are used, cooked for just the final 2 minutes to keep their green color and scent.
Turnip turns translucent as it cooks and gives the kelp stock a quiet sweetness. There is no meat or anchovy; oyster mushrooms and tofu fill out the pot. Once the perilla seed powder is stirred in, it gets about two minutes over low heat.
A can of tuna stands in for meat and gives the doenjang broth its savory depth, with plenty of ugeoji, blanched outer napa cabbage leaves. Use only half the oil from the can; all of it makes the broth greasy.
As it simmers, the tough stems of the ugeoji (blanched outer napa cabbage leaves) loosen and soak up the doenjang. A little gochujang tints the broth reddish, and rice-rinse water gives it more body than plain water would.
Uijeongbu is the city where this stew took hold near US Army bases after the Korean War, and that is where the name comes from. The salt of Spam and cocktail sausages, the sourness of ripe kimchi and the sweetness of melted baked beans all end up in the same pot.
This stew comes from farm households that picked apple snails off the rice paddy banks and dropped them into their doenjang stew, and the ingredient list is still just snails, doenjang, tofu, zucchini and anchovy stock. Snail meat toughens with long boiling, so it goes in after the zucchini has had about three minutes, and the tofu follows at the very end for a minute or two.
Thin-sliced woosamgyeop, fatty beef brisket, is fried with garlic until its fat runs, and the chili flakes and soup soy sauce are toasted in that fat before any anchovy stock goes in. That is where the red, slick broth comes from. Two cheongyang chilies make it properly hot, and the bean sprouts go in last and come out still crunchy.
Summer yeolmu, young radish greens, leaves a faint bitterness at the end of each spoonful of doenjang broth. It is best while the stems still crunch, so it does not simmer for long.
No meat and no anchovy go into this stew, only vegetable stock. To give the broth some aroma, the onion and oyster mushrooms are fried in sesame oil first. The lotus root cooks just until a chopstick slides in, and the perilla powder goes in at the very end for a brief warm-through over low heat. Boiled for long, perilla turns chalky rather than nutty.
With no chili flakes and no doenjang, just beef stock seasoned with soup soy sauce and salt, the broth stays clear. The tofu is nudged in with a ladle and left unstirred for five minutes to soak up the stock; browning it lightly in a pan first keeps a toasty surface even in the broth.