236 recipes. Page 7 of 10
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In Kagoshima, tonjiru is made with barley miso, which is sweet and mellow. Pork, daikon, taro, konjac and atsuage (thick fried tofu) go in so generously that they nearly fill the bowl, and thin scallions and slivers of ginger go on top.
Steamed in the shell with only green onion and ginger beneath it, abalone keeps its sea-sweet aroma, with seasoning limited to a little soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil spooned over afterward. A shallow crosshatch on the thick side lets heat reach the center so the edges do not toughen while the middle catches up.
As dongchimi ferments, the clear brine around chunks of radish turns cool, tangy and faintly fizzy, with a soft fruitiness from pear and a clean finish from ginger. The radish is cut large, 4 to 5 cm, because small pieces go soft once the kimchi ripens, and a firm, medium-sized radish holds up better than a small one. Keeping every piece under the brine stops stray microbes, and the jar moves to the fridge once small bubbles appear. In winter the chilled broth becomes a base for cold noodles or is ladled alongside rich, fatty meat. Strained, the ripe broth tastes cleaner, and it keeps refrigerated for 2 to 3 weeks.
Dote means riverbank. Miso is spread around the inside rim of the pot like an embankment and worked into the liquid in the middle a little at a time, and that is where this Osaka dish gets its name. Beef tendon and konjac cook slowly in sweet country-style miso; by the time the tendon turns soft and gelatinous, the sauce coats a spatula thickly.
Raw, the fruit of the oriental raisin tree is small, knobbly, astringent and rather flat. Twenty-five minutes over low heat with jujubes, ginger and a cinnamon stick turns the water deep brown and gives it an earthy, faintly sweet aroma. The pot then rests, covered and off the heat, for five minutes before straining.
Gizzard shad, a small fish at its fattiest in autumn, stays moist even when braised in a soy and gochugaru sauce. Three deep scores along the back let the sauce reach the thick part of the fish without a long cook. Thick slices of radish packed across the bottom of the pot keep the fish from scorching and turn sweet as they soak up the sauce; the thicker the slices, the sweeter they get. Basting with a spoon takes the place of flipping, which would break the delicate flesh apart. The reduced sauce left in the pot is spooned over steamed rice.
Bellflower root (doraji) carries a pronounced bitterness, tamed by rubbing the roots hard with salt until sticky foam appears and then rinsing several times. The roots are torn by hand into thin strips; thinner strips take the brine faster, but crumbled pieces lose their chew. Ginger steeps in the hot soy brine for 10 minutes and is lifted out, leaving only its scent. The pickle is ready after 2 days of cold storage and is not meant to sit at room temperature.
Slice into it and fine ribbons of egg drift through amber agar. This Ishikawa holiday dish, seasoned with soy sauce and sugar, is nicknamed berobero for the way it slips around, and in Kanazawa and Noto it goes in the top tier of the New Year box next to herring roe and red-and-white fish cake. Its roots are traced to the egg agar of Edo-period cookbooks, from a time when eggs and sugar were scarce.
The brown rice goes into a dry pan unwashed, which lets the bran give off a strong toasty aroma as it roasts. About eight minutes over low heat is enough; stop at pale brown, because dark brown brings bitterness.
Yellow croaker has fine, tender flesh that separates into neat flakes under chopsticks, and the soy sauce seasoning seeps along deep scores in its sides. The fish stays put in the steamer from start to finish, and the few spoonfuls of liquid left underneath are poured back over it to eat with rice.
Young spring napa cabbage (eolgari) soaks up seasoning quickly through its thin leaves and tender stems and turns pleasantly sour by the next day. That speed cuts both ways: 20 to 30 minutes of salting is plenty, and longer turns the stems tough. The stems are a better signal than the clock: the cabbage is turned once midway, and salting stops as soon as they bend slightly. Salted shrimp and fish sauce fill in savory depth that a short ferment would otherwise lack, while glutinous rice paste helps the chili seasoning cling to every leaf. Koreans make this lighter kimchi in spring, when aged winter kimchi starts to feel heavy.
Ray carries so much collagen in its skin and cartilage that the broth it simmers in, sweet and salty with ginger, sake, mirin and soy, sets like jelly once it cools, with no gelatin needed. In Katsuragi, Nara, ray has long been chilled in its broth this way. Nara has no coast, but seafood landed in Osaka came in quickly along the Takenouchi road.
