877 recipes. Page 9 of 37
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Said to have started at snack shops outside Seoul schools in the 1970s and 80s, this tteokbokki has no broth at all. The rice cakes brown in oil one side at a time, then the heat drops and a chili flake and soy paste goes in to coat them thinly. Warmed in the oil, the chili flakes smell toasty before they taste hot.
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.
In southern Aomori this soup was served at Bon, New Year, weddings, and other celebrations, and its name comes from golden sea urchin in clear broth looking like wild strawberries seen through morning mist. The roe is heated only until its surface sets; a hard boil breaks it apart and dulls its aroma.
Enoki pulled apart strand by strand and only filmed with batter fry into a loose, lacy round, crisp as tempura at the rim and chewy in the middle. A dip of soy sauce with vinegar and a pinch of chili flakes comes with it.
Pomfret has thin, tender flesh that slips off the bone easily once the whole steamed fish reaches the table. Ginger and green onion are split into two rounds: the first steams with the fish to cut any fishiness, and the second goes on with the warm soy and rice wine sauce for fresh aroma. That sauce is mild and barely salty, letting the clean taste of the fish lead.
Tearing steamed eggplant by hand along its grain, instead of slicing it, leaves ragged surfaces that pull the chili, garlic and fish sauce dressing deep between the fibers. There is no fermentation, so it is eaten the day it is made, ideally in summer when eggplant is in season and a quick extra side dish is needed. Spooned over cold rice and mixed, it becomes a simple meal on its own, with soft eggplant and spicy dressing coating every grain.
Scallions cooked slowly in oil until they shrink, brown and turn crisp leave behind an amber, fragrant oil that becomes the sauce for these noodles. With only soy sauce, sugar and white pepper added, the result rests almost entirely on patience at the stove. Turning up the heat to hurry the scallions burns them black and leaves the oil bitter. The crisp pieces are lifted out and saved as a crunchy topping.
Okara (soy pulp) is dry-toasted until crumbly, then mixed with vinegar-cured sardine, salted cucumber and carrot, and sweet simmered fried tofu, all held together by a thick peanut and miso dressing. The dish comes from the Boso coast of Chiba, and each portion is squeezed by hand into a small rice-bale shape. Store-bought okara added straight from the pack carries too much water and turns the mix soggy, which is why it is toasted first. The salted vegetables and the vinegar-rinsed sardine also need to be well drained, or the shaped bales slump. Toasty okara, salty fish, sweet vinegared miso and yuzu peel land in a single bite.
A thin flour crepe goes into the pan first, then an egg is poured over it and scattered with scallion, and as the egg sets the two become one sheet. It is a griddle item at Taiwanese breakfast stalls, where the thickness of the batter and the cooking time differ from one stall to the next, and so does the chew. Folded or rolled and cut into pieces, it comes with soy sauce, sometimes with chili oil too.
The steamed eggplant is torn by hand rather than cut, because the ragged strands hold the soy sauce and sesame oil better than a clean knife edge. Once dressed it turns dark and glossy, and on warm rice it all but melts.
Chicken thigh, cabbage and onion stir-fried with gochujang and chili flakes get cold rice tossed in, turning dakgalbi into fried rice. Once it is mixed, the rice is pressed against the pan for 30 seconds to sear the bottom, then covered with mozzarella and melted under a lid.
Rather than marinating the pork, this version sears thin slices of pork shoulder first and adds the soy, mirin, and fresh ginger sauce only for the last 30 seconds, when it reduces to a glossy glaze. Laid flat without overlapping, the slices brown at the edges instead of stewing in their own juices. Onion softened in the same pan adds sweetness, and the result is the ginger pork familiar from Japanese set meals and bento boxes.
Under a sticky, shiny gochujang and honey glaze, the potato starch crust on these chicken pieces still crunches. They go into the sauce right before serving.
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.
Two glutinous rice dumplings filled with sweet bean paste float in each bowl of clear soy-seasoned broth, sweet and savory in the same spoonful. They are shaped like small eggs, which is where the name keiran, meaning egg, comes from, and in the Shimokita area of Aomori they were made for the autumn harvest and festive days.
Fresh shiitake caps are stuffed with pork seasoned with soy sauce, scallion and garlic, mounded slightly, then coated in egg and fried. The easily skipped step is a very light dusting of flour inside each cap, which acts like glue between mushroom and meat.
Butterfish is so tender that it is never turned in the pot; instead the broth is spooned over every two or three minutes to cook the top. The soy broth carries ginger and only a little chili flake; the heat is barely there.
Pouring boiling soy brine straight over whole green peppers lightly blanches the skins to a brighter green while the flesh inside stays raw and crisp. Toothpick holes in each pepper let the brine past the thick walls to the seeds. The finished pickle tastes salty, gently sour and still hot, since the capsaicin mellows in the brine but never disappears, and two or three peppers are enough to carry a bowl of plain rice. Cheongyang chilies make a sharper version, and kkwari peppers give a milder, more tender one.
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.
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.
Whole loach, a small freshwater fish, simmer with burdock, tofu and scallion in a soy-based broth until even the bones are soft enough to eat. Burdock shaved thin, like sharpening a pencil, flavors the broth. In eastern Saitama, along the Tone and Ayase rivers, loach were caught in rice paddies from summer into autumn; thick ones were simmered whole like this, and thin ones went into soup.
Thin, green gamtae seaweed is harvested in winter along Korea's southwest coast, including Garorim Bay near Seosan. This recipe uses plain dried gamtae, not fresh fronds or the kind seasoned with oil and salt. Because it softens fast once it meets liquid, the seaweed is torn into large pieces, the soy and vinegar dressing is scattered widely, and the mixing is a lift rather than a press, done right before eating.
Mozzarella melted over gochujang-glazed chicken thigh pulls into long strands and softens the chili heat. A pan that is not hot enough lets the cabbage and onion release water, and the sauce ends up thin instead of clinging.
Celery leaves usually end up in the bin, but here they go into the pan with the stalks and give the chicken breast an herby smell. The stalks get only a short time on the heat, so they still crunch.