683 recipes. Page 23 of 29
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Garlic scapes taste of garlic without the sharp bite of the cloves, more sweet than pungent, and even people who shy away from garlic tend to keep reaching for them. Their season runs from spring into early summer, when the stalks are at their most tender.
Sliced into rounds after grilling, each piece of this stuffed squid shows rings in cross section: chewy squid outside, sticky glutinous rice, then soft tofu. Soaked rice swells as it cooks, so the tubes are filled only 70 to 80 percent. Packed full, they split on the grill.
Fat and juices from boneless chicken thighs melt into the soy braising liquid, and the burdock root that soaks it up turns sweeter and saltier the longer you chew. A short soak in vinegared water takes the astringency out of the burdock, leaving a nutty root flavor instead of an earthy one. Thin diagonal slices of burdock cook through far faster than thick pieces. Some of the fatty chicken skin is trimmed away and the meat sits briefly in cooking wine and ginger juice, which keeps the sauce clean and free of any gamey smell. Tender thigh meat and chewy, slightly crisp burdock end up glazed together as an easy side for rice.
All of the measured salt goes into the blanching water, leaving soy sauce as the only seasoning in the dressing itself. Keeping the pot at a hard boil after the spinach goes in lets the leaves wilt within moments, and the cold water bath that follows fixes their bright green. Cut to a length that is easy to pick up with chopsticks, the spinach is finished with sesame seeds crushed lightly between the palms.
The abalone innards are fried with the rice in sesame oil, tinting the whole porridge a pale green. How green it gets, and how much it tastes of the sea, depends on how fresh those innards are, and that is decided when the abalone is bought. An egg yolk sits in the center of each bowl.
This one is built on sliced garlic browned slowly over low heat until it loses its bite. Clam meat and minari (water parsley) are tossed in that sweet, toasty garlic oil.
As sliced duck grills with onion, the fat that melts out mixes with the gochujang marinade and pools in the pan as a sweet, spicy sauce. Spooning it back over the meat while it cooks is what gives the surface its shine. Wrapped in perilla leaves, each bite is noticeably less fiery.
With no meat at all, this braise relies on texture: thin slices of burdock stay crisp and chewy while konjac, a firm jelly made from konjac yam, stays bouncy. The konjac is blanched and then dry-toasted in an unoiled pan for 1 minute, which takes away its distinctive smell. Burdock absorbs the seasoning faster the thinner it is sliced, and after its vinegar-water soak it is drained well so the braising liquid is not watered down. Holding back the syrup until the soy liquid has reduced by about half lets it add gloss at the end instead of scorching. Sesame oil and seeds stirred in off the heat finish it.
Thick slices of rainbow trout sit on a mound of shredded cabbage and lettuce, with roasted soybean powder, sesame oil, minced garlic, and chojang alongside to mix in as you eat. Adding only as much as each bite needs keeps the nutty powder and tangy chili sauce from burying the fish. Only farmed fillets sold for raw eating, with parasite-control information from the seller, belong here; trout meant for cooking is not a stand-in.
Mung beans soaked for 30 minutes alongside the rice break down with it in kelp stock, making this abalone porridge far thicker and creamier than the rice-only kind.
The beef and minari (water parsley) go in at equal weights, which keeps the minari's slightly bitter aroma clearly present behind the soy-seasoned meat. The minari gets only 20 to 30 seconds in the pan, enough to soften the leaves while the stems stay crisp.
Squid and pork belly share one gochujang marinade, but only the pork goes into the pan at first. After five or six minutes it has given up its fat and the sauce has turned glossy; the squid follows and cooks in three or four, soaking up pork-enriched sauce as it goes.
Burdock root cut into thin, even matchsticks is cooked in soy sauce and sugar, then glazed with syrup until shiny, giving a chewy, slightly crunchy bite with a salty-sweet coating. Even cutting matters more than it looks: thinner strands go soft while thicker ones stay stiff. Cooked through, the strips bend rather than snap. It is a staple Korean banchan, close in spirit to Japanese kinpira gobo but sweeter and glossier.
The bitterness of sseumbagui, a Korean bitter green, is not meant to be removed. A short soak in cold salt water only softens it, and the greens, still pleasantly bitter, are tossed in a sweet and tangy dressing of gochujang, vinegar and sugar.
Two tablespoons of sesame oil take the minced abalone innards and garlic over low heat, and the oil picks up their briny aroma before any rice goes in. Keeping the heat low at this stage is what tames the fishy edge of the innards.
Seaweed stems are thick and springy and crunch audibly when you bite them. Salted stems vary a lot by brand, so after soaking, taste one strand and rinse again in fresh water if it is still too salty.
On a flat, thin fish like tongue sole, the chili marinade sits evenly on the surface and seasons the flesh quickly. Maesil cheong, a green plum syrup, takes the pasty edge off the gochujang and, with the sugar, caramelizes into a glossy brown coating.
Thin strips of beef and burdock start together in plain water rather than a hot oiled pan. Skimming the foam then keeps the liquid clear, and the beef stays tender. Soy sauce, sugar, cooking wine and garlic go in only after the meat changes color, and the beef's savoriness rounds out the earthy burdock. Leaving a shallow layer of sauce in the pot keeps the strips moist, and once cooled and settled, it packs well for lunch.
The longer crown daisy sits in boiling water, the more of its scent it loses. About 20 seconds is enough before it moves to an ice bath. The thick base stays tough even after blanching, and two or three centimeters are cut off beforehand.
Thin slices of abalone go onto the rice only when the surface water has nearly gone, then cook in nothing but the heat of a 5-minute rest, lid on and burner off, and stay tender. The finished rice is mixed with a dressing of soy sauce, scallion, minced garlic, and sesame seeds.
Pork shoulder is browned until its fat runs, then seaweed stems join it for a quick toss. The roasted taste of the pork mixes with a smell of the sea, and the stems keep their snap.
Thin beef, whether cut for galbi or bulgogi, spends at least an hour in a soy sauce and pear juice marinade and then needs only three to four minutes in total on a very hot grill. In that short time the marinade cooks down onto the surface into a glossy brown.
Burdock root goes into a beef shank broth that has already simmered with soy and garlic, then steams under the lid until the meat juices reach its center. The aromatic, woody note of burdock cuts through the heavy beef flavor and gives the braise a second layer of flavor. The liquid is reduced to less than half, glossy and spoonable over rice, and finished with sesame oil and toasted seeds.
Bean sprouts go limp if they linger in water that is barely simmering. The pot needs a hard boil, and the sprouts come out the moment their stems turn translucent, under 30 seconds, straight into cold water. Green onion and sesame seeds are not tossed in but scattered over the top once the sprouts are in the bowl.