877 recipes. Page 11 of 37
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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.
The kabocha spends 2 minutes in the microwave before it goes into the pan. That head start lets the center turn tender before the soy and corn syrup glaze has a chance to burn. The skin stays on.
Kuuri means ice and jishi means meat, but the ice here has nothing to do with temperature: it is the egg that spreads across the clear broth in soft white drifts, like snow. Before the war, when eggs were scarce in Okinawa, families made it at Obon to welcome the spirits of their ancestors.
The cod is patted thoroughly dry first so the sauce clings instead of sliding off. It cooks covered on a bed of radish and onion and gets turned just once, gently, at the end so the underside picks up the sauce too.
Pepper leaves, the tender greens picked from chili plants, have almost none of the fruit's heat; what they offer instead is a fresh, grassy flavor with a faint bitterness. Packed in a soy, vinegar and sugar brine with garlic and a Cheongyang chili, they become a summer side dish that needs 3 days of refrigeration before it is ready. Lay a single leaf over a spoonful of rice and fold it like a small wrap.
Sesame paste, chili oil, soy, and vinegar sit in the bottom of the bowl, and once hot noodles are tossed through them, richness and direct heat come first while the tingle of Sichuan pepper arrives a beat later. Because that numbness builds fast, only half the ground peppercorn goes into the sauce, with the rest added after tasting. The ground pork is left untouched in the hot pan until it forms a brown crust, and that roasted flavor carries the whole sauce. Noodles that are not drained thoroughly thin the sauce until it no longer clings. Blanched bok choy adds a clean, green break from all the oil.
Shimeji, king oyster and fresh shiitake are microwaved and dressed while still hot with lemon juice, olive oil and a little soy sauce. Unlike soy-pickled mushrooms meant to keep, this is a side to eat the same day, not a preserve. The dressing is mixed while the mushrooms cook and is ready the moment they come out. Each mushroom is cut to keep its own shape and texture, and the baby greens never go into the hot bowl; they line the plate raw beneath the warm mushrooms. The microwave time is set for the base two servings, and a larger batch needs extra time until everything is steaming hot throughout.
Heso daikon starts as thick rounds of blanched radish threaded on skewers and left to freeze at night and thaw by day for about a month. The hole left by the skewer looks like a navel (heso), which gives it its name, and the dried radish keeps until the following summer. In southern Miyagi Prefecture it is simmered with taro, carrot, shiitake, freeze-dried tofu, knotted kombu and kamaboko fish cake until almost no liquid remains.
Leaves picked from pepper plants after the chili harvest make this namul, and they are at their most tender in August and September. They keep a slightly bitter, green aroma even after blanching, and the chili flakes are kept to an amount whose heat does not bury it. The thin leaves take the seasoning almost at once and go to the table as soon as they are mixed.
Left undisturbed while it browns, the tofu firms up on the surface and holds together when the egg and soy glaze go into the same pan. Seaweed flakes and sesame oil go on last, over the tofu and egg on the rice.
Doubanjiang, the Chinese fermented chili bean paste, is salty and hot, and how salty depends on the brand. So the soy sauce here is not poured by the recipe; it is decided after tasting the sauce. There is no meat, just pan-browned tofu and bok choy.
Shrimp, squid and clams share one batter, but each gets its own prep. The shrimp have the tendons along their backs cut so they fry straight, and the squid is scored so it does not shrink up in the oil. Everything goes through the oil only once, briefly, at 170°C.
Soy sauce, pear juice and sesame oil give this thick sirloin a flavor close to bulgogi, while the cooking itself follows steak: a hard sear, a rest, then slicing against the grain. Pear juice tenderizes, but the marinade stays short because past 30 minutes it turns the surface mushy.
Bite into one of the small wheat dumplings and a piece of walnut sits at the center. Mamebu-jiru belongs to Yamagata-cho in Kuji, Iwate, and is linked to flour dumplings that reportedly replaced celebratory noodles during poor Edo-period harvests. It still appears at New Year, ceremonies and winter meals. Around the dumplings, a clear soy broth of kombu and dried sardines carries carrot, burdock, kanpyo gourd strips, mushrooms and grilled tofu.
Cod is lean and mild, so it gets a punchy sauce of soy, gochujang and chili flakes. The radish under it soaks that sauce up and ends up as good as the fish.
Broad, thick gomchwi leaves soak up the soy brine evenly and are seasoned through after just 2 days of chilling. The leaf's bold, wild mountain-herb scent blends with the soy, and vinegar trims the finish so the pickle never feels heavy. Only the thick stems are blanched, for 20 seconds, which softens them while the leaves stay fresh. Excess water is pressed out leaf by leaf, since wringing tears the leaves and drains their scent. Wrap a leaf around a spoonful of rice to eat it like ssam, a Korean lettuce wrap.
Pad kee mao, as drunken noodles are called in Thailand, layers chili and garlic heat with a last-minute handful of basil over wide rice noodles. This version uses chicken thigh and Thai basil, which smells different from the holy basil of traditional versions. The 250 g of noodles is a dried weight (fresh noodles at the same weight give a different yield), and wide dried noodles vary enough that the package directions are the better guide for softening them. Draining the softened noodles well keeps the soy, oyster and fish sauces coating the strands instead of pooling around them. Once the noodles join the pan, a short toss is enough; longer heating breaks them apart.
The bitter, earthy smell of naengi (shepherd's purse), a Korean spring green, plays against the rich fat of quickly seared beef sirloin. Thin strips of Korean pear add sweetness and moisture, and the soy dressing gets its sweet-sour edge from vinegar and plum extract. After blanching, the greens are pressed gently by the handful rather than wrung hard, which keeps their aroma. Letting the dressed salad sit for about 5 minutes before serving helps everything come together.
Purslane is blanched and dried in summer, then soaked in winter and stir-fried with shirataki, carrot and fried tofu before simmering in soy-based seasoning. In the snowy Murayama and Okitama areas of Yamagata, wild greens and vegetables were dried this way to eat through the winter. The soaked stems are soft but still have a little give when you bite. The purslane here is commercially made hyoboshi sold for eating, not something picked from a field.
Gondeure, a thistle-family mountain green from the Jeongseon and Taebaek highlands of Gangwon Province, is better known as the base of gondeure-bap, a rice dish cooked with the greens. Dressed with perilla oil, soy sauce, and garlic, it has a soft herbal scent close to mugwort along with an earthy, forest-floor note. Squeeze the boiled greens gently and leave them slightly moist, and chop the tougher stems finer than the leaves so every bite chews the same.
The tofu is browned on both sides before it ever meets the sauce, then set on a bed of thinly sliced onion and simmered in soy. By the time the sauce has reduced, the onion has all but melted away. Sliced cheongyang chili and scallion go on top for the last minute.
Halved lengthwise and laid cut side down in a very hot pan, the bok choy cooks stalk first and only then gets flipped so the leaf edges char a little. The oyster sauce, loosened with soy sauce and a splash of water, is just enough for a thin, glossy coat on the stalks. Properly cooked, the leaves have wilted but a stalk still pushes back with some crunch when bent.
After 12 to 15 minutes in the steamer the wrappers go translucent, showing the filling of pork, tofu, glass noodles, and garlic chives. The dip is soy sauce with vinegar and chili flakes. Fold a big batch and freeze some, and a few can go straight from the freezer into the steamer later.
In spring, when dureup is in season, the blanched aralia shoots are rolled up in thin pork belly, threaded onto skewers, brushed with gochujang paste and grilled. The shoots get only 20 seconds in boiling water to keep their crunch and bitter, green aroma.