689 recipes. Page 17 of 29
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Eight frozen kimchi dumplings go in side by side and are left unstirred for the first two minutes, since nudging them while they thaw tears the wrappers. The kimchi inside meets the sour kimchi in the broth, and the stew tastes of kimchi twice over. The dumplings come seasoned, which is why only half the soup soy sauce goes in before tasting.
Each piece of mackerel gets a 20-second dip in hot water to set the outside white, then goes in a single layer over aged kimchi (mukeunji) lining the pot. By the end, the kimchi has soaked up the fish fat and turned glossy.
Beef brisket simmered for about twenty-five minutes gives this warm noodle soup a light, clear stock, strained of fat before it meets thin somyeon. Soup soy sauce is added gradually so the broth stays pale. The simmered brisket does double duty, torn along the grain and laid on top with thin egg ribbons and scallion. Since the noodles are rinsed cold, the broth comes back to a rolling boil before pouring so the bowl arrives hot.
Gardenia fruit turns the rice a clear yellow, and a brothy stew of crumbled tofu, minced lizardfish and root vegetables is spooned over it. The dish comes from Usuki in Oita. One story credits the frugal local domain, which used yellow rice in place of costly red bean rice; another ties the color to paella seen through Nanban trade. Merchant households cooked a large pot of kayaku on New Year's Eve and reheated it through the first three days of the year.
Made in spring with webfoot octopus (jjukkumi) full of roe, each bite comes with little pops. The octopus is rubbed hard with coarse salt to strip its slime, blanched briefly, coated in gochujang sauce and stir-fried over high heat in under two minutes.
Radish and shiitake simmer first, and the broth is seasoned only with soup soy sauce, so it stays clear and mild with no chili at all. Scoop the tofu in with a spoon instead of cutting it, and the rough edges soak up more of the broth.
Ribbons of perilla leaf sit on a broth made from stir-fried bulgogi beef, and their fresh, faintly minty smell comes through clearly over the meat. It is seasoned with soup soy sauce, which keeps the taste clean.
The radish is half-cooked on its own beforehand, so it is seasoned all the way through in the short time the mackerel takes. With just half a tablespoon of gochujang, the soy sauce leads and the heat stays gentle.
A tangle of finely shredded scallion, soaked in cold water for at least five minutes to soften its raw bite, sits on top of soy-dressed udon and stays crisp to the last forkful. Without that soak, the sharpness of raw scallion overwhelms the dressing. The dressing mixes soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, gochugaru, and sesame oil into something sweet, salty, tangy, and mildly hot. Half of it coats the noodles first for an even base, and the rest is folded in with the drained scallion, which loses its crunch if squeezed hard. The udon is cooked only until the strands loosen, which keeps it springy.
A shallow crosshatch on the inside of the squid makes each piece curl into a thick, bouncy roll the moment it hits the heat, and the opened cuts give the gochujang sauce more surface to grab. Onion and cabbage go into the pan first to cook off their water so the sauce stays glossy.
The chili sauce looks too thick, but no water goes in: the octopus releases its own liquid as it cooks and loosens it. The pork belly is browned in the pan first, and the octopus joins it over high heat for just a minute or two.
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.
Gochugaru and soup soy sauce are used lightly here, and twelve sliced perilla leaves go in right before the heat is cut, letting the herb come through ahead of the chili. For a richer broth, add a teaspoon of perilla seed powder.
Gondre, a soft mountain thistle green, soaks up seasoning readily, and steamed with ground perilla seed and perilla oil it turns deeply nutty. It is kept a little moist and often spooned over rice and mixed in.
Unlike the glossy, starch-thickened black bean noodles found in Korean Chinese restaurants, this Beijing version gets its body purely from reduction: pork and fermented bean paste cook down until a spatula leaves a brief trail through the sauce. Doenjang mixed into the sweet bean paste pushes the flavor toward salty and funky, with a spoonful of sugar to soften the edge. The thick sauce sits on chewy fresh wheat noodles alongside crisp cucumber and bean sprouts, all tossed together hard right before eating.
Pyongyang once ate this chicken and rice soup for breakfast. With no doenjang or gochujang and salt as the only seasoning, any cloudiness in the broth shows up in the taste. The chicken, scallion and garlic are kept at a bare simmer for 45 minutes. Rice goes into the bowl first, then the broth with its shiitake, and the shredded chicken on top.
Bamboo shoots sliced thinly across the grain stay crisp and outweigh the beef, and the dish eats more like a vegetable stir-fry with soy-marinated meat running through it. Beef round is very lean and toughens quickly, which is why the meat is seared briefly, lifted out, and only returned for a final toss once the bamboo has cooked down on its own.
The water left from rinsing rice becomes the soup base. Doenjang pressed through a sieve into it loses some of its chalky heaviness and tastes softer. The young napa cabbage looks like far too much when it goes in, then wilts down into the broth within about two minutes.
One can of Pacific saury, liquid and all, flavors the whole pot, so no separate stock is needed. The canned fish is already cooked with softened bones, so it needs no prep and is eaten bones and all, while a little doenjang tones down the canned-fish smell.
Salted tiny shrimp (saeujeot) season the eggs instead of salt, and anchovy stock gives them savory depth. Cooked slowly in an earthenware pot (ttukbaegi) over low heat with a gentle stir through the middle, it comes out soft and puffed, nothing like the glassy-smooth custard of Japanese chawanmushi.
Starch from sliced potato simmered first gives the broth its base body, leaving the perilla seed powder added near the end only to finish it. The result is a light, nutty soup that clings thinly to the noodles. Fresh kalguksu noodles go straight into the pot, and stirring right away is the main guard against a clumped, stuck mass.
Thick slices of fresh shiitake sit on the rice as it cooks, staying moist in the steam while their aroma drifts down into the grains. With dried shiitake instead, the soaking water becomes the cooking water and the mushroom flavor gets deeper. The finished rice is mixed with a sauce of soy, sesame oil, green onion and sesame seeds.
Kale, usually eaten raw as a leaf wrap in Korea, is stir-fried here into chili-seasoned pork. It stays bright green and stands out against the red meat.
It starts with blanched young napa cabbage rubbed with doenjang, gochujang, chili flakes and garlic. The beef simmers separately meanwhile and is skimmed until the broth runs clear; the seasoned greens then go in for twelve minutes, and the paste clinging to the leaves dissolves into the soup.