682 recipes. Page 1 of 29
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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.
White miso, toasted sesame oil, and whole sesame seeds go into these thin crackers with only a pinch of sugar, and salty, nutty flavors come before sweet. Stop handling the dough as soon as it comes together. Kneading builds elasticity, which makes it resist rolling thin and bakes into a harder bite. Fresh from the oven they can feel slightly soft, and they crisp as they cool.
Thick-walled and mild, asakigochu peppers need only 20 seconds in boiling water to lose their raw smell while keeping their crunch. The dressing is doenjang and gochujang with a little vinegar. Use cheongyang chilies in the same sauce and the dish turns much hotter.
Flying fish roe, stir-fried kimchi and diced yellow pickled radish sit in sections over rice, scattered with crushed seasoned laver and scallion. The rice is tossed with sesame oil and butter first for a gloss. Left on hot rice, the roe goes slack and the laver soggy, and the bowl is mixed the moment it is ready.
Canned tuna is already cooked, so the zucchini goes in first and the tuna joins only for the last 2 minutes. Added at the start, the tuna breaks into crumbs while the zucchini sheds a lot of water. Soup soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) go in sparingly, enough to tint the zucchini red without making any liquid.
Inside the pork casing, soaked glutinous rice swells as it steams and binds the glass noodles and pork blood into a dense, sticky filling. That swelling is why the casing is filled only about 80% of the way and why any puffed spots get a quick needle prick during steaming.
Puffed barley shatters lightly between chunks of toasted walnut and sesame, all held together by a rice syrup and honey syrup. Its texture hinges on cooking that syrup, unstirred, to 118°C: below it the bars stay tacky after cooling, above it they set hard enough to hurt your teeth. A spoonful of sesame oil stirred in at the end calms the bubbling and leaves a nutty finish.
Inner skirt has coarse muscle fibers with tough sinew running between them, so the first job is snipping that sinew out with scissors and slicing across the grain. Its beefy flavor is strong enough that the soy marinade gets only 20 minutes. Halved garlic cloves cook slowly in the pan first, then the same pan goes to high heat for a quick sear of the beef, and the garlic is plated alongside.
Seaweed and mushrooms are sauteed in sesame oil before the water goes in, then simmered for more than twenty minutes, until the seaweed is soft and the broth slightly silky. Even after that long, the torn oyster mushrooms and sliced shiitake still have some chew.
Plenty of finely chopped garlic chives go into the ground beef, so these bite-sized jeon come out flecked with green. Tofu squeezed dry makes them softer than meat alone, and the soy sauce and sesame oil seasoning still tastes clear once they have cooled.
Dried pollack strips, tofu and eggs make up nearly the whole list. The pollack toasts in sesame oil for two or three minutes, until it smells nutty, and only then does the water go in. The broth stays clear, but that toasting keeps it from tasting thin. Beaten egg poured into the boiling broth spreads into fine threads.
Peeled quail eggs turn chestnut brown on the outside while the yolks stay bright yellow. Reducing the soy glaze all the way makes them too salty. Stop while a shallow pool of sauce remains. A sliced cheongyang chili, a sharp Korean green chili, adds a little heat at the end, and a night in the fridge lets the seasoning sink in further.
Napa cabbage salted for just 20 minutes and tossed straight into a gochugaru dressing gives kimchi with no sourness at all: the red pepper heat and the savory anchovy fish sauce come through cleanly. The short salting bends the thick ribs slightly while keeping them much crisper than fermented kimchi. Sesame oil and sesame seeds are added at the very end, so a nutty aroma sits over the chili. Geotjeori, as this fresh style is called in Korea, is served alongside grilled pork belly or doenjang-jjigae (fermented soybean paste stew), and it fills in when the jar of aged kimchi runs empty. It is best right after mixing, and leftovers keep a day or two chilled.
With no broth to dilute it, the soy, sesame oil, and oyster sauce mixture at the bottom of the bowl clings straight to the noodles, so every mouthful lands at full strength. A small splash of vinegar keeps the oil from feeling heavy, and a bowl that starts to taste greasy just needs one more toss from the bottom up.
Even with no meat in the dish, each cube of eggplant, seared over high heat until just browned, soaks up tomato and soy sauce like a sponge and turns soft and savory. Sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds lend a nutty Korean finish, and fresh basil sits on top.
Hot mustard whisked into a soy-vinegar dressing gives this salad a sinus-clearing kick, and julienned Korean pear cools it down with crisp sweetness. With seared beef round set on garlic chives and red cabbage, the plate eats lighter than most beef dishes. Round is a lean cut, seared hard over high heat so the outside darkens while the center stays pink. After a 5-minute rest, the beef is cut against the grain about 1 cm thick; sliced and left to cool, it toughens. The chives wilt the longer they sit in dressing, which makes the resting time the moment to prep the vegetables and dressing, with everything tossed just before serving.
Bulgogi, thin beef in a sweet soy and garlic marinade, gets a fast sear in a smoking-hot pan before landing between toasted bread with mayo and lettuce. A pan that is not hot enough stews the meat in its own juices instead of browning the edges. Mayonnaise spread to the edges of the bread softens the salty marinade and slows the juices from soaking in. Ciabatta works as well as sandwich bread, and with pre-marinated beef the whole thing comes together in about 10 minutes.
When the white fish comes out of the steamer, a heap of shredded scallion and ginger goes on top and oil heated until it shimmers is poured over it so the aromatics sizzle. In Cantonese cooking the fish is usually steamed whole; this version uses a fillet, which is easier to handle at home.
Mallow usually ends up in doenjang soup in Korean kitchens; blanched and dressed instead, its soft leaves turn slippery and hold onto the fermented paste. Too long in the water and the mucilage loosens until the leaves clump into a slick mass, while too short leaves a grassy smell behind.
The rice gets sesame oil and salt, no vinegar. Pick an avocado that gives slightly when pressed yet holds its shape when sliced: underripe fruit is coarse to chew, and overripe fruit gets crushed by the bamboo mat. Cut avocado loses color and texture quickly, and it is prepared right before rolling.
Between the slightly bitter bangpung namul, a spring green also called sea breeze herb, and the sweetness of shrimp seasoned with mirin, the dish needs little more than a tablespoon of soy sauce. The spring leaves are thin, so they go in last with the soy and come off the heat while still bright green.
Breast or thigh both work, but thigh, with more fat, is the one that stays juicy over direct heat. The gochujang, soy and honey glaze goes on thin, two or three times, building up a sticky shine, and the skewers keep turning over medium heat because honey scorches fast.
Nothing is cooked: roasted black sesame powder and almond flour are bound with honey and rice syrup and pressed into a carved dasik mold. A very thin dusting of pine nut powder inside the mold makes the fine pattern stand out on the black surface.
Instead of lettuce or perilla, this ssam uses napa cabbage leaves charred briefly on a grill, which pick up smoke and sweetness while the inner ribs keep their crunch. That crunch is what lets a leaf wrap around grilled pork belly without tearing. A doenjang-based ssamjang adds salty, fermented depth to the pork fat and cabbage sweetness, and a lightly grilled chili tucked in brings heat.