323 recipes. Page 5 of 14
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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.
Even boiled butterbur stems often keep tough outer fibers on the thicker pieces. Snap each one, and if strands come away with it, peel them off then and there. The ground perilla seed goes in while a little broth still covers the pan bottom, so it wraps the stems in a thick coat instead of clumping in one spot.
Rice-rinsing water gives this doenjang broth a faint starchy body and takes the edge off the paste's saltiness. Spring cabbage (bomdong) supplies the sweetness at the center of the bowl. Its stems should keep a little bite, while the leaves only need to wilt.
A tablespoon of doenjang is stirred into the red chili broth to tame the fishiness. The frozen pollock is thawed only partly, just enough for a knife to get through the bone, and cut while still firm; fully thawed, the flesh crumbles.
Freshwater fish simmered into a broth gives this noodle soup its savory base, and doenjang plus gochugaru keep any fishy edge in check while adding heat. Straining the stock two or three times through a fine sieve is what separates a clean, drinkable broth from a murky one.
Samnamul, deer fern shoots with stems and leaves still attached, gets a one-minute blanch and is cut into 4 cm lengths. Soup soy sauce and perilla oil season it, and a scatter of salt after everything is mixed sets the final balance.
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.
Blanched and dressed straight away, butterbur stems keep a clear bitter edge; simmered and stirred with soup soy sauce and water for five minutes or more, they turn much milder. In spring it appears on mountain-village tables next to gondre and chwinamul greens.
After the soup soy sauce goes in, the broth is tasted before anything more is added. The clams release salty liquor as they open, which often seasons the pot well enough, and more soy sauce goes in only if it falls short. The chives are added just before the heat is turned off and cook for a minute.
There is no meat, just eggplant, tofu and perilla seed powder, but the broth is anchovy-kelp stock; for a vegetarian pot, change the stock first. The eggplant simmers for about six minutes until soft enough to collapse, while the tofu, cut small at 1.5 cm, stays firm.
Grated raw potato, squeezed and bound with its own settled starch, becomes ongsimi: small Gangwon-style dumplings that turn translucent and chewy outside while staying soft and floury within. Sharing a light anchovy-kelp broth with knife-cut wheat noodles, they make each spoonful alternate between two very different bites.
Young radish greens are so watery and tender that 10 to 15 seconds in boiling water wilts them. The stems keep their crunch while the leaves go soft and take up the soup soy sauce dressing. Thick-stemmed bunches get another 30 seconds.
Ground pork and chopped kimchi are fried in sesame oil until the oil turns red before the rice is added, which gives this porridge a meatier backbone than kimchi alone. Over a 30-minute simmer the chili's sharp edge fades and the fermented tang spreads evenly through the pot. Chop the kimchi smaller than bite size, since big leaves stay stringy in soft porridge. Cubes of tofu stirred in make a soft, filling addition.
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.
Beaten egg is poured in a circle from the edge of the pot and left unstirred for thirty seconds, so it sets into soft ribbons in the barely moving broth. Because the soup never comes to a hard boil, the even 1.5 cm tofu cubes keep their corners too.
Boiled bracken goes in first and the hairtail pieces are laid over it without overlapping. The fish is never turned; spooning broth over it keeps the flesh from breaking. Only a shallow layer of broth is left at the end.
Manila clams opening in the pot release a briny liquor that does most of the seasoning work in this knife-cut noodle soup. Kelp pulled out before the water boils leaves a clean mineral base, and the wide wheat noodles shed a little starch as they cook, giving the broth a soft natural body. Shrimp and squid go in only briefly so they stay tender, and zucchini and scallion add a fresh, mildly sweet finish.
Blue crab starts in cold water and boils for 12 minutes to make the stock behind this porridge, releasing a natural sweetness from the shells and meat. Once the crab cools, picking the meat from the legs as well as the body gives the porridge plenty of sweet flakes to bite into.
Where most seaweed stem stir-fries finish with sesame oil, this one is cooked in perilla oil and coated in plenty of ground perilla seed, which pushes the nutty flavor right to the front. The salted stems soak in cold water for at least 15 minutes to draw out salt, but leave them much longer and the taste of the sea goes too.
The mussels are added with a spoonful of rice wine and boiled uncovered for five minutes, letting the fishy steam escape while the taste of the sea stays in the broth. Any still closed by then are taken out and thrown away.
Well-aged kimchi brings a sharp sourness that plays against the oily white flesh of hairtail, so this fish stew tastes more tangy and spicy than fishy. A five-minute soak in lightly salted water, followed by a rinse, takes much of the strong smell out of the fish.
No stock goes into the pot: 500 g of mussels and some radish make the whole broth. The mussels give up a concentrated sea flavor, the radish adds a clean sweetness, and soup soy sauce with cooking wine smooths out the salt the shellfish bring. Each mussel is lifted out as soon as its shell opens and the meat waits on the side until the bowls are filled, which keeps it from toughening. Any that stay shut after cooking are thrown away rather than forced open. Straining slowly through a fine sieve removes sand and shell bits so the broth poured over the noodles stays clear, and garlic with green onion clears away what fishiness remains.
Bean sprouts simmer uncovered in anchovy stock for just 5 to 6 minutes, long enough to drive off their raw, grassy smell but short enough to keep them crunchy. This is the Jeonju style of kongnamul gukbap, a sprout soup poured over rice. An egg is slipped in whole rather than beaten, and it is ready when the white has set around a still-soft yolk. Seaweed flakes and a pinch of chili flakes go on top, and in Korea it is a common hangover meal.
Snappy seaweed stems and springy shrimp end up in the same bite. Soup soy sauce is the only seasoning, with the rest of the salt coming from what is left in the stems, and the ground perilla seed is scattered over right after the heat goes off.