1421 recipes. Page 37 of 60
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On Korea's east coast, seaweed soup for new mothers is sometimes made with a whole flounder instead of beef. The seaweed is stir-fried in sesame oil before the water is poured in, and the flounder, blanched briefly to take away any fishiness, joins it whole, seasoned with soy sauce and garlic.
Kodari, pollock dried only partway, has a dense, chewy flesh that keeps its grain through a long simmer. It can still break if flipped, so it sits on the bed of radish and gets the broth spooned over it two or three times instead. Rice-rinse water forms the broth and tones down any fishy smell.
In the same soy broth, the potato soaks up seasoning to the center while the peeled quail eggs only brown on the outside. It has long been a familiar lunchbox side for Korean children, and it is seasoned without any heat.
The salt is kept at twenty percent of the anchovy weight, and the jar stays in the fridge for the whole cure. The jar stays shut until brine rises over the fish, and only then do garlic, ginger, chili flakes, and rice wine go in, their aroma sitting on top of an already mellowed, salty base. A little stirred into kimchi paste adds savory depth, and a spoonful over hot rice works as a side dish on its own.
Thin slices of boiled octopus sit on chilled buckwheat noodles dressed in chogochujang, gochujang loosened with vinegar and sugar into a sweet, sour, spicy sauce. Already cooked, the octopus mainly needs patting dry so the sauce clings instead of sliding off. Shredded cabbage and perilla leaves under the noodles add crunch and an herbal note, and only half the sauce is tossed in at first so the rest can season the bowl just before eating.
The sauce comes almost entirely from the clams. As purged clams open in dry white wine, their briny juices hit the pan, and a minute of hard tossing with olive oil and a few spoonfuls of pasta water binds them into a glossy coating.
Escarole's broad leaves and mildly bitter edge hold up to a brief blanch, so this dish keeps a leafy bite rather than the long-cooked softness of collards. Squeezing the blanched greens hard matters, because any water left behind turns the breadcrumbs into paste. Part of the crumb mixture goes among the leaves to soak up stray juices, and the rest stays on top to brown with the Pecorino. Prosciutto, cheese and vinegar-packed cherry peppers all bring salt and acidity, so extra salt waits until the greens have been tasted.
Pulling radishes in autumn, at kimchi-making time, leaves a pile of radish greens. Dried, they become siraegi; boiled and dressed right away, they become this namul. It is seasoned with doenjang and soup soy sauce and finished with ground perilla seeds, which thicken it.
Fernbrake, bellflower root and chwi-namul (aster greens) each get their own treatment: the fernbrake turns soft in sesame oil, the bellflower root is salted to draw out bitterness yet stays crisp, and the aster is blanched just until bright green. Cooked separately, they still taste and bite differently after mixing, and the gochujang sauce is served alongside to add a little at a time.
Through the doenjang-fried pork comes the faintly earthy smell of Swiss chard. The leaves go limp as they cool, so it is eaten straight from the pan, spooned over rice.
Mixed clams soak in salt water for over an hour, then go onto high heat in their shells. As each one opens, it gets a bit of butter, minced garlic and rice wine, and since the clams vary in size, they come off one by one as their butter melts. Any that never open are thrown away.
Eggplant is steamed for just five minutes, torn along the grain and tossed with soup soy sauce and garlic so it takes on seasoning of its own. It then goes into cold water seasoned with vinegar and sugar and is topped with cheongyang chili and sesame seeds, a summer side dish. If ice is going in, the seasoning should be a little stronger, since it thins as the ice melts.
Bite into a sea squirt and the little sac bursts, releasing a salty, briny juice. To keep that, the radish and zucchini are cooked through first and the sea squirts get only three or four minutes over high heat at the very end. In April and May, when they are in season and full of juice, the broth itself tastes different.
Skate flesh is threaded with soft cartilage, which gives it a pleasant chew. It braises in a gochugaru and soy liquid over heat low enough that the surface barely moves, almost steaming.
Pollock roe sacs tear easily, and every stage of this jeotgal, from rinsing to coating, comes down to handling them lightly enough to keep the membranes whole. A 30-minute salt cure with a piece of kelp firms the surface before rice wine and a thin red coat of chili flakes, garlic, and sugar go on. During the cold cure the eggs tighten and pop when bitten, with the chili warmth staying behind the salty sea flavor. Slices of it go on hot rice.
Salted pollock roe, folded into a garlicky butter and cream sauce at the very end, leaves tiny eggs that pop against the soft coating on thick udon. Scraping the roe out of its membrane matters, since any large piece of skin left behind clumps in the sauce. The roe is added only after the heat is lowered and warms through on residual heat, because a long stint over high heat turns it dry and grainy. Soy sauce gives the cream a savory backbone, and the heat drops as soon as the edges bubble so the cream does not split. If the sauce tightens as it reduces, 2 to 3 tablespoons of the reserved noodle water loosen it. Seaweed flakes and scallion finish the bowl.
Pre-cooked octopus is patted dry and seared hard over high heat so the outside turns chewy, then tossed with penne in a tomato cream sauce warmed up with gochugaru (Korean chili flakes). The sauce fills the tubes of the penne, so every forkful with a piece of octopus brings plenty of it along.
Drying makes radish sweeter and chewy, and that chew is the reason to use it. The strips get only 20 minutes in cold water; any longer and they turn limp like fresh radish. Rice syrup in the gochujang dressing gives it its shine.
The rice takes seafood stock a ladle at a time, and saffron soaked in a couple of spoonfuls of that stock goes in partway through to turn it yellow. Shrimp and squid wait until the rice is nearly done and come off the heat before they curl up tight.
Despite the japchae in its name, there are no glass noodles. Pork tenderloin, green bell pepper and onion are all cut into long strips of the same thickness, the starch-coated pork is seared first over high heat, and oyster sauce finishes it. With everything the same size, meat and pepper come up together in one pinch of the chopsticks.
Only the surface of the bonito meets the flame, for 20 to 30 seconds a side, leaving a smoky crust around a center that stays red and cold. Since the inside stays raw, the fish has to be bonito sold and cold-handled for eating raw, not ordinary grilling fish. In the Kochi Prefecture style, thick slices are sprinkled with salt, splashed with yuzu vinegar and soy, and patted with the flat of a knife so the seasoning settles in. Paper-thin garlic and onion and chopped scallions are scattered on top, and the plate is eaten right away rather than left at room temperature.
Horse mackerel, cut in half on the bone, simmers with napa cabbage in a thin, strained doenjang broth in this Jeju soup. The pieces are left alone because stirring breaks the flesh, and the soup keeps cooking past the point where the cabbage softens until the fish is opaque at the center.
Only half a tablespoon of gochugaru goes in. The broth stays clear and tastes mostly of clams. Minari and a Cheongyang chili are added after the heat is turned down and cook for just a minute. With the clams purged ahead of time, the cooking itself takes about ten minutes.
A small piece of butter on each scallop melts into the juice pooled in the shell and becomes a salty, rich sauce with no extra step. Cleaning is simple and the steaming takes six or seven minutes, which makes it easy to put out when drinks are being set up in a hurry.