779 recipes. Page 25 of 33
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A full 120g of water parsley (minari) turns an everyday doenjang stew green and sharply aromatic, with a peppery, grassy bite against the fermented soybean broth. The minari simmers for only 2 minutes and comes off the heat while the stems are still crisp, not limp and stringy.
After an hour and a half of slow braising in soy sauce, pork trotters develop glossy, sticky skin over meat soft enough for a chopstick to slide through. Onion, garlic, ginger and whole peppercorns in the braising liquid carry the soy flavor into the layers between skin and meat. The braising liquid is not wasted: strained and reduced, it becomes the glaze spooned over the slices. Jokbal is eaten wrapped in lettuce with salted shrimp sauce or ssamjang, often late at night with drinks.
Thin rice vermicelli turns yellow with curry powder and tosses with shrimp, bell pepper and bean sprouts into a light, loose stir-fry. With only 1 tablespoon of soy sauce in the pan, curry aroma rather than salt carries the flavor.
Thick slices of button mushroom take the place of beef, seared over high heat until browned, then finished in a sour cream sauce over very low heat. The two stages pull in opposite directions: mushrooms left to stew in their own water turn gray and soft, and sour cream boiled at the end curdles. Paprika tints the sauce and adds gentle warmth.
Blue crab starts in cold water and boils for 12 minutes to make the stock behind this porridge, releasing a natural sweetness from the shells and meat. Once the crab cools, picking the meat from the legs as well as the body gives the porridge plenty of sweet flakes to bite into.
Bracken fern is first coated in perilla oil and then simmered briefly in soy-seasoned water, so it ends up tender and seasoned all the way through. That second stage is closer to braising than frying, and stopping while a little liquid remains keeps the ferns moist. Use bracken that has already been soaked and boiled; dried or raw fern should not go straight into this pan. Splitting the thick stems by hand evens out the seasoning.
Filipino families often make this on rainy days and ladle the broth over rice. The sourness comes from tamarind paste, and if it tastes too mild, another tablespoon goes in. Tomato and onion, added in big pieces, melt into the broth over 30 minutes of simmering.
The shepherd's purse goes in roots and all, because the roots carry its earthy, bitter spring scent. The trade-off is cleaning: soil has to be scraped off with a knife tip and the greens swished through several changes of cold water. Doenjang brands differ in saltiness, and the paste is adjusted half a tablespoon at a time.
Oily Pacific saury can braise for a good twenty minutes in a spicy soy broth and still come out moist. Laying the fish in a single layer over thick radish slices, and pouring water in around the edge rather than over the top, keeps the soft flesh in whole pieces. Skimming the foam when it first boils keeps the sauce clean, and spooning the liquid over the fish midway seasons the exposed top. The liquid is cooked down until only a shallow layer remains, which coats both the fish and the radish. Whatever sauce is left gets spooned onto rice.
Dried radish greens, called siraegi, bring an earthy, faintly bitter note to an anchovy and kelp broth seasoned with doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste. Rinsing the precooked greens again and squeezing them hard keeps any stale smell out of the pot. Tough stems are sorted out and simmered 2 to 3 minutes ahead of the rest so they are tender by the time the noodles are done. The paste is pressed free of lumps with a spoon so the broth is not muddy or salty in spots, and since brands differ in saltiness, soup soy sauce makes the final adjustment. Onion and zucchini soften the paste's saltiness as they cook, and perilla seed powder stirred in at the end gives the soup more weight.
Beef and pork cooked with peppers and green onion fill thin pastry half-moons that are sealed with a fork and deep-fried. Because the filling is cooked and cooled first, the pies fry briefly instead of waiting for raw meat to cook through a thick crust. Shortening rubbed into the flour makes a dough that should not be kneaded like bread, and warm filling melts that fat and tears the thin wrapper. A clear border with the air pushed out keeps the seams closed in the oil.
Okara, the soy pulp left over from making tofu, gives this porridge a nutty, hearty body that lets half a cup of rice make a filling pot, and anchovy stock adds savory depth underneath. The pulp goes in only once the rice is half softened, which lets the grains break down without the okara simmering for too long. Freshly ground soaked soybeans, for anyone making their own pulp, taste noticeably beanier than store-bought.
Briny fresh oysters go into the pan with minari (Korean water parsley), a strongly grassy herb, and are stir-fried with chili flakes and soup soy sauce for a little heat. The oysters are barely cooked, so they stay plump.
The broth starts from brisket browned in sesame oil, yet the sprouts keep it from feeling heavy. Cooked too long, mung bean sprouts give off a raw smell. The heat goes off while their heads still snap.
Octopus (nakji), beef small intestine (gopchang), and shrimp (saeu) give this Busan-style hot pot both its name and three distinct chews under one spicy sauce. With only 200ml of stock, it cooks down to a thick, saucy stew rather than a soup, and once the glass noodles have soaked up the seasoning it is meant to be spooned over rice.
Well-fermented kimchi, sour and soft, meets the oil from canned Pacific saury and cooks down into a tangy, concentrated sauce. With no fish to clean, the work is mostly waiting: about twenty minutes of simmering, partly uncovered, until the kimchi turns tender and the liquid thickens. Sliced cheongyang chili goes in near the end to keep its sharp heat. The fish only needs heating through and stays in large pieces as long as nobody stirs it.
Each vegetable is cooked on its own and folded in at the end, so the spinach stays green and the carrot stays bright instead of fading into the glass noodles. The beef is marinated in soy and garlic first, and the noodles soak up that seasoning in the pan before the last of the soy sauce adds gloss. Spinach that is not squeezed dry leaks water and thins the dressing.
Thick veal shanks braise in tomato, white wine and chicken stock until the meat separates under a fork, with the marrow still sitting in the middle of each bone. That marrow is the best part, so the shanks are turned and lifted gently with tongs rather than jolted. A light, well-shaken coat of flour on the shanks browns in the oil instead of scorching. Onion, carrot and celery soften in the same oil until sweet, and white wine lifts the browned bits from the bottom to start the sauce. The shanks braise covered in the oven with their tops just showing above the liquid. Gremolata, a mix of lemon zest, parsley and garlic, is scattered on just before serving to brighten the long-cooked sauce.
Young soybean leaves have a fresh, grassy aroma that sits well against gangdoenjang, a thick, salty soybean paste here cooked down with shiitake, onion, and garlic until it barely moves. That thickness is the point: a runny paste loosens the rice and leaks out of the leaf. The amount of rice is matched to each leaf, since they vary in size, and the parcels are set seam side down so they hold until serving.
Only soy sauce, cooking wine and garlic season it, and lightly, so the sweetness of Korean zucchini (aehobak) and the shrimp come first. It holds up well at room temperature.
The oxtail soaks in cold water for an hour, gets a quick blanch, and then simmers over low heat for three hours. Left to cool overnight, the broth sets a layer of fat on top that lifts off easily, and the soup is lighter for it. Kkakdugi, cubed radish kimchi, goes on the table with it.
Ninety grams of scorched rice, broken into chunks rather than crumbs, is added for the last three minutes. It is served while the edges have melted into the broth and thickened it but the centers still have some bite. Seasoning waits until the rice has swelled and the stew has thickened.
Squid and shishito peppers end up coated in a spicy glaze of soy sauce, gochujang and gochugaru, with just enough sauce left in the pan to spoon over rice. The squid gets only a short, hot reduction, since it turns rubbery the longer it simmers; once the edges curl and turn white, it is nearly there. Residual heat keeps cooking it, which is the reason to stir in the sesame oil off the heat and plate right away.
Toasted sesame, rice miso, shiso, onion, and cucumber are ground together in a mortar, then thinned with cold bonito stock into a dipping soup for chilled udon. It is a summer dish from Kawajima in Saitama, nutty from the sesame and cool from the shiso and cucumber. Bruising the sliced cucumber with the pestle lets its juice and aroma run into the base. The sesame is ground fine enough for its oil to seep out, which is where the nutty richness comes from. The cold stock is poured in gradually so the thick sesame-miso paste loosens without lumps.