683 recipes. Page 19 of 29
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Butterbur stems are sharply bitter, so they are peeled, blanched and then soaked in cold water for a full hour; after that only a pleasant, faint bitterness remains. Braised slowly in kelp stock with soy sauce and a little syrup, the stems absorb the seasoning all the way through and come out salty-sweet with a glossy surface. Sliced red chili at the end adds more color than heat.
Konjac noodles, blanched for 2 minutes to lose their faint odor, keep a bouncy, almost rubbery chew that plays against crisp shreds of cucumber, carrot, and onion. The dressing is gochujang sharpened with vinegar and softened with a little sugar, soy sauce, and garlic, finished with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Served cold after a short rest in the fridge, it works as a banchan or a light side, with the translucent strands stained red by the sauce.
The lid stays on for the full 3 minutes of boiling; lift it early and the sprouts keep a raw, beany smell. A quick cold rinse right after draining keeps the stems snappy, and squeezing out the water keeps the sesame oil and garlic dressing from going thin.
Gondre, a mild wild thistle green from the mountains of Gangwon Province, cooks right on top of the rice, so the rice itself stays plain with a soft, grassy aroma. The seasoning comes at the table: soy sauce mixed with green onion, garlic, chili flakes, and sesame oil brings salt and heat against the gentle greens. Fresh gondre is most fragrant in spring, but properly soaked dried gondre gives nearly the same result year round.
Made in spring with webfoot octopus (jjukkumi) full of roe, each bite comes with little pops. The octopus is rubbed hard with coarse salt to strip its slime, blanched briefly, coated in gochujang sauce and stir-fried over high heat in under two minutes.
Two horse mackerel sit in a yuzu-soy marinade for just 10 minutes before going onto a grill pan. The bits of yuzu in the marmalade burn easily, which is why half the marinade is held back and brushed on only in the last minute. Sesame oil and scallions go on after the heat is off.
With nothing more than radish, soy sauce, sugar, and garlic, everything depends on cooking the thick 2 cm rounds through to the center. Covered first, then uncovered to reduce, the radish turns translucent at the edges and picks up the soy while its own sweetness rounds out the salt. A single green chili and a little sesame oil at the very end add a light kick and a nutty smell to an otherwise plain, everyday side.
Cold soba, rinsed until the strands feel clean, gets a light coat of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Cutting cucumber, carrot, and red cabbage as thin as the noodles lets each mouthful pick up vegetables and buckwheat together instead of leaving the cabbage in a heap at the bottom of the bowl. The salad tastes best the moment it is tossed; left sitting in the dressing, the noodles go soft and the flavor turns watery.
In Seoul and Gyeonggi people mostly say maneuljong, and elsewhere often maneuljjong, but both mean the same curling flower stalk of the garlic plant. Tender spring scapes get just 20 to 30 seconds in boiling water before going into a gochujang, vinegar, and sugar dressing, and they stay bright green with a firm snap.
Small balls of sesame-oil rice and a dab of garlicky ssamjang, a Korean dipping paste of soybean and chili, are wrapped in Swiss chard leaves blanched for just 30 seconds. The one bit of prep that matters is shaving down the thick rib on the back of each leaf with a flat knife; left whole, it stays stiff and pokes through when you fold.
The chili sauce looks too thick, but no water goes in: the octopus releases its own liquid as it cooks and loosens it. The pork belly is browned in the pan first, and the octopus joins it over high heat for just a minute or two.
Wrapped in lettuce and other leaves to eat, this pork shoulder is marinated in gochujang for at least 30 minutes and spread in a single layer over high heat. For the first 2 minutes it is left alone, until the edges go dark brown. The sugar is stirred fully into the marinade beforehand. Any grains left undissolved scorch into black spots.
Blanched radish greens, the leafy tops of Korean radish, soak up the pear-and-soy braising liquid from the beef and bring an earthy flavor with a slight chew. Short rib meat is soaked in cold water first to draw out blood, which keeps the sauce clean-tasting rather than murky. Pear juice adds a gentle fruit sweetness under the garlic and ginger, and the reduced sauce clings to both meat and greens, ready to spoon over rice.
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.
Every butterbur stem has to be peeled end to end, because the outer skin is a layer of tough strings. Some bitterness survives blanching; the stems are dressed with doenjang and ground perilla seeds, and if the bitterness is too much, more perilla powder goes in.
The spinach is squeezed hard before it is seasoned, the carrot is sauteed to drive off water, and the rice is left to cool a little before it is spread on the seaweed. All three steps are there to keep the gim from going soggy. The finished roll and the knife both get a thin coat of sesame oil before slicing.
Fresh bamboo shoots are only around for a short season in spring, so most of the year this banchan is made with canned or vacuum-packed shoots. Fresh ones need at least 30 minutes of simmering in rice-rinsing water to remove their acrid bite; canned ones need a thorough rinse to lose their tinny smell. Soy sauce and garlic keep the seasoning light, and the point is crunch: cooked too long, the shoots dry out and toughen.
Webfoot octopus has a smaller body and thicker legs than nakji, the long-arm octopus. It spends just 10 minutes in the spicy marinade and 3 to 4 minutes over high heat, and the slightly charred sauce that catches on the pan floor is part of the flavor. In spring they often come full of roe, and the leftover sauce goes into fried rice.
Holding the whole octopus by the head and dipping it into boiling water two or three times makes the legs curl inward into a neat shape for slicing and serving. Before that, coarse salt is rubbed firmly between the suckers to strip the slime; without that step an off smell lingers after cooking. It cooks for only about 15 minutes over a bed of radish and green onion, then rests under the lid, which keeps it chewy without turning tough. The water is kept at a quiet simmer the whole time, since a rolling, splashing boil makes octopus tougher. Instead of a spicy dipping sauce, slices are dipped in sesame oil mixed with salt, letting the octopus taste of the sea, and the plate works just as well with drinks.
Crown daisy, the herb sold as ssukgat in Korean markets, brings a grassy, faintly bitter note that the sweet-sour dressing of soy sauce, vinegar, and plum syrup balances. Mung bean glass noodles should come out translucent but still a little chewy; softer than that and they clump into a sticky mass once dressed. Cucumber and crown daisy shed water as they sit, so the salad gets tossed right before it reaches the table.
Minari, sold in English as water parsley, smells clean and green in a way parsley and celery do not, and the scent does not survive much heat. Past 20 seconds in the pot it leaves with the steam and only the crunch remains, which is why the blanching stops there.
All the usual gimbap fillings land on a bowl of rice instead of being rolled in seaweed: thin egg strips, sauteed carrot, blanched spinach and torn imitation crab. There is no laver, pickled radish or fish cake here, so the seasoning lives in the rice itself, tossed with sesame oil and salt. Each topping keeps its own section until the bowl is mixed at the table.
Bamboo shoots sliced thinly across the grain stay crisp and outweigh the beef, and the dish eats more like a vegetable stir-fry with soy-marinated meat running through it. Beef round is very lean and toughens quickly, which is why the meat is seared briefly, lifted out, and only returned for a final toss once the bamboo has cooked down on its own.
Napa kimchi aged until it turns sour mellows in a hot pan, the sourness easing into a toasty sweetness. Besides the kimchi there is only a little sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds, so how well aged the kimchi is decides the taste. Eat it while the edges are still crisp.