877 recipes. Page 16 of 37
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A small amount of curry powder in the gochujang marinade is the Chuncheon touch. No water goes into the pan; the cabbage, torn into large pieces, releases enough to turn the marinade into a sauce. When the chicken is gone, rice is fried in whatever sauce is left.
Sundae, Korean blood sausage, alternates with onion and green onion on the skewer before it goes into the pan. The onions lose water and turn sweet as they cook, a break between rich mouthfuls of sausage. The glaze mixes gochujang with ketchup, oligosaccharide syrup, and soy sauce.
Garaetteok, the long cylinder-shaped Korean rice cake, turns golden and firm outside and stays stretchy inside when rolled around in butter in a pan. A thin coat of soy sauce and rice syrup goes on next, then sesame salt and crumbled seaweed.
Gunma suiton dough is never rolled or cut. A loose flour batter is simply spooned into dashi already simmering with daikon, carrot, taro, shiitake and fried tofu, and that ease made it an everyday dish that stood in for rice when rice ran short.
Deodeok, a mountain root with a bitter, faintly resinous aroma, mellows as the soy and rice syrup glaze soaks in, though the inside stays firm and chewy. The roots are lightly pounded and then torn by hand, and those rough surfaces take on a lacquered coat of sauce.
Garlic scapes start out sharp and garlicky, and the soy brine slowly rounds that bite off, though it returns with every chew. A piece of kelp simmered in the brine adds a soft sea savoriness, and the sliced cheongyang chiles go in only as the heat is turned off and leave just a little heat at the finish. Pressing out air bubbles with a spoon keeps every piece submerged, and only a clean utensil goes into the jar.
The noodles, beef, spinach, carrot and onion are each cooked on their own and only combined at the end. There is a single batch of soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil: a little goes on the beef as a marinade, and whatever is left seasons the noodles.
Warm, golden cubes of pan-seared tofu land on cold baby greens, and each bite moves between soft tofu and crunchy shredded red cabbage and carrot. Pressing the tofu first, then leaving each side alone until it firms, keeps the cubes from breaking apart. The tablespoon of sesame oil is split between pan and dressing, and only a small part of it goes into the searing. The dressing itself is just soy sauce, sesame oil and vinegar, which keeps the bowl light. Most of it is poured over the tofu rather than the leaves, since tender greens wilt fast once they sit in soy-based liquid.
A mackerel that has already been grilled whole is broken into large pieces and simmered a second time with onion. In inland Tottori, grilled fish kept and traveled well, and cooking it again this way became the habit. Even with the head and backbone gone, small bones stay in the grilled flesh, and a fingertip run along it finds them. Ginger is used twice: thin slices go into the broth, and fine shreds go on top.
Medium dried anchovies are toasted in a dry pan for a minute before any sauce touches them, which drives off moisture and fishy smell and keeps them crunchy under the glaze. Once the anchovies are in the sauce, the coating takes under 2 minutes, and any longer sets the glaze hard.
The mackerel has its pin bones pulled before grilling, so you can break it up with a spoon and stir it straight into the rice and onion soy sauce. A little minced ginger in the sauce keeps the oily fish tasting clean.
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.
Garae-tteok and Vienna sausages alternate on the skewer and brown first; the gochujang glaze only goes on over low heat for the last minute or so. If you are wary of the heat, hold back some glaze, taste, and add more only if you want it.
Chicken thighs go into a gochujang marinade, ideally overnight. On the day, the skin side is pressed into the pan first to render the fat, then the pieces are flipped and covered so the thick meat cooks through. The glaze only turns glossy at the very end, in the last 2 minutes over high heat with the lid off.
In inland Yamagata, families and friends gather on riverbanks in autumn to share huge pots of this taro and beef stew at imoni-kai parties. The beef waits until a skewer slides easily into the taro. Added at the start, it toughens and throws off more foam.
Half the pleasure is digging out the meat lodged between the vertebrae and cartilage, which after an hour's simmer comes away with no effort. The broth is seasoned with a spoonful of doenjang plus chili flakes and soy sauce. It works as a companion to soju or as a meal, with the broth spooned over rice.
Unlike whole-garlic jangajji, which waits for a cooled brine, garlic scapes get the brine while it is still boiling. That heat lightly cooks the surface, so each 4 cm piece snaps cleanly when bitten. Whole peppercorns slowly release a warm, spicy aroma into the liquid as the jar ages. The scapes are edible the next day, though day three is when the seasoning reaches the center and the crunch is still intact.
Hot gochujang-marinated pork goes straight onto cold rinsed somen (thin wheat noodles), putting warm meat and chilled noodles in the same bite. The pork shoulder sits in gochujang and chili flakes with soy sauce and sugar, which lay a savory sweetness under the heat. A short, fierce stir-fry keeps water from pooling in the pan and lets the edges caramelize while the inside stays moist. Cabbage and onion cook in the same pan, adding sweetness under the chili heat. A rinse in ice water makes the boiled noodles chewier. The two are combined only right before serving, since thin noodles mixed too early soak up moisture and swell.
Blanched young ukogi shoots, miso-pickled daikon and walnuts are all chopped to just larger than a grain of rice, giving a loose, crumbly mix that scatters as you pick it up. Most of the salt comes from the pickled daikon, so soy sauce and salt are added only after tasting. Only ukogi grown and sold as food belongs in it, since wild plants are easy to confuse with look-alikes, and anyone with a walnut allergy should avoid the dish.
A soft, folded steamed bun holds a thick slice of pork belly braised in soy sauce, sugar and five-spice, topped with cucumber pickles, cilantro and crushed roasted peanuts. It started as food eaten around the Lunar New Year and is now a night-market snack in Taiwan.
Shiitake cut into thick slices soak up a soy and syrup glaze until the outside turns glossy brown and the inside stays chewy. The braise stops before the pan goes dry, while the sauce still coats a spoon lightly; reduced all the way, it starts to scorch. Sesame oil goes in after the heat is off, and a few minutes of cooling lets the glaze soak in further.
Open the lid and pieces of mackerel sit on a bed of gondre (Korean thistle greens), its oil and the greens' earthy aroma having soaked into the rice as it rested. The crust at the bottom gets a splash of water and is eaten as sungnyung, a toasted rice drink.
The deodeok, a fibrous mountain root, goes into the pan ahead of the eggplant and onion, because eggplant cooks far faster. Its earthy bitterness is toned down beforehand with a short soak in salted water.
Rice cakes and cocktail sausages take turns on the skewer, and the glaze has more ketchup than gochujang, so it tastes sweet and tangy more than hot. The glaze goes on only when the skewers are nearly cooked, with sesame seeds scattered over at the end.