480 recipes. Page 12 of 20
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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.
Hwangtae is pollock dried through a winter of freezing and thawing in mountain air, which leaves the flesh light and full of tiny holes. Soaked and stir-fried, the shreds take the gochujang glaze all the way in and turn red, moist and chewy.
Firm tofu is cut into thick slabs, pan-fried until golden, and served with a dipping sauce of soy sauce, chili flakes, chopped green onion and sesame oil. Left unmoved until the bottom of the first side firms up, the slices hold together when the wide spatula goes under them.
The ingredients are nearly those of kimchi stew, but with more water, so it becomes a soup for pouring over hot rice. How it tastes depends on how sour the kimchi is; if yours is still young, a little vinegar fills the gap.
Three potatoes, cut big, simmer with pork in a gochujang broth. The starch they release as they cook thickens the broth without any stock or added starch. Stir only now and then, just to keep the bottom from catching; more than that and the potatoes break.
No meat goes into this braise, only eggplant and tofu sold for pan-frying; the eggplant drinks up the soy and chili sauce and turns silky, while the tofu, browned first, keeps its shape around it.
A good soak in salted water draws much of the harsh bitterness out of godeulppaegi greens. What stays in the finished kimchi is a gentle bitter undertone beneath the fermented tang. The roots stay chewy while the leaves turn soft, giving two textures in one stem. In parts of Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces it is traditionally made in autumn and eaten through the winter. After at least 2 days of ripening it goes to the table as a side for rice.
Rabokki adds instant ramen noodles to tteokbokki, the chewy rice cakes simmered in a sweet, spicy gochujang sauce. The rice cakes simmer alone for 5 minutes to soften, and the ramen and fish cakes follow for just 3, because the noodles soak up sauce fast; by the time they are cooked, the sauce has reduced to a thick glaze. Plenty of water at the start allows for that absorption. Half a packet of the ramen seasoning deepens the savoriness, and a layer of cheese turns it into cheese rabokki. Boiled eggs and green onion finish the pot, which is best eaten right away before the noodles swell.
Fish sauce and lime hit first, salty and sour, with seared sirloin underneath carrying the beefy flavor. Chili flakes bring heat, and torn mint cuts through the richness of the meat. Rather than a fixed cooking time, which shifts with the thickness of the steak and the heat of the pan, doneness is judged by the thickest part reaching at least 63°C, followed by a 5-minute rest before slicing. If the red onion tastes too sharp, a 5-minute soak in cold water tames it, as long as it is drained well afterward. Fish sauce does all the seasoning with no separate salt, and the beef is tossed while still warm so it contrasts with the crisp cucumber, tomato and red onion.
Soybean leaves are bigger and thicker than perilla leaves, and here they are boiled and dressed with doenjang and perilla oil, country style. Fresh ones appear only in summer and turn up more at rural markets or farm stands than in supermarkets. They need 5 to 6 minutes of boiling to soften the tough fibers, but much longer and their nutty aroma fades.
Rajma means kidney beans and chawal means rice, and that is the whole idea: a thick tomato and bean curry ladled generously over rice and eaten together. Onions cooked slowly until their edges brown give the sauce its body without any cream.
Dried shredded squid (jinmichae) is usually done in gochujang; this version uses butter and soy sauce, so it comes out rich and sweet-salty. There is only a pinch of chili flakes, so it is not spicy.
Bellflower root soaks in salt water for ten minutes and blanches for just one, enough to soften its bitterness while keeping its firm crunch. Coated in gochujang, it grills in a pan or over an open flame, and the open flame gives a stronger smoky note.
Doenjang, not gochujang, seasons this crab stew, so it tastes nutty and savory before it tastes hot, with the chili flakes and Cheongyang pepper staying in the background.
A local dish of Taean in South Chungcheong: blue crab and aged kimchi in one pot, seasoned with salted shrimp. The broth gets its flavor from the kimchi, and it has to be well-fermented mukeunji. The crabs have the top shell removed and the leg tips trimmed, and the bodies are cut in half before they go in.
There is no salting the eggplant to draw out water. It softens on its own under the lid, in the same pot as browned pork shoulder, and picks up the rendered fat along with the soy and chili, which makes it far richer than eggplant braised alone.
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.
One pot of spicy anchovy broth carries three rounds: thin beef and vegetables first, then kalguksu noodles, then fried rice scraped from the bottom. Beef slices go in one at a time, since a clump stays red in the middle. Each round leaves more flavor in the broth for the next. Stop the rice once a thin crust starts to form, before it scorches.
The lid stays on for the full 3 minutes of boiling; lift it early and the sprouts keep a raw, beany smell. A quick cold rinse right after draining keeps the stems snappy, and squeezing out the water keeps the sesame oil and garlic dressing from going thin.
Siraegi, dried radish greens boiled until tender, steam on top of the rice, and nothing seasons the pot. Each person stirs in a doenjang and soy paste with chili flakes and green onion, a spoonful at a time, and decides how salty the bowl gets.
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.
This is the cumin-and-chili flavor of a Korean lamb skewer bar, where you roll each skewer through a dish of spice, made at home in a pan or on a grill. Here the cumin and chili flakes are mixed and scattered straight onto the meat as it finishes cooking. If cumin is new to you, a little curry powder in the mix makes it less foreign.
Blue crabs in spring are packed with meat and taste noticeably sweet. Here they are halved and simmered in their shells with chili flakes and Cheongyang peppers, and the closer to live the crabs are when they go in, the more of that sweetness comes through.
Two tablespoons of gochujang set the base, and half a tablespoon of chili flakes adjusts the heat. Pork shoulder is first cooked with a little of the water, then the seasoning is fried onto it for a minute, which keeps the gochujang from floating separately in the broth. It suits being ladled generously over cold rice.