877 recipes. Page 20 of 37
As an Amazon Associate, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
Chewy squares of Korean fish cake (eomuk) are mixed with crisp onion and carrot. Soy sauce and oligo syrup give a sweet-salty glaze, and a cheongyang chili tossed in at the end adds a little heat.
Wrapped around a wooden skewer rather than served as a free-standing patty, this tteokgalbi mixture needs far more grip than the plated kind. A little starch and more than 3 minutes of kneading give it that, and skewers soaked in water for 10 minutes scorch less. Tteokbokki sauce or ketchup alongside makes it a street-stall snack.
Wrapped in lettuce and other leaves to eat, this pork shoulder is marinated in gochujang for at least 30 minutes and spread in a single layer over high heat. For the first 2 minutes it is left alone, until the edges go dark brown. The sugar is stirred fully into the marinade beforehand. Any grains left undissolved scorch into black spots.
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.
Thin lemon slices layered with the crown daisy add a citrus lift to an otherwise plain soy brine. The leaves wilt and take on the soy color after 24 hours of chilling, which makes it a next-day option when a side dish is needed fast.
Thin-sliced pork belly fried until golden renders the fat that everything else cooks in. Onion, scallion and kimchi go into that fat, and the kimchi keeps frying until its juice has nearly gone, concentrating flavor and keeping the noodles from turning soggy. Older, more fermented kimchi gives a deeper sour note to the finished udon.
Kakuni falls apart along the grain at the touch of a chopstick, the result of thick pork belly cooked in soy sauce, mirin, and ginger over the lowest heat until even the fat layer turns translucent. Chilling it overnight and lifting off the set fat before reheating gives a cleaner broth, and a dab of hot Japanese mustard goes on the side.
Unlike inari-zushi, which fills tofu pouches with rice that is already cooked, itadaki packs them with raw rice, burdock, carrot, and shiitake and lets the rice cook inside in shiitake soaking liquid seasoned with soy sauce, sugar, and sake. Small holes spread across each pouch let that liquid reach the center, and leaving headroom matters because raw rice expands enough to burst a packed pouch.
Gai pad med mamuang is Thai cashew chicken with onion and bell pepper. This version uses oyster sauce, soy sauce, and sugar, with no fish sauce or dried chilies. Cut the chicken thigh into 2-3cm pieces and the vegetables into chunky 3cm pieces before heating the pan. Mix the sauce separately so it can be added quickly after the chicken and vegetables have cooked. Use roasted cashews: this recipe adds them for only the final 30 seconds and does not include a separate roasting step. Lower the heat before adding the sauce, and stop reducing while it still coats the chicken with a glossy glaze. Add the cashews last and serve immediately to keep their crunch.
Garae-tteok on skewers is browned in an oiled pan before the gochujang sauce goes on. A final minute of rolling over low heat after glazing sets the sauce onto the surface, so it stays put even as the skewers cool.
On the domed jingisukan pan, lamb fat and juices run down the grooves into the bean sprouts, onions and squash ringing the edge. This Hokkaido style skips the marinade and dips the lamb after cooking in a soy-vinegar sauce made with grated apple, pear, garlic and ginger. The fattiest pieces cook first in the center, and their rendered fat coats the grooves so nothing sticks without added oil. Everyone eats as things cook, lifting off meat and vegetables as they are ready, with potatoes and squash taking the longest. Hokkaido began eating lamb when sheep were raised for wool in the Taisho era, and the dish is now cooked at home year-round and outdoors at spring blossom parties and summer barbecues.
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.
A few fresh basil leaves in the jar give this soy pickle an herbal note that ordinary jangajji does not have. The brine is cooled completely before it is poured over, because peeled cherry tomatoes turn soft under hot liquid. The skins slip off from a shallow cross cut, since a deep cut makes the flesh split open in the boiling water. Once the jar has chilled for a day, the vinegar settles and the tomatoes' own sweetness comes forward, and the texture holds for about a week when refrigerated. Serve them with rice or rich grilled meat, or on cheese and crackers with drinks.
Sweet-savory simmered tofu pockets sit on a clear dashi broth and slowly release their syrup, and the soup grows a little sweeter as you eat. The broth starts out lightly seasoned to leave room for that sweetness and should not taste salty before the tofu goes on. Simmer the tofu until a little liquid remains and it stays moist, and making it a day ahead lets the flavor sink in further. Scallions and shichimi pepper add fragrance and a touch of heat.
In the mountains of northern Miyazaki, especially Takachiho, bamboo is called kappo, and this dish fills a section of young green bamboo with chicken, burdock, shiitake, carrot, garlic chives, and garlic before setting it over charcoal. The ingredients steam in their own moisture and pick up the scent of the bamboo. It is an outdoor dish, made over glowing coals rather than tall flames, with sound, untreated bamboo meant for cooking.
This bowl starts from a 200 g raw, cleaned freshwater eel fillet rather than a packet of cooked kabayaki, and that changes how it has to be handled. The sugary glaze darkens well before the center is done. The signal is the thickest part reaching 63°C/145°F, not the shine.
Thick 1 cm half-moons of eggplant get a seared face before they are turned, so the pieces hold their shape and only the centers go soft, unlike limp versions of this banchan. Stirring too early stops the browning, and stirring too long makes the slices collapse.
Without any meat, the filling leans on firm tofu, cabbage, garlic chives, and short-cut Korean sweet potato glass noodles, which give each bite an even, springy chew while the chives stand in for green onion. Pan-frying sets a thin golden crust on the bottom while the top of the wrapper stays soft.
Dried filefish is browned on both sides in butter, then the heat drops and a thin glaze of soy sauce and syrup goes on. A pinch of chili powder and sesame seeds, a few snips into long strips, and it is ready to sit next to beer or soju.
The ribs spend half an hour in cold water and get a quick blanch and rinse before they ever meet the soy braising liquid. It is an extra step, but it keeps the foam and impurities out of the pot, and the finished sauce tastes clean rather than murky.
A hollowed white melon is packed with green chilies wrapped in shiso leaves, and each slice shows pale melon around a green center. The look of a gun barrel loaded with ammunition gives teppo-zuke, gun pickle, its name. It began as a winter preserve around Narita and Katori in Chiba, became a crisp, spicy side for rice and sake, and is a well-known souvenir near Naritasan Shinshoji Temple. The salted melon first spends two days in water, changed as it goes, to draw out the salt. Reboiling only the marinade and returning it cold each day for several days is how the seasoning reaches the center of the dense melon.
A sheet of sweet, soy-simmered fried tofu sits on top of the bowl, and every bite squeezes its braising liquid out into the broth. That broth is a clear dashi made from kombu and bonito flakes, pale in color but full in flavor, in the Kansai style associated with Osaka. Reducing the tofu until its simmering liquid is nearly gone puts the sweetness inside the tofu rather than leaving it in the pot. It tastes best once it has soaked in the hot soup for a moment and gone soft. In Osaka this is everyday food, eaten as an early breakfast as readily as at lunch.
The seasoning is in the meat rather than the coating: boneless thighs marinate in soy sauce, mirin, ginger juice, and garlic. A thin dusting of potato starch and a second fry keep the crust crisp even after it cools.
Thin slices of abalone go onto the rice only when the surface water has nearly gone, then cook in nothing but the heat of a 5-minute rest, lid on and burner off, and stay tender. The finished rice is mixed with a dressing of soy sauce, scallion, minced garlic, and sesame seeds.