Thinly sliced fresh ginseng simmers on the lowest heat with jujubes and ginger for close to twenty minutes. The ginger is there to soften the ginseng's aroma and is never left out; if it comes through too strongly, a splash of hot water goes into the finished tea.
After an hour and a half of slow braising in soy sauce, pork trotters develop glossy, sticky skin over meat soft enough for a chopstick to slide through. Onion, garlic, ginger and whole peppercorns in the braising liquid carry the soy flavor into the layers between skin and meat. The braising liquid is not wasted: strained and reduced, it becomes the glaze spooned over the slices. Jokbal is eaten wrapped in lettuce with salted shrimp sauce or ssamjang, often late at night with drinks.
Swiss chard has two textures in one leaf: thick, crunchy stems and soft greens that wilt fast. The stems go into the brine first and the leaves join later; salted together, the leaves turn mushy before the stems are seasoned. Firm, thick-stemmed bunches keep their crunch longest after salting. The paste is built on cooled glutinous rice porridge with plum syrup for a soft sweetness, and half a day on the counter before chilling helps it ripen.
Instead of rice, this sushi from the Kitaura coast of Yamaguchi uses okara, the soybean pulp left from tofu making, dry-toasted until loose and seasoned with vinegar, sugar, ginger, hemp seeds, and black sesame. Salted, vinegar-firmed sardine fillets wrap around small drums of the cooled okara. It grew out of coastal communities where rice was hard to farm, and it was made for New Year, weddings, and local festivals. Each piece pairs crumbly, nutty okara with rich fish and a clean sweet-sour finish.
Sword beans are three or four times the size of ordinary beans, and roasted ones give this tea a heavy, grainy aroma. Once used, the beans can be brewed a second time.
Collagen from the oxtail joints melts into the pot over a long simmer, thickening the sauce to a glossy, sticky finish while the meat slips off the bone. The tails first simmer for 90 minutes with just green onion and ginger, so the meat is tender before the soy sauce and sugar are added. Radish and carrot join for the last stretch, sweetening the sauce and soaking it up. Chilled, the sauce sets like jelly and melts again on reheating, and lifting off the fat that hardens on top makes the braise taste cleaner. The dish is a fixture of Korean holiday tables.
Thick-skinned green chilies hold their crunch through salting and a short ferment, and the heat concentrated around the seeds bursts out when you bite down. Only about half the seeds are shaken out, and the pods are best eaten within 2 to 3 days while still crisp.
Grated mountain yam and egg go into the finely ground sardine, so these fish cakes puff up soft inside when they hit the oil. In Toyama they are eaten as they are, with rice or with drinks, and also dropped into oden or hot pot.
Jehotang is said to have been made by the Joseon court's medical office to see the king through the summer heat. Cinnamon, ginger and licorice root are simmered, then mixed with plum syrup and honey and served cold, so the sweet-tart taste comes with a quiet herbal note behind it. Plum syrups vary a lot in sweetness, so adjust the water and honey by taste.
Steaming a whole blue crab keeps more of its sweet juices inside the shell than boiling does, and the meat comes out briny and moist. In spring and autumn the crabs are full of roe and tomalley, which adds plenty to eat beyond the white meat. A simple dip of soy sauce sharpened with vinegar brings the sweetness forward. Eating it is hands-on work, cracking each leg joint and pulling the meat out piece by piece.
Sweet potato stems need their tough outer skin peeled away, a fiddly job, but it is what lets a 2-minute blanch leave them bright and pleasantly crisp. Plunging them into cold water straight from the pot, until no warmth remains, is what holds that color and snap. Mixing the glutinous rice paste into the other seasonings first helps it coat the stems thinly between the fibers. Thin onion and scallion round out the dressing with sweetness and fragrance. The stems snap easily, so the seasoning is worked in with fingertips rather than pressed, and even packing the container takes only a light touch.
The eggplant is cut into big cubes and browned on its cut faces before it goes anywhere near the coconut milk curry sauce. Raw eggplant would drink up oil and liquid and go limp; seared first, the cubes keep their corners after simmering and taste toasty where they hit the pan.