683 recipes. Page 16 of 29
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The tofu is browned on both sides before it ever meets the sauce, then set on a bed of thinly sliced onion and simmered in soy. By the time the sauce has reduced, the onion has all but melted away. Sliced cheongyang chili and scallion go on top for the last minute.
With 700 g of pork neck cooked in one go, there is enough for four people to wrap in lettuce. Gochugaru goes in alongside the gochujang, adding a drier, more powdery heat on top of the paste's.
Mackerel is cut into pieces, brushed with gochujang, soy sauce and ginger juice, and left for 30 minutes before it cooks. Skin side down, the pieces stay untouched for 4 to 5 minutes until the edges set red. Any piece sitting where the sauce starts to blacken gets moved aside.
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.
Perilla leaves, brushed thinly with soy and chili seasoning and stacked, braise gently into soft, dark green sheets that still peel apart one at a time. Draped over a spoonful of rice, each leaf brings its strong herbal aroma and the salty sauce together in one bite. Leftover rinsing water is what usually goes wrong, since it dilutes the seasoning and leaves the stack bland. Alternating the stem direction as the leaves are stacked evens out the thickness on both sides. Spooning the liquid from the bottom over the top midway lets every layer take on salt, and a day in the fridge evens it out further.
Bulgogi seared fast over high heat meets raw minari, a fragrant Korean water dropwort, on udon tossed in a gochujang, soy, and sesame oil dressing. The beef is patted dry before marinating so it browns at the edges instead of stewing in its own liquid.
Golden seared tofu and buttery avocado share a dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, and lemon juice. Familiar Korean seasoning paired with citrus acidity keeps the bowl savory without making it heavy. Pressing the tofu until its surface feels dry cuts down on splattering and gives a cleaner sear. Left alone until the first side firms up, the cubes sear well enough to hold their shape when tossed. The avocado is cut only once everything else is ready and goes straight into the lemony dressing, where it browns less. Let the hot tofu cool slightly before it touches the greens.
Godeulppaegi is one of the more bitter Korean greens, and most of the prep time goes into soaking it in cold water after blanching. If a taste says it's still too sharp, change the water and soak it again, then dress it with gochujang and vinegar.
Dureup, the spring shoots of the Korean angelica tree, are around only briefly each spring. They get no more than 30 seconds in salted boiling water before going on top of the rice to cook under the lid; any longer and the bitter, woody scent fades and the green turns dull. The rice cooks in kelp stock.
Maesil-cheong (green plum syrup) in the marinade gives this gochujang pork neck an unusually tart finish. Perilla leaves, barely cooked, are mixed through the meat.
With beef intestines, the prep takes more work than the grilling. They are rubbed with coarse salt and flour, rinsed and briefly blanched to get rid of the smell, then cooked in a dry pan in nothing but their own rendered fat. Garlic chives go on the side, and soju usually goes with it.
Stir-frying the beef and burdock in sesame oil before any water goes in gives the broth a toasted aroma and a light brown tint. Even after a long simmer the burdock never goes fully soft and keeps some chew. A short soak in cold water after slicing limits browning and astringency.
The potatoes finish with a sweet-salty soy glaze clinging to the outside and a floury interior. Because their wrinkled skins catch the sauce quickly, the shishito peppers wait until the potatoes are about halfway done and still keep a bit of crunch. The heat is mild enough for children, and once the glaze sets the dish holds its flavor at room temperature in a lunchbox.
Pan-fried mackerel and stir-fried mukeunji, kimchi aged until deeply sour, turn a bowl of spicy mixed noodles into something closer to a full meal. Salting the fish and blotting away the liquid it releases keeps the fishy smell down.
Warm, golden cubes of pan-seared tofu land on cold baby greens, and each bite moves between soft tofu and crunchy shredded red cabbage and carrot. Pressing the tofu first, then leaving each side alone until it firms, keeps the cubes from breaking apart. The tablespoon of sesame oil is split between pan and dressing, and only a small part of it goes into the searing. The dressing itself is just soy sauce, sesame oil and vinegar, which keeps the bowl light. Most of it is poured over the tofu rather than the leaves, since tender greens wilt fast once they sit in soy-based liquid.
Bibimbap rarely goes without it and ancestral rite tables almost always include it, so bracken namul tends to be made in large holiday batches and eaten over several days. Records of eating it go back to the Three Kingdoms period, and the traditional cooking fat is perilla oil, not sesame. It tastes fine straight from the fridge.
Ssukgat (crown daisy greens) goes in just long enough to wilt, so its bitter, herbal edge comes through clearly against the rich gochujang pork. The pork shoulder is seared in a smoking-hot pan for some browned flavor.
Done right, the gochujang sauce does not pool in the pan but clings to every piece of fish cake with a shine. The square fish cakes are dipped briefly in boiling water first to rinse off their surface oil.
Salted and dried yellow corvina has dense, concentrated flesh that grills up chewy and deeply savory, with no extra salt needed. A 10-minute soak in rice-rinsing water takes the edge off the saltiness; leaving it longer washes out flavor too. It is salty enough that a small piece carries a whole bowl of rice.
Instead of stirring chili straight into the broth, this spicy beef soup seasons each strand of shredded brisket with chili flakes, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil, so the heat clings to the meat itself. The clear brisket broth turns red as the seasoned beef simmers in it, with fernbrake (gosari, a chewy dried fern), bean sprouts, and plenty of long-cut green onion filling the bowl.
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.
Sour aged kimchi and canned tuna share a gochujang, vinegar, and syrup dressing in this quick pantry noodle bowl. The kimchi is shaken free of its seasoning and chopped fine so the sourness spreads through the noodles instead of landing in one bite. Both the tuna and the noodles are drained well, since leftover can liquid or rinse water loosens the sauce. Half the scallions go into the mix and the rest on top for fresh color and bite.
Daikon cut into very fine threads is crisped in cold water, then piled with bonito flakes and shredded nori and dressed with soy sauce, rice vinegar and a little sesame oil.
A mixed seaweed pack usually holds several kinds, such as sea mustard stems, hijiki, and ogonori, and each one chews a little differently. The seaweed spends only 20 seconds in boiling water to keep that springy bite. A vinegared gochujang dressing and thin slices of cucumber add tang and crunch.