54 recipes. Page 1 of 3
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Lifted from the center of the soy milk, Nikko yuba comes up doubled, thick, and rippled, and agemaki yuba is that tofu skin rolled into sticks, fried, and dried. The rolls simmer slowly in a sweet, mild dashi, and cooling them in the liquid is what carries the flavor to the center.
A whole salmon fillet goes into puff pastry with a filling of cream cheese, spinach, dill and lemon zest, and comes to the table in thick slices. The Dijon-laced cream cheese seasons the fish and also keeps its juices from soaking into the pastry. Ten minutes in the fridge before baking firms the butter again, and the layers separate more clearly in the oven.
All of the measured salt goes into the blanching water, leaving soy sauce as the only seasoning in the dressing itself. Keeping the pot at a hard boil after the spinach goes in lets the leaves wilt within moments, and the cold water bath that follows fixes their bright green. Cut to a length that is easy to pick up with chopsticks, the spinach is finished with sesame seeds crushed lightly between the palms.
Spinach, bean sprouts, carrot and zucchini are each cooked on their own rather than tossed together, which keeps their textures distinct even after everything is mixed. Blanched greens that are not squeezed dry leave the rice soggy.
How much liquid ends up in the pan depends on how dry the washed spinach is before it goes in. The only seasoning is a teaspoon of soy sauce, with sesame oil and sesame seeds stirred in after the heat is off.
Salmon fillet with skin and bony parts, milt, and loosened roe all go into one pot of kelp stock seasoned with miso in this Hokkaido-style nabe. It is said to come from fishermen near the mouth of the Ishikari River, who dropped fresh salmon pieces and bones straight into miso soup to celebrate a big catch. Root vegetables, konnyaku, tofu, and rolls of blanched spinach wrapped in napa cabbage are arranged in sections around a mound of miso in the center. A final dusting of sansho pepper over the whole pot adds a tingling lift to the miso broth.
There is no chili anywhere in this tofu stew. Garlic and onion soften for a minute in a teaspoon of perilla oil, the stock goes in, and a tablespoon of soup soy sauce is all the seasoning it gets. Spinach is added at the very end, and the heat goes off while it is still bright green.
Tofu, spinach and shiitake share one covered pan over low heat without any frying, and the soy seasoning stays light and clean. The slices are pressed firmly between paper towels before they reach the pan, since water left in the tofu clouds the liquid and dilutes the seasoning. Shiitake supplies most of the savory depth in an otherwise plain sauce, while the spinach wilts down between the tofu slices. Perilla oil is drizzled on only after the heat is off, which keeps its nutty aroma from cooking away. Just a shallow pool of liquid gathers under the tofu, making this a side dish for chopsticks rather than a soupy one.
A brief 12-minute salting wilts spinach leaves while the stems keep their snap, giving two textures in each bite. Sand lance fish sauce adds salty depth to the green, grassy flavor, and green plum syrup rounds off the salt. Thick stems are split in half so they season at the same pace as the leaves. Once it has chilled for at least six hours, it goes to the table cold with rice.
Beef and shiitake share one soy and garlic marinade and hit the pan together, letting the mushrooms soak up the meat juices instead of tasting like a separate vegetable. What sets this japchae apart is the last step: after everything is tossed in a bowl, it goes back into a hot pan just long enough to drive off loose seasoning. The noodles should end up clear and bouncy with no thin sauce pooling underneath. Sweet and salty japchae like this is a fixture of Chuseok, Seollal and birthday tables in Korea.
Like risotto, orzo stirred through vegetable stock turns creamy and spoonable, all in one pot. The clams are added near the end and open right in the pot, letting their briny juice mix with doenjang, the Korean fermented soybean paste that seasons it all.
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.
Sun-dried tomatoes bring concentrated sweetness and spinach a soft bitterness, giving a heavy cream and Parmesan sauce some color and contrast. The chicken breasts, evened out to 1.5 cm, are seared for a brown crust first and then finished in the sauce. The browned bits left from that sear, scraped up with chicken stock, become the base of the sauce. More Parmesan makes it thicker, and a few drops of lemon juice at the end lighten the cream.
Thin slices of duck breast are dredged generously in flour before going into the broth, and that coating does two jobs: it protects the meat and gives the sauce its body. This is a Kanazawa dish from Ishikawa, with sudare-fu (ridged wheat gluten sheets), taro, shiitake, and flower-shaped fu each cooked separately in the same sweet-salty soy and mirin dashi. They are plated with the duck and blanched spinach under the thickened sauce, and a small mound of fresh wasabi cuts through the sweetness.
Layers of buttered phyllo bake into sheets that shatter at the touch of a fork, around a filling of spinach with salty feta and dill. Most of the effort goes into the spinach, which is cooked until no water pools in the pan.
Tuna gimbap is on nearly every Korean gimbap shop menu. Well-drained tuna mixed with mayonnaise runs down the center, surrounded by carrot, spinach, thin egg strips and danmuji, yellow pickled radish.
Thin slices of radish simmer first to flavor the broth, because the clams and spinach themselves cook in moments. Turn the heat down as soon as the clams open and the meat stays tender.
Shiitake carries the chew in this meatless japchae, cut into long thin strips alongside the onion and carrot. The seasoning is split: half dresses the sauteed vegetables, and the rest is stir-fried with the boiled noodles so they take on flavor of their own.
Without a pasta wrapper, these ricotta and spinach dumplings hold together through moisture control rather than extra flour. Loading the mixture with flour keeps them intact but makes them dense and heavy.
Spread across a hot pan and left alone for 1 to 2 minutes, the button mushrooