480 recipes. Page 6 of 20
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Thick-sliced shiitake simmer in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang, layering the mushroom aroma over the paste's mellow, fermented depth before the broth is poured over plump udon. Onion adds quiet sweetness that keeps the salt in check, and a pinch of gochugaru leaves a faint warmth at the finish. Compared with a Japanese dashi-based udon broth, this one is earthier and heavier, closer to a hearty Korean stew.
Thin and wiry, kkosiraegi seaweed snaps cleanly between the teeth, a texture nothing like soft miyeok or kelp. Twenty seconds in boiling water is the limit, and an immediate plunge into cold water brings back the spring. Maesil-cheong, a sweet green plum syrup, gives the sour dressing a fruity note, and cucumber strips add a fresh, green aroma against the sea flavor. Served cold, it makes a refreshing summer side.
Grated bottle gourd, a watery squash, is squeezed dry, bound with chickpea flour and spices, and fried into dumplings that finish in a tomato and onion sauce as a meatless curry. The turmeric, chili powder, and garam masala are split between the dumpling mix and the sauce, so both carry the same spice.
The sauce never goes near the stove: soy sauce, chili flakes, chopped scallion, garlic, and sesame oil are stirred together and spooned straight over thick slices of tofu fresh from the pan. Only the scallion softens a little in the heat coming off the tofu. Every household mixes it differently, some easing off the chili flakes, others adding a fresh hot chili.
The oysters go on only after the rice has absorbed nearly all its water, and they cook in the five-minute rest and nothing more. Added at the start, they would shrink and lose their sweetness. The rice itself is unseasoned; everyone stirs in their own soy, chili flake, scallion and sesame oil sauce.
Balloon flower root has a sharp, bitter edge, so the torn strands are rubbed hard with salt and rinsed twice before they meet the pan. The sauce is gochujang sweetened with oligosaccharide syrup and sharpened with chili flakes, cooked only until it clings to each strand in a thin, glossy layer. Brief cooking keeps a firm bite in the root.
Water and milk make the base, with gochujang stirred in, and the rice cakes and fish cake simmer in it. Milk tends to split over high heat, so the pot stays at medium-low the whole time, and the mozzarella goes in just before the heat goes off to melt on what is left.
Cockles are at their plumpest from winter into early spring. They go into boiling water only until the shells start to open, then get a thin layer of spicy sauce and a turn in the pan. Bubbling sauce does not mean the meat is done; the center should hold 85 to 90°C for more than 90 seconds. The sauce left in the pan gets mixed into rice.
Frozen pollock gets just ten minutes in the red, gochugaru-spiked broth. Any longer and the flesh falls apart while the bones leach a bitter, fishy taste. Tofu, green onion and cheongyang chilies join for the final five minutes.
Chonggak kimchi, made from small whole radishes with their greens, replaces the usual napa cabbage kimchi, so the stew has chunks of radish with real bite instead of soft leaves. Keeping the pot at a gentle bubble stops the radish from turning mushy.
Cod is lean and mild, so it gets a punchy sauce of soy, gochujang and chili flakes. The radish under it soaks that sauce up and ends up as good as the fish.
Cheonggak, a branching green seaweed, gives this radish kimchi a firm, almost crunchy chew and a marine aroma that land-vegetable kimchi lacks. Half the paste is massaged into the julienned radish first so it seasons evenly; the seaweed joins the remaining paste and is tossed quickly, because long handling toughens it. A day in the fridge lets the seaweed's salinity merge with the fish sauce paste, and the briny result sits naturally beside seafood and mild rice soups.
In Kagawa, fresh udon goes straight into the loach and miso soup, so it eats as both soup and a bowl of noodles, with burdock, eggplant, taro and fried tofu in the pot too. The loach is never self-caught: only farmed fish that a licensed supplier has professionally purged.
It looks like radish saengchae, but kohlrabi is juicier and lightly sweet, closer to a pear, which gives the salad a noticeably different taste. The vegetable is the swollen base of a cabbage-family stem, and its fibrous outer layer comes off in a thick peel. Fish sauce supplies savory depth and vinegar a sour lift, both framing the mild sweetness. It turns up most in spring and autumn, when kohlrabi is in season.
Gujarati thepla is whole wheat flatbread, and this version is kneaded with grated bottle gourd and its juice in place of water. The dough looks stiff at first, but water added then leaves it slack after resting, since the gourd keeps releasing moisture.
Cheongyang peppers, the hottest everyday chili in Korea, carry this raw soy dressing, and keeping or scraping out their seeds sets how sharp it gets. The tofu needs a hot pan and high heat until the underside turns deep brown; drop the heat and the tofu releases water and steams, losing the contrast between crust and soft center.
The mussels are boiled first, the meat set aside, and the strained cooking liquid becomes the water for the rice. That is why the grains themselves taste of mussel. The meat goes back on top of the finished rice, along with some minari, a Korean water dropwort.
Tofu is blanched in salted water for 3 minutes and cut into thick slabs, and sour aged kimchi is stir-fried with pork shoulder and onion to go alongside. The blanching firms the tofu's surface so the thick slices are easy to pick up, and a spoonful of the hot kimchi on top seasons the outside. When it is served with soju or makgeolli, the tofu and the stir-fry go on separate plates.
Chapssal sundae, sticky-rice blood sausage, is already cooked, so frying it is not about cooking it through but about a crisp shell and a center that gets hot. The batter is thickened with potato starch, and two rounds in the oil firm it up. A dusting of chili powder while hot, mustard on the side.
Busan-style kkomjangeo, or hagfish, is cooked fast over high heat. Leave it too long in the marinade or the pan and it weeps water and loses its springy chew. The scallions go in just long enough to wilt.
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.
It also goes by dak bokkeumtang, and although the name ends in tang, meaning soup, it is reduced for about 25 minutes until the sauce clings to the chicken. The chicken pieces are blanched for three minutes and rinsed of bone fragments before they go into the pot. Sugar in the sauce makes the sweetness as clear as the heat.
Braised a long time with bone-in chicken, the radish turns brown from all the chicken stock and chili sauce it takes in. The potatoes crumble at the edges and thicken the sauce.
Bok choy makes a lighter, crunchier kimchi than napa cabbage, ready to eat within a day. The salt goes mainly on the thick stems, and 20 minutes is the limit before the stems toughen. The halves drain thoroughly in a sieve after rinsing, because leftover water thins the paste until it slides off the leaves. Blending the salted shrimp and fish sauce into the sweet rice paste first makes the seasoning easy to spread thinly between leaves. Julienned carrot and scallions add color and a varied bite. After 4 hours at room temperature it moves to the fridge.