1421 recipes. Page 34 of 60
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Even with no meat in the dish, each cube of eggplant, seared over high heat until just browned, soaks up tomato and soy sauce like a sponge and turns soft and savory. Sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds lend a nutty Korean finish, and fresh basil sits on top.
Sirloin gets a dark crust over high heat first, then a short basting with butter, crushed garlic, and rosemary once the heat drops to medium. Splitting the two stages keeps the butter and garlic from scorching in a pan hot enough to sear. Drying the sides as well as the faces helps the crust form evenly all around. Slice against the grain and finish with a squeeze of lemon.
Blood cockles (kkomak) are blanched only until the shells crack open, then tossed in a soy, garlic and Cheongyang chili sauce for just 5 to 6 minutes. Short cooking is the whole point, because these chewy little clams turn rubbery fast.
Naengi (shepherd's purse, a spring green) is spread over doenjang-seasoned rice to steam, and when the lid comes off its earthy spring scent rushes out. The doenjang is first fried in perilla oil with zucchini and onion, so every grain picks up its savory depth.
There is no gochujang or soy sauce here, only salt and pepper, so what you taste is plain potato and sweet shrimp.
The eel is seared skin side first to draw out its fat, then glazed over low heat with soy sauce and rice syrup spooned over it again and again. Some of the rendered fat is poured off before the sauce goes in. Laid over rice, it makes an eel bowl, with the sauce soaking down into the rice.
Napa cabbage lines the bottom of a wide hot pot, and tofu, shiitake and marinated beef are laid in a ring around the edge, giving the pot its finished look before it ever heats. The kelp broth, seasoned with soup soy sauce and no chili, stays clear, and the pot is served bubbling for everyone to ladle from.
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.
Hairtail is so soft and oily that stirring it with a ladle breaks it apart. Here the pot itself gets a shake now and then to move the sauce around underneath, and broth is spooned over the fish only in the last few minutes with the lid off.
How long the stems simmer decides this kimchi: seven minutes in salted water, then half an hour in cold water, takes out the bitterness and the toughness, and undercooked stems keep both. Unlike the soy-pickled version, these butterbur stems are tossed in a red chili paste thickened with glutinous rice porridge. Gentle tossing matters, since squeezing hard breaks the crisp fibers.
Somewhere between a soup and a sauced noodle dish, mee bandung from Johor in Malaysia covers soft yellow wheat noodles with a thick red gravy of shrimp stock, tomato paste, and chili paste. A starch slurry at the end gives the gravy enough body to cling to every strand, the texture that defines the dish.
Searing the shrimp first, lifting them out and returning them only at the end keeps them tender instead of simmering in cream. The garlic and cream sauce is made in the same pan, and the sweetness of the shrimp lightens the rich Parmesan and cream.
Snow crab legs, shrimp, potatoes, corn, and sausage are tossed in a red butter sauce of garlic, Cajun seasoning, and Korean chili flakes, then spread out across the table. The potatoes and corn boil in water while the seafood steams separately, so the crab and shrimp stay dry enough for the sauce to cling. The sauce stays over low heat so the garlic and spices do not scorch, and the chili flakes push the heat beyond what the Cajun seasoning gives alone. Shaking everything with the warm sauce in a large bowl or bag works it into the crab joints and shrimp shells. Expect to eat it with your hands, cracking shells as you go, with lemon on the side.
Shishito peppers are blanched for just 40 seconds and tossed in a doenjang dressing. Unlike the braised shishito dish, where the peppers simmer in sauce, these stay crisp and bright green. Now and then one turns out to be hot.
Kecap manis, Indonesia's thick sweet soy sauce, coats each grain of cold rice in a glossy brown layer. Shrimp paste and sambal are fried first until the oil turns red, and the rice tastes salty and hot as well as sweet. On top goes a fried egg with crisp edges and a soft yolk.
The Gangwon version of soy bulgogi includes shiitake. Thick slices of the mushroom soak up the marinade along with the onion, and even with pear juice in the mix, the salty soy comes through before any sweetness.
Grilling starts only after the slick film on the skin has been scraped off with the back of a knife. The soy glaze goes on in two or three thin coats rather than one, and each coat leaves the eel a shade darker. On a grill instead of a pan, it picks up more smoke.
Zucchini, onion and tofu simmer in anchovy broth, and the shredded perilla leaves get only the last thirty seconds. Any longer and the leaves darken and their aroma goes dull. The tofu is scooped in with a spoon instead of cut, leaving rough surfaces for the broth to soak into.
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.
In Jeju, galchi-jorim is made with plenty of liquid, close to a stew, and rice gets mixed into whatever sauce is left. Potato goes under the fish along with the radish, another Jeju habit, and its starch gives the sauce some body.
After two or three days in the fridge in a soy and vinegar brine, the water parsley (minari) stays crisp and its fresh, grassy smell picks up a salty, tart edge. Leftover water is what usually turns it limp, so the washed stalks are spread out and dried thoroughly first.
Equal measures of soy sauce and vinegar give this Gangwon-style dressing its sour edge, with gochugaru for heat and a little sugar to round it off. Finely chopped kimchi clings to the noodles instead of sitting in clumps, adding fermented tang and crunch to every bite. With little gluten to hold them together, buckwheat noodles snap apart when boiled past the package time or pressed down while mixing. The dressing is folded in by lifting from below. Several rinses in cold water wash off the surface starch that would make the strands stick together. Water left on the rinsed noodles thins the dressing fast, which makes thorough draining as important as the chill.
Five sliced garlic cloves cook slowly in butter over low heat, turning sweet and fragrant while staying pale. The large shrimp then get about 90 seconds a side, just until pink, so the centers stay tender. White wine lifts the garlic butter off the pan and reduces into a light sauce, and the lemon juice squeezed in at the end cuts through the butter while red pepper flakes leave a mild, lingering heat.
Cream cheese and sour cream form the base of this warm dip, with spinach, artichoke, Parmesan, and mozzarella folded in before it bakes until bubbling. Each cheese has a role: cream cheese for body, sour cream for a light tang, Parmesan for salt, mozzarella for stretch. One dish in the middle of the table feeds a group, scooped up with baguette slices or tortilla chips while it is still hot.