683 recipes. Page 8 of 29
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Drumsticks marinated in soy sauce, gochujang and honey roast in the oven. With bone running through a thick piece of meat, clear juices and skin color are not trusted as signs of doneness; a thermometer goes into the thickest part, away from the bone, and the center has to hold at 75°C or above for at least a minute.
Hair-fine strands of maesaengi seaweed spread green through the whole broth, with pieces of mussel to chew on in between. Both are winter ingredients from Korea's south coast, at their best from November to February. Oysters can take the mussels' place.
A well-made dubu jorim has three layers in one bite: a dark, slightly chewy glazed surface, a seasoned middle, and a soft white center. That outer layer forms in the frying pan, where the tofu browns on both sides before the sauce is added. Blotting off surface water first keeps the oil from spitting.
Peanut butter does the heavy lifting in this sauce, with sesame oil supplying the sesame aroma, so the dish comes together without hunting down Chinese sesame paste. Soy, vinegar, sugar, and chili oil turn it sweet, salty, tart, and gently hot all at once. The noodles get a short ice bath that firms them up, and julienned cucumber and scallion cut through the dense coating. A cold, fast bowl for hot weather.
All the fillings of a kimbap roll, yellow pickled radish, spinach, carrot and thin egg ribbons, are spread over shredded cabbage instead of rice and mixed together to eat. The dressing is just soy sauce and sesame oil, so the salty-tangy pickled radish does much of the seasoning.
Chopped shrimp in the pork filling gives these dim sum a springier bite than pork alone. The wrapper is pressed up around the sides and left open on top, and by the time they come out of the steamer the thin skin has turned translucent.
Steamed cabbage leaves wrap around pan-cooked chicken tenderloin, and slicing the rolls 2-3 cm thick shows a white center inside green layers. Both the chicken and the cabbage are mild, so the ssamjang served alongside, a thick Korean dipping paste, carries most of the flavor. Pressing the thick cabbage ribs flat before steaming lets the leaves roll without splitting.
Every spoonful brings up strips of dried pollack and fine threads of egg along with the soft rice. The egg goes in last, once the rice and fish are cooked, drizzled thinly over the surface on the lowest heat and stirred only once. The savory flavor comes from the pollack itself, toasted in sesame oil with garlic, rather than from a stock.
Think of it as a close cousin of teriyaki: the same sticky sweet-salty shine, but with garlic and ginger fried in the oil first so their sharpness comes through more directly. Patting the boneless thighs dry matters, since a wet surface colors slowly even over high heat.
Daegu's flat mandu hold less than a spoonful of filling each, so wrapper and filling press into one thin sheet. With only glass noodles, garlic chives, and cabbage inside, they taste light until dipped in soy sauce sharpened with vinegar and chili flakes.
Dakgalbi usually means chicken stir-fried with vegetables on an iron plate, but this Chuncheon-style version puts only the marinated chicken on a grill. The gochujang paste caramelizes at high heat, charring the edges dark and leaving a faint bitterness after the sweet heat.
The potatoes are cut 0.7 cm thick, enough to hold their shape while their edges fray slightly and give the clear pollack broth a little body. Wring the pollack shreds hard before toasting them, or they steam instead of turning nutty.
The longer the kimchi has sat in the fridge and the sourer it has become, the better it suits this braise. Simmered with soy sauce and gochugaru (Korean chili flakes), its sharp acidity softens, and the tofu, laid in raw without frying, soaks up the red liquid to the middle.
Boiling chicken stock poured into the bowl does the cooking: paper-thin pork slices turn opaque within seconds, then bean sprouts and garlic chives follow. Slicing the pork while it is half-frozen makes those thin slices possible, and the stock has to be at a full, rolling boil, since anything cooler leaves the meat underdone.
The cockles of Beolgyo, on the wide tidal flats of South Jeolla, are plump and notably sweet, and they are fullest from November through March. Stirring in one direction while they boil helps every shell open at the same time, and they come out the moment they gape, before the meat shrinks and turns rubbery. A dressing of chili flakes, soy sauce and vinegar lays a sour, spicy edge over their briny sweetness, and a short rest lets it soak into the flesh.
A Shanghai soup dumpling holds both a pork filling and a mouthful of hot broth inside its thin wrapper. The broth begins as pork stock jelly, chopped and folded into the filling, which melts as the dumplings steam. Set one on a spoon, nick the skin, and drink the broth before dipping the rest in black vinegar with slivered ginger.
Both the small bulbs and the leaves of dallae, a Korean wild chive, go in raw, tossed in soy sauce, vinegar, gochugaru and sesame oil. Cleaning takes the longest: soil hides between the bulbs, and the dark core and loose outer skin have to come off.
Dig in and the melted mozzarella stretches away to reveal chicken breast fried rice turned red with buldak sauce, the fiery Korean chicken sauce. The sauce goes onto the chicken and onion before the rice.
Dallae, Korean wild chives with small white bulbs, join the gochujang pork only once the meat is fully cooked. They get a single minute over the flame and finish wilting in the residual heat after it is turned off. Their sharp, pungent scent is strongest at the white bulb end.
There is no meat in the filling, only king oyster mushroom, tofu and garlic chives. Both the mushroom and the tofu hold a lot of water, so the minced mushroom is dry-fried in a pan without oil first and the tofu is wrung out hard in a cloth.
Halved garlic cloves go into the pan first and lose their raw bite, turning sweet and soft. The gizzards get nothing but salt and pepper, which leaves the garlic to do the work of a sauce.
Pollock left on racks in Gangwon-do through the winter, freezing and thawing over and over until it dries, becomes hwangtae. Its chewy strips and wisps of soft egg end up in the same spoonful of this clear soup, which is made for hangovers and for ordinary breakfasts alike.
Each block of firm tofu gets a shallow well scooped out with a spoon, and none of the scooped tofu is wasted: it returns to the filling with ground beef, shiitake and carrot. Dubu-seon comes from the Korean royal court table; this version skips the older crumble-and-shape method and steams the stuffed blocks directly, with the filling mounded slightly above the rim. A thin glaze of soy sauce and water keeps the finish light and lets the mild tofu lead.
Poaching chicken breast directly in the anchovy stock gives the clear broth of janchi guksu, Korea's party noodle soup, an extra savory layer. A little sesame oil tossed through the shredded chicken makes the lean breast meat taste moist, while separate yellow and white egg-crepe strips, zucchini, and carrot add color. The recipe scales up easily, making it practical for feeding a crowd.