61 recipes. Page 1 of 3
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A thin rice batter is spread paper-thin over a cloth set above boiling water, steamed until translucent, then rolled around ground pork with chopped wood ear mushroom. These Hanoi wrappers are far softer and more delicate than wheat ones, so pulling on a sheet while lifting or rolling tears it at once.
Eggplant and ground pork are stir-fried in green onion oil, then piled, oil and all, on top of the soaked rice, so the eggplant cooks with the rice while soaking up the pork fat and onion aroma. Cut it thick, about 1.5 cm, and pull it off the heat before it goes limp, or it collapses once the rice is done. Soy sauce splashed onto the hot edge of the pan adds a slightly smoky note.
Dry-frying, gan bian in Chinese, means cooking the beans over high heat with very little stirring until the skins wrinkle and pick up brown spots. This home-style version seasons them with doubanjiang, garlic and ginger and leaves out ya cai, dried chilies and Sichuan peppercorns, so the result is salty and gently hot rather than numbing. Crumbly fried pork settles in between the beans.
Mild green chilies are split lengthwise, packed with a pork and tofu filling and fried in a thin batter. One bite goes through crisp coating, then snappy pepper, then soft filling.
Ground beef and pork are combined two to one and worked in one direction for more than three minutes, until the mix sticks to the hands and turns smooth; that stickiness gives the thick patties their firm bite. The onion is minced fine and pressed lightly, leaving it a little moist rather than wrung dry.
The Thai name translates roughly as bland soup, and next to spicy dishes like som tam or tom yum that is exactly its job: a gentle, clear broth that gives the palate a rest. It is still seasoned, with fish sauce, and the pork meatballs carry nothing but white pepper so the meat tastes like itself. Silken tofu, napa cabbage, and glass noodles fill out the bowl.
The eggplant is salted and blotted dry, and the ground pork is cooked first with onion and garlic, then cooled before it goes into the batter. Because the meat is never raw in the pan, even thick rounds cook evenly to the center, and the softened eggplant stays moist between bits of pork.
Gochujang toasts in rendered pork fat before any broth goes in, and that spicy red oil gives the stew more body than simply boiling everything together. Zucchini half-moons simmer for 6 minutes, enough to take on seasoning without collapsing into mush.
Blanched napa cabbage leaves are rolled around a filling of minced pork and mashed tofu, then steamed. The filling needs two or three minutes of kneading to turn sticky, or the rolls come undone in the pot, and each roll sits seam-side down. Stir a little starch into the leftover cooking liquid and it becomes a sauce to go with them.
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.
Inside go browned pork, carrot and daikon pickled in vinegar, and cilantro, and nothing else. The pâté and cold cuts common on Saigon street carts are left out, which puts more weight on the bread: the baguette is filled the moment it comes out warm with a crackling crust.
Keep the fat that renders from the ground pork, because the onion cooks in it next and needs time to turn deeply golden; rushing that stage leaves the sauce pale. During the low simmer, the sauce is ready for the peeled eggs once it has thickened and the pork looks glossy, and the eggs stay in until their surface turns deep brown. Spoon both meat and sauce over the rice so the liquid soaks into the grains.
Once the seared tofu goes back into the pan, it is never stirred with a spatula; shaking the pan coats it in the red kimchi oil instead. The riper the kimchi, the more its sourness fades as it cooks, leaving a deeper savory taste.
Chopped kimchi goes into the pork filling, so its sourness and heat cut through the richness of the meat. Browning, steaming and crisping all happen in one pan, and the soy dip gets an extra splash of vinegar.
Kuuri means ice and jishi means meat, but the ice here has nothing to do with temperature: it is the egg that spreads across the clear broth in soft white drifts, like snow. Before the war, when eggs were scarce in Okinawa, families made it at Obon to welcome the spirits of their ancestors.
Mild green chilies split lengthwise are stuffed with ground pork, pressed tofu and garlic and fried filling side down, which browns the meat while the pepper keeps its fresh, gentle heat. Fill each half only about seventy percent of the way, because the filling swells as it cooks and an overstuffed pepper splits open.
Okara, the soybean pulp, drinks up the broth and cooks down almost to the thickness of porridge. Pork and sour kimchi are fried in perilla oil first, and salted shrimp seasons the pot at the end. Okara sinks and catches on the bottom; through the 20-plus minutes of gentle simmering, the pot needs frequent scraping.
Mild Korean green peppers are halved and packed with a pork and tofu filling, the same idea as pan-fried stuffed peppers, but steamed instead of fried for a lighter result, with skins that turn just translucent. The thin dusting of flour inside each pepper is not decoration: it glues the filling to the pepper so nothing slides out during steaming. Leaving a short stem on gives each piece a handle.
Soft crab balls rise through a red, tomato-sour broth in this Vietnamese noodle soup. In northern Vietnam the traditional version pounds whole paddy crabs and strains the liquid, which sets into a custard-like layer as it heats, while this recipe mixes crabmeat, ground pork and egg into a sticky paste instead. Everything rides on the balls holding together: the paste goes by the spoonful into broth that is barely moving and stays unstirred until the pieces firm up. Shrimp paste goes in a little at a time because it is strongly salty.
Yeast-raised wheat dough wraps a filling of ground pork, cabbage and scallion seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil, and the soft, light skin holds in the juices. The pleats at the top do more than shape the bun: they keep those juices from leaking out during steaming.
Think of soft tofu stew (sundubu jjigae) made with just a cup of broth and poured straight over rice. Pork belly is cooked first so gochugaru and garlic can bloom in its fat, which gives the small amount of broth its heat. An egg cracked into the center and cooked only until the white just sets adds a soft, rich finish.
This jeyuk bokkeum starts by searing: pork with only a thin coat of gochujang marinade is spread across a very hot pan and left untouched for about two minutes until the edges darken. Onion and scallion join only after the pork has browned.
Kimchi goes in at nearly the same weight as the pork, so the first thing you taste is its sourness. Short-cut garlic chives and pressed tofu fill out the mix, seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, and sesame oil.
In Kagoshima, tonjiru is made with barley miso, which is sweet and mellow. Pork, daikon, taro, konjac and atsuage (thick fried tofu) go in so generously that they nearly fill the bowl, and thin scallions and slivers of ginger go on top.