21 recipes. Page 1 of 1
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Dried taro leaves simmer slowly in coconut milk until they collapse into a creamy, spoonable mass with a faint sheen of oil on top. Fully dried leaves are essential, since fresh ones can leave an itchy, prickly feeling in the mouth. It comes from the Bicol region of the Philippines and is eaten a little at a time with plenty of warm rice.
Saeujeot, tiny salted shrimp, supplies every bit of salt in this side dish; the chili flakes, garlic, scallion, and sesame oil only round it out into something eaten a little at a time from a small bowl. Jars vary a lot in how much brine they hold, and too much liquid leaves the seasoning sliding around in a puddle. Coloring the shrimp with chili flakes first, then folding the rest in from the bottom up, keeps the little shrimp whole instead of mashed.
One zucchini and a spoonful of salted shrimp (saeujeot) are about all this side dish needs. The shrimp brings a savory saltiness, so extra salt is rarely needed.
Mallow leaves give this doenjang soup a slightly thick, silky broth, so it feels different in the mouth from a spinach or radish version. Koreans have grown mallow in home gardens and made this soup since the Joseon era, and fresh mallow is at its most tender in early summer.
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.
Finely chopped salted shrimp loosened in water seasons this zucchini side dish instead of soy sauce, a habit handed down from country tables where salted shrimp was the main seasoning. Cooking it covered over medium-low heat lands somewhere between steaming and braising, and the zucchini softens without going mushy.
Chamnamul greens are salted for just 10 minutes and dressed without rinsing, letting the leftover salt season them. A gentle squeeze is enough, since wringing bruises the tender leaves and makes them slump during fermentation. Blended Korean pear and onion in the sweet rice paste round off the chili heat. With so much moisture in the greens, fermentation moves fast and the kimchi softens if kept too long. Small batches eaten within a few days work best.
The broth gets its heat from dried chilies and smells of lemongrass, with a salty depth from fermented shrimp, and the noodles are bún, thick rice noodles that are round in cross-section. Bean sprouts and lime go on the side, and a few slices of cooked pork blood sausage bring the bowl closer to how it is served in Hue.
Salted shrimp and chili flakes stay out of the pot and go on the table, and each person sets the salt and heat. The boiled pork goes into the bone broth first to flavor it; the sundae follows and only warms through over low heat, which keeps the casings from splitting.
No doenjang or gochujang here; salted shrimp does the seasoning. Its saltiness varies by jar, which is why only one tablespoon goes in at first and the remaining half is added at the end to taste. The base is rice-rinsing water with potato boiled in it for eight minutes, and chili flakes and cheongyang pepper turn it red and sharp.
Salted tiny shrimp (saeujeot) season the eggs instead of salt, and anchovy stock gives them savory depth. Cooked slowly in an earthenware pot (ttukbaegi) over low heat with a gentle stir through the middle, it comes out soft and puffed, nothing like the glassy-smooth custard of Japanese chawanmushi.
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.
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.
Young spring napa cabbage (eolgari) soaks up seasoning quickly through its thin leaves and tender stems and turns pleasantly sour by the next day. That speed cuts both ways: 20 to 30 minutes of salting is plenty, and longer turns the stems tough. The stems are a better signal than the clock: the cabbage is turned once midway, and salting stops as soon as they bend slightly. Salted shrimp and fish sauce fill in savory depth that a short ferment would otherwise lack, while glutinous rice paste helps the chili seasoning cling to every leaf. Koreans make this lighter kimchi in spring, when aged winter kimchi starts to feel heavy.
No stock goes into the pot: plain water plus 3 tablespoons of salted shrimp (saeujeot) carries all the savory depth. The radish is cut into thin julienne and tossed with the shrimp and chili flakes before cooking, so the seasoning is already in the strands when the water goes in. The broth comes out clearer and more lightly spicy than doenjang or kimchi jjigae.
Thick-skinned green chilies hold their crunch through salting and a short ferment, and the heat concentrated around the seeds bursts out when you bite down. Only about half the seeds are shaken out, and the pods are best eaten within 2 to 3 days while still crisp.
Instead of salt, this Jeolla version seasons the scallions with thick fermented anchovy sauce, myeolchi jinjeot, which gives them a funky, deep saltiness. The sauce goes only on the white stalks at first, since they are thick and need a head start, and whatever drains off is stirred back into the chili paste rather than thrown away. Pear juice sweetens the paste in place of sugar for a cleaner finish. The green tops get only a light swipe of seasoning, because squeezing them makes the kimchi taste grassy.
Salted shrimp and anchovy fish sauce layer two kinds of seafood savoriness, and glutinous rice paste thickens the seasoning so it clings to the scallions even after they release water. Six hours at room temperature plus a day of chilling make it ready for grilled pork belly or bossam, and after three days or more its lactic sourness suits stews and stir-fries.
Built for kimjang, the big winter kimchi-making session, this recipe works through 10 kg of salted napa cabbage at once. The radish strips are tossed with the chili flakes first and turn red before the fish sauce, salted shrimp and garlic join them, which keeps the seasoning a clean, even color. Mustard greens and water dropwort cut into the seasoning give it a clean, slightly bitter aroma. Fresh oysters are optional and make the kimchi taste cooler and brighter, but because they also sour it faster, they go only into the containers that will be opened first. After one to two days at room temperature, the kimchi moves to the fridge and keeps its flavor for two to three weeks.
Cut into 2 cm cubes, the radish stays crunchy beside seolleongtang or gomtang, the milky beef soups it usually accompanies, and turns sweeter as it ferments. After salting, only the released water is poured off and the cubes go unrinsed, keeping in the salt and sugar they absorbed.
Big chunks of radish and plenty of cool, tangy brine make seokbakji a natural partner for rich bone broth soups like seolleongtang. Salted shrimp does more than season the chili paste; it lays down a fermented, savory base. A day at room temperature followed by two days in the fridge turns the water drawn from the radish into a refreshing, lightly sour brine. The salted radish is drained but not rinsed, so the salt it holds seasons the kimchi from inside.