230 recipes. Page 1 of 10
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In the Noto area of Ishikawa, this root vegetable side dish is made for New Year and other special occasions. Flattened soybeans, burdock, and fried tofu simmer in sweetened soy, while daikon and carrot strips are blanched separately and folded in afterward, and each keeps its own texture. Vinegar layered over the soy seasoning puts it somewhere between a simmered dish and a dressed salad.
Bone-in pieces of flounder ferment with foxtail millet rice, thick radish strips and chili flakes until the whole mix turns tangy and salty. This version leaves out glutinous rice and fish sauce, so the millet grains stay visible between the fish, and after mixing it still needs 4 to 5 days in a cool place.
Clam meat, julienned radish and shiitake cook on top of rice in kombu water, and the finished pot gets mixed with a soy, sesame oil and scallion sauce at the table. The radish steams over the rice and sweetens it, and cutting it thin (0.3 cm) lets it finish at the same time as the rice. The soaked rice has to drain well, since the kombu water is measured for rice without surface water. The clams go on only near the end so they stay plump.
Covered and cooked in a little soy-seasoned water, the radish strands turn translucent and bend easily around a chopstick. Made with winter radish, the dish comes out noticeably sweeter.
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.
Winter yellowtail carries a thick layer of fat under the skin, enough that coarse salt is the only seasoning it needs. That fat renders in the pan and crisps the skin, so the skin side gets most of the cooking time and the fish is turned just once.
This is the spicy monkfish soup Koreans go looking for the morning after, made at home. Monkfish flesh is soft and breaks apart easily, so once it is in the pot it barely gets stirred. If you can get the liver, adding it separately makes the broth deeper.
Mu-jeon sits on the Chuseok and Seollal jeon platter next to hobak-jeon and gaji-jeon. The radish has to be sliced an even 3 mm: thicker pieces keep a raw, acrid center, and thinner ones break apart in the pan. A little rice flour goes into the batter with the pancake mix, and a soy-vinegar dip comes alongside.
This monkfish stew lands between a clear soup and a heavily seasoned jjigae, with a cloudier, bolder broth than either and large pieces of firm fish. A small spoonful of doenjang tames the fish's odor, and gelatin from under the monkfish skin melts into the pot and thickens the broth with no starch.
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.
With no gochugaru at all, this white kimchi is mild, and its clear brine is eaten along with the cabbage. Pear, radish, garlic and ginger carry the flavor instead, and the pear adds sweetness while softening the fermented smell. The filling is tossed lightly with fingertips, because rough handling bruises the radish and pear strips, and everything is drained well to keep the brine from clouding. After half a day at room temperature it ferments slowly in the fridge for 2 to 3 weeks, until the liquid tastes clean, cool and gently sour, a good foil for fatty meat.
Hard clams, not anchovies, give this broth its base, and their clean sea flavor soaks into every strand of hand-cut noodle. Radish, zucchini, and onion add sweetness, while starch released by the noodles thickens the soup slightly without any added thickener. Shaking the loose flour off the noodles first keeps that thickening from turning the broth cloudy. The clams come out as soon as their shells open and return only at the end, keeping the meat from turning rubbery. This style has long been eaten along the coasts of South Chungcheong and Jeolla, and it tastes best when clams are in season.
Fried thick tofu (atsuage) and toasted white sesame are ground together into a thick dressing that clings to shredded daikon and carrot. The grinding goes on until no flecks of the tofu skin remain, which is what makes the coating smooth enough to wrap the fine shreds. It resembles shiraae, the Japanese tofu-dressed salad, in its nutty richness, but vinegar and Japanese mustard make it tart with a little nasal heat. Wringing the salted daikon and carrot out firmly in two or three goes keeps the coating thick after the vinegar is added and lets the vegetables keep their crunch. Thin diagonal slices of blanched snow peas add green against the white and orange.
Pig trotters simmer here until the bones slip out and the broth sets to a jelly once cold. The Okinawan method first blanches them in water spiked with awamori, the island's rice spirit, to strip away odor and excess fat, then adds kombu and daikon radish for the long simmer. Seasoning stays light, just salt and a little soy sauce, and the broth tastes clean. The dish carries on Ryukyu pork cookery, which used every part of the animal and passed from the royal court into ordinary homes.
Dip the tentacle tips into the boiling water three or four times and they curl inward; that curl is the shape the octopus keeps on the plate. After that the water stays at a gentle simmer, because a hard boil toughens the flesh. Thick diagonal slices go out with chogochujang, a vinegared chili sauce.
Small rolls of plain seasoned rice with no filling sit beside spicy squid and seasoned radish, and you take a bite of one, then the other. It is the Tongyeong way: salt and sesame oil for the rice, and all the heat in the side dishes.
Stir-fried in perilla oil, julienned radish loses its raw, peppery sharpness and turns gently sweet. It is one of the basic namul, used for bibimbap and set out on Korean ancestral-rite tables.
Autumn mackerel needs nothing but salt, and that is down to its fat. The fat under the skin melts out and does the frying itself. Grated radish mixed with soy sauce sits alongside. If a pan feels like a chore, an air fryer at 180°C for 15 minutes works too.
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.
The shrimp are only halved and roughly chopped, which leaves them with some bite among the julienned radish after frying. A little potato starch in the batter makes the pancake slightly chewier.
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.
Pollock roe and milt are braised together in a chili and soy sauce. They come from the same fish but cook in opposite directions: the roe firms up, each tiny egg popping under the teeth, while the milt turns soft as custard and breaks into tender curds. In east coast port towns, where fresh roe is easy to find during the pollock's winter spawning season, it has long been a winter dish.
Halved Brussels sprouts hold their structure through salting, and each bite gives a firm crunch and a little sweetness. Score the stem ends no deeper than 5 mm or the leaves fall apart, and give strongly bitter sprouts an extra 5 minutes in the brine.
Chogye guksu gets its broth from the same pot that poaches the chicken: the stock is chilled, then sharpened with vinegar and Korean hot mustard until it tastes tart, icy, and slightly nose-tingling. The mustard waits until the stock is fully cold, because warm liquid drives off its volatile aroma. The chicken breast is shredded only after it cools completely, since tearing it hot lets the juices run out and leaves dry strands. Thin matchsticks of cucumber and radish add crunch, and cut to the same width they twirl up evenly with the noodles. It is a summer dish for days when appetite runs low.