683 recipes. Page 5 of 29
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Gochujang heat, the sweetness of maesil plum syrup, and a sharp hit of vinegar land together in each mouthful of these cold somyeon noodles. A thorough cold-water rinse strips off surface starch, so the thin wheat noodles turn bouncy and the sauce coats them evenly instead of clumping. Torn lettuce and cucumber strips bring crunch, and the little moisture they release loosens the thick sauce just enough.
Plump, springy edamame and soft, creamy avocado make the main contrast in the bowl. A dressing of soy sauce, lime juice and sesame oil gives it a light, salty-tart Asian profile, and cucumber and cherry tomatoes add crunch and juice. The only cooking is a few minutes of blanching the beans. Cool them completely before mixing; warm beans turn the avocado mushy. The avocado gets a little lime juice the moment it is cut to slow browning, and the finished salad has a better texture served cold.
Wheat starch and tapioca starch mixed with boiling water make a wrapper that steams to a pearly translucence, with the pink shrimp showing through. It stretches and chews more than a flour wrapper. The filling is coarsely chopped shrimp with a little diced bamboo shoot, seasoned with nothing beyond salt, white pepper and sesame oil. At a Cantonese yum cha table, har gow is the dumpling the others are measured against.
Chamnamul pairs soft leaves with crisp stems, and the whole method aims to keep both after blanching. Cut to 5 cm, a stem and its leaves come up together in one pinch of chopsticks, and the dish goes to the table at room temperature while the stems still snap.
The rice is cooked in the broth from simmering clams with kelp, so every grain tastes of the shellfish. The picked clam meat goes on top after the heat is off and warms through as the rice rests, and each bowl is mixed with a sauce of soy and sesame oil. Water poured over the crust at the bottom of the pot turns it into sungnyung, a toasted rice drink.
No oil goes in the pan. Well-aged, sour kimchi is fried in the fat that melts out of thin-sliced brisket (chadolbagi), and comes out tasting of beef.
The filling uses both pork and beef, with wrung-out tofu, chopped onion and green onion, all kneaded in one direction only. Any water left in the tofu or vegetables loosens the filling and pools inside the wrappers as they steam.
One glutinous rice dough split three ways gives white, mugwort-green, and prickly-pear-pink balls, so the plate carries a grassy note and a faint fruity tang side by side. The balls need one more minute in the pot after they float; lifted out right away, they keep a dense, hard core.
Tofu is browned on both sides, then a soy sauce with chopped hot green chili, garlic and a little sugar is spooned over and reduced for a minute or two. The tofu itself stays mild; the salty gloss and the sharp chili bite all come from the sauce.
On Korea's east coast, seaweed soup for new mothers is sometimes made with a whole flounder instead of beef. The seaweed is stir-fried in sesame oil before the water is poured in, and the flounder, blanched briefly to take away any fishiness, joins it whole, seasoned with soy sauce and garlic.
No meat and no anchovy go into this stew, only vegetable stock. To give the broth some aroma, the onion and oyster mushrooms are fried in sesame oil first. The lotus root cooks just until a chopstick slides in, and the perilla powder goes in at the very end for a brief warm-through over low heat. Boiled for long, perilla turns chalky rather than nutty.
Pomfret has thin, tender flesh that slips off the bone easily once the whole steamed fish reaches the table. Ginger and green onion are split into two rounds: the first steams with the fish to cut any fishiness, and the second goes on with the warm soy and rice wine sauce for fresh aroma. That sauce is mild and barely salty, letting the clean taste of the fish lead.
The gochujang sauce grips tough, springy naengmyeon noodles rather than sliding off, and every strand carries the spicy-sour coating. Mixing the sauce 10 minutes ahead gives the sugar time to dissolve and the flavors time to even out. The noodles cook in well under a minute over high heat, and lifting them out the moment the strands separate keeps them from going soft. Rubbing them under cold water to strip the starch, then squeezing them hard, stops leftover water from thinning the sauce. Cucumber and Korean pear, crisped in ice water, cool the heat with crunch and light fruitiness, and half a boiled egg softens the chili's edge.
Chickpeas roasted at 200 degrees until crisp play the part of croutons in this bowl of kale, red cabbage, carrot and cucumber. The gochujang dressing, rounded out with maple syrup and rice vinegar, brings heat, sweetness and acidity at once and covers the grassy taste of the raw vegetables. Massaging the kale by hand for a minute softens its tough fibers and takes the edge off its bitterness.
Komatsuna, a Japanese mustard green, steams on the same plate as soft tofu, and both get a spoonful of warm dashi soy sauce with sesame oil and sesame seeds. Take it out once the leaves have wilted and the stems just bend, and the green stays bright.
Pollock innards are salted for 30 minutes, then mixed with gochugaru, garlic, ginger and fish sauce and left in the fridge for at least three days to become jeotgal, a Korean salted relish. Most of the work is in the first wash: the innards are rubbed in cold water again and again until the rinse water runs clearer and the surface is less slick.
There are only three fillings: dried gourd strips simmered in soy sauce and corn syrup, egg ribbons, and yellow pickled radish. The gourd turns sweet, salty and chewy, but any braising liquid left on it soaks the rice and laver once rolled. The heat goes up at the end until only a glaze, no liquid, is left in the pan.
Young bok choy leaves spend just over a minute on high heat, enough to char the tips lightly. The garlic goes in first over low heat to scent the oil, and the flame jumps up the moment the greens hit the pan.
Instead of a wrapper, the filling is rolled into balls and coated in starch, which the steam turns into a thin, translucent, chewy skin. With nothing wrapped around it, the filling has to hold itself together: the tofu is squeezed hard, the soaked glass noodles are shaken dry, and the mixture is kneaded until a pinch of it no longer cracks.
Mugwort, gardenia and grape juice each tint a portion of the rice dough, so the half-moon cakes come out green, yellow and purple without artificial coloring. Kneading with boiling water rather than cold is what makes the dough cohesive and chewy; the amount and heat of that water decide whether the cakes end up tender or stiff.
Daechang gets its rich, savory taste from the thick fat lining the inside of the intestine. Over high heat that fat renders out, and the outside browns and crisps. It firms up and toughens as it cools, which is why it is eaten straight from the pan, often with soju or cold beer.
The shredded pollock is fried in sesame oil until golden before any water goes in, and that step gives this Gangwon version a nuttier smell than ordinary bugeoguk. It is a clear hangover soup with no chili, finished with beaten egg that sets into soft curds.
Fat from the thin brisket slices melts down into the bean sprouts underneath, so even a bite of sprouts alone tastes rich. The dressing is light: soy sauce with garlic, a little sugar and sesame oil.
Jjolmyeon noodles have a rubbery, teeth-resisting chew, and topping them with tender soy-and-sugar marinated beef sets up a sharp contrast in texture. The gochujang and vinegar sauce adds spicy, sour notes that cut the bulgogi's sweetness. Shredded cabbage and carrot bring crunch, while a halved boiled egg tempers the chili.