689 recipes. Page 2 of 29
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Agujjim began in the 1970s at the fish market in Masan's Odong-dong, where vendors cooked unsold monkfish over high heat with bean sprouts and chili sauce, closer to stir-frying than braising. No water is added; the sprouts release enough liquid to pool in the pan, and a little starch slurry, added bit by bit, sets the thickness. Once the fish is gone, rice often gets mixed into the leftover sauce.
Two days in a soy and vinegar brine take the raw sting out of large green onions and leave only their mellow onion fragrance behind. The recipe leans on the white and pale green sections, which stay crisp after pickling.
Packaged wheat noodles, cooked separately and laid in a clear broth of brisket and beef bones, make this a home version rather than a re-creation of traditional geonjin guksu, whose noodles are kneaded with soybean flour. The broth is not meant to turn milky and gelatinous like a long-boiled bone stock; about 70 minutes of gentle simmering, or longer if the brisket is still tough, is enough. Soaking, blanching, and boiling the noodles add time on top of that. Each bowl is topped with shredded brisket, zucchini, and separate strips of yolk and white omelet.
Springy canned sea snails (golbaengi) are tossed with cucumber, onion and scallion in a hot, sour and sweet sauce of gochujang, chili flakes, vinegar and sugar, a classic drinking snack in Korea. A 5-minute soak in cold water takes the harsh edge off the onion so it blends into the sauce. The snails drain well in a sieve first, as leftover brine from the can thins the sauce until it no longer clings. The plate goes to the table right away: once dressed, the salt starts drawing water out of the vegetables. Spooned over thin somyeon noodles, it becomes golbaengi somyeon, with the noodles soaking up the dressing.
Thick blocks of pork belly are simmered twice: first in plain water with ginger and scallion until the fat layer turns soft, then in a fresh soy sauce, mirin and sugar glaze that leaves a glossy brown film on the surface. Splitting the work this way lets the meat go tender before the seasoning has a chance to reduce too far. Boiled eggs cook in the glaze alongside the pork and come out stained brown, seasoned through the white.
Amaranth greens, their tough stem ends snapped off one by one with the fingers, are blanched for under a minute, squeezed hard and dressed with doenjang, soup soy sauce and perilla oil.
Rice simmered low until the grains all but vanish forms a smooth base for cubes of century egg, whose white has set into amber jelly and whose yolk has turned creamy and dark green. The egg, a duck egg cured for weeks in clay, ash, and salt, brings a dense, faintly sulfurous richness that stands out against the plain porridge.
A splash of cheongju (Korean rice wine) under a lid opens the clams, then butter goes in, and the clam juices and butter run together into a salty sauce in the bottom of the pan. Whatever is left gets mopped up with bread. The clams bring their own salt, so the soy sauce stops at a teaspoon, and any clam that stays shut is thrown out.
Zigzag-folded fish cake skewers simmer in a clear broth of radish, dried anchovy and kelp, and the hot broth served alongside matters as much as the skewers. Radish sweetness and anchovy savoriness carry the flavor, with only a light seasoning of soy sauce and garlic.
Only the white part of the green onion is used, since the green tops burn before the inside cooks. Grilled hard, the outside chars deep brown and the inside softens until a chopstick slides in easily, turning sweet. Once plated, the onions get a little sesame oil, sesame seeds and lemon zest.
Altang uses fresh, unsalted pollock roe. Make it with cured myeongran and the broth turns salty on the same amount of soy sauce, so check the label for unsalted when you shop.
Despite the name, Gyoda furai is never deep-fried. This snack from Gyoda in Saitama is a loose flour batter spread into a 20 cm round on a lightly oiled pan, topped with long onion and thin pork, and pressed down again and again with a pot lid as it cooks. When brown spots appear on the batter it is brushed with Worcestershire-style sauce and eaten hot.
Red chili and Cheongyang chili, both sliced on the bias, go into this clear clam broth, but not until two minutes before the heat goes off. The base is just radish simmered in water, and the rest of the flavor comes from the juices the clams release as they open.
Unlike agujjim, the gochujang-heavy steamed monkfish, this one simmers down in a soy-based broth, where salt and sweetness come before heat. As the liquid reduces, the monkfish and radish take on an amber gloss, and that sauce gets spooned over rice.
Long 6 to 7 cm lengths of green onion get a coat of gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) and anchovy fish sauce, and every bite carries the onion's sharpness together with salty, fermented depth. Glutinous rice paste holds that seasoning on the smooth onion surface. Without it, the paste would slide to the bottom of the container as the kimchi ripens. It goes beside pork belly or boiled pork, or folded into a lettuce wrap, and it is a good way to use up a bundle of older green onions.
Minced pork, crumbled fine, clings to thin glass noodles as they soak up a reduced doubanjiang broth, and those bits of meat on the strands give the dish its name. The liquid cooks down almost completely, so the result is moist and glossy rather than soupy. Glass noodles go in still slightly firm and finish cooking in the pan, absorbing the sauce without breaking.
Okara (soy pulp) is dry-toasted until crumbly, then mixed with vinegar-cured sardine, salted cucumber and carrot, and sweet simmered fried tofu, all held together by a thick peanut and miso dressing. The dish comes from the Boso coast of Chiba, and each portion is squeezed by hand into a small rice-bale shape. Store-bought okara added straight from the pack carries too much water and turns the mix soggy, which is why it is toasted first. The salted vegetables and the vinegar-rinsed sardine also need to be well drained, or the shaped bales slump. Toasty okara, salty fish, sweet vinegared miso and yuzu peel land in a single bite.
When the white fish comes out of the steamer, a heap of shredded scallion and ginger goes on top and oil heated until it shimmers is poured over it so the aromatics sizzle. In Cantonese cooking the fish is usually steamed whole; this version uses a fillet, which is easier to handle at home.
Cheonggak, a branching green seaweed, gets just ten seconds in boiling water: enough to turn it a deep green while keeping its crunchy, almost cartilage-like bite. It's dressed with plenty of vinegar and eaten right away.
Chadolbagi, paper-thin beef brisket, goes into a dry, very hot pan with no oil at all; its own fat renders out and crisps the edges. The garlicky soy glaze is poured in at the very end and tossed for only 15 to 20 seconds, just long enough to turn glossy.
Between the slightly bitter bangpung namul, a spring green also called sea breeze herb, and the sweetness of shrimp seasoned with mirin, the dish needs little more than a tablespoon of soy sauce. The spring leaves are thin, so they go in last with the soy and come off the heat while still bright green.
The skewered fish cakes start in a dry pan with no oil. Driving off their surface moisture is what lets the soy and gochujang glaze stay put instead of running off. After brushing, a short second spell over the heat melts the sugar into a shine, and sliced green onion and sesame seeds go on top.
With fat running between the muscles, chicken neck meat never turns dry the way breast does; it chews springy and savory. It gets a short toss in soy sauce, mirin and garlic, a hot sear until a brown crust forms, and green onion stirred in for the last 30 seconds.
Along Korea's west and south coasts, where mallow and clams are both easy to find, the two have long shared a pot of doenjang soup. The mallow is rubbed between the hands as it is washed, which gives the broth a little body, and the finished soup is usually eaten with rice stirred in.