236 recipes. Page 9 of 10
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The tea uses pitted, dried cornelian cherry flesh: dark red-purple, deeply wrinkled and soft, not whole berries with the hard stone still inside. Even pitted fruit can hide the odd stone or stem, so it gets picked over before rinsing. Fifteen minutes on low with jujubes and ginger turns the water red.
Chicken wings have plenty of skin, and in the final reduction the soy and sugar liquid clings to it in a thin, shiny lacquer. The wings first cook covered so the meat turns tender in the broth, and only then does the lid come off to boil the sauce down around them. Shallow cuts in the thick parts let the seasoning reach past the surface, and a teaspoon of sesame oil stirred in off the heat adds a toasted aroma.
Crunchy dried daikon, chewy toasted squid and nutty roasted soybeans all soak in the same sweet soy and vinegar dressing. The pickle comes from Miyazaki, a major dried-daikon region where winter wind and strong southern sun turn fresh strips into a pantry staple. Its name is said to echo impatient calls asking whether it is ready yet. Toasting the squid and dry-roasting the beans before mixing gives the jar a roasted aroma that a raw-vegetable pickle lacks, while kombu and ginger add their own savor and bite. It is served chilled after resting overnight under refrigeration.
Mizu eggplants fermented in rice bran for two to three months, from late summer into autumn, become the base of this Senshu, Osaka simmer. In the name, jako means the small shrimp and goko means pickles. Soaking and blanching soften the salt and fermented aroma without erasing it, and the tender eggplant then soaks up dashi, shrimp, and soy sauce until very little broth is left.
The malt water is left to stand until the sediment sinks, and only the clear top is poured off; heat the sediment along with it and the punch turns cloudy. When the rice grains start to float they are lifted out and rinsed in cold water, and the remaining liquid boils again with sugar and sliced ginger. The ginger is never strong, just a slight warmth at the very end.
Beef trotters carry far more skin and tendon than meat, so they need a 90-minute low simmer before the skin gives under a chopstick. Soy sauce and sugar go in only after that, and as the liquid reduces for another 25 minutes, gelatin from the skin turns it glossy and thick. The long soak, blanch and scrub at the start clear any off smell from the bone crevices before it reaches the sauce.
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.
Dark soy turns this Chinese braised beef shank deep brown, and the meat is chilled until set in its own liquid before being sliced thin across the grain, with only two star anise in the pot so the spice never buries the beef.
Young pine needles steeped over low heat with jujubes and ginger give a clear, resin-like pine scent. Longer simmering does not make that scent stronger, only more astringent, so the brew stays under 20 minutes.
Ten minutes of salt is all the water dropwort (minari) gets, so the stems stay crisp and the fresh, grassy aroma comes through intact. Even draining is gentle, a light press with the palm, since wringing the stems would cost them that snap. Anchovy fish sauce gives the light herb a savory base, and the fruity tartness of plum syrup softens the chili heat, while finely grated onion binds the paste into one smooth seasoning. Served with fatty pork belly or boiled pork, the herb clears the richness from the palate between bites. It is best eaten cold on the day it is made, before the stems wilt further.
Kakuni falls apart along the grain at the touch of a chopstick, the result of thick pork belly cooked in soy sauce, mirin, and ginger over the lowest heat until even the fat layer turns translucent. Chilling it overnight and lifting off the set fat before reheating gives a cleaner broth, and a dab of hot Japanese mustard goes on the side.
It needs a night in the fridge, about twelve hours, so make it the day before. Cinnamon sticks and ginger go down to low heat with the lid on as soon as the water boils; a hard boil makes the punch bitter. The dried persimmon is not added ahead of time but floated in each cup, where it soaks up the punch and softens as you drink.
Thick, fibrous radish green stems grip the seasoning and keep their chew long after the leaves soften. The stems get a ten-minute head start in the salt before the leaves join them, so both end up evenly seasoned. Cooled glutinous rice paste holds the chili mixture in place as the kimchi ripens, and sliced onion tempers the heat with sweetness. Longer cold fermentation softens the fibers and deepens the sour aroma, which makes older batches good for chopping into doenjang stew or soup.
There is almost no sauce here, just minced lamb cooked until moist and clumping, to be spooned onto naan or chapati; the peas go in at the very end and still pop when bitten.
Burdock root, sliced thin with its skin on and dry-roasted until it browns, gives this tea its toasty aroma. The slicing matters as much as the roasting: thick slices hold their flavor back.
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.
Dried taro leaves simmer slowly in coconut milk until they collapse into a creamy, spoonable mass with a faint sheen of oil on top. Fully dried leaves are essential, since fresh ones can leave an itchy, prickly feeling in the mouth. It comes from the Bicol region of the Philippines and is eaten a little at a time with plenty of warm rice.
Steamed glutinous rice and nuruk, a traditional Korean fermentation starter, ferment in a shady spot for more than a week until clear wine rises to the top. Unlike makgeolli, which is strained with the solids, only that top layer is gently drawn off, so yakju comes out a transparent gold. During fermentation it gets one stir a day with a sanitized paddle. The drawn-off wine is bottled, rested in the fridge for two days, and poured cold into small cups.
Salting firms the squid flesh enough to keep a pleasantly chewy bite after it is coated in the red seasoning. Starch syrup gives the gochugaru paste a gloss and a little sweetness that keeps the salt from standing alone. The squid should be frozen at -20°C or below for at least 24 hours and thawed in the fridge before cleaning, with any visible parasites removed. Hot rice is the usual partner.
Starch from soaked chana dal, split chickpeas, thickens the pot into something spoonable, while cubed bottle gourd lends moisture and gentle sweetness. Small, nutty bits of chana stay noticeable in the finished dal, which is eaten warm over rice or scooped up with flatbread.
Dried bitter melon is bitter and dried jujube is sweet, and simmered in equal amounts they make a tea that leans neither way. Dried tangerine peel goes in only sparingly, since a lot of white pith makes it astringent.
Finely cut seisai, a Yamagata mustard green, is mixed with daikon, carrot, sunchoke, salted shiso seeds and yellow edible chrysanthemum petals into a colorful, finely chopped relish. It comes from the Murayama, Mogami and Okitama areas of Yamagata. The green liquid released during the overnight pre-salting is poured off and the vegetables squeezed hard, which keeps the soy, mirin and zarame sugar marinade from being diluted. Mildly salted and soy-seasoned, it is spooned over rice or mixed into rice balls, ochazuke or fried rice. That low salt also means it stays refrigerated and is eaten within about two weeks.
Four fist-sized pork meatballs sit on a bed of napa cabbage and braise slowly in a light soy broth, staying moist and soft right to the surface instead of carrying a fried crust. The cabbage keeps the pork off the hot pot bottom and turns silky as it soaks up the meat juices.
Lotus root sliced thin and steeped slowly over low heat lets its starch out bit by bit, so the tea looks clear but has a slightly silky body. Five minutes in cold water after slicing rinses off the surface starch and keeps the tea from going cloudy. Most of the sweetness comes from the jujubes in the pot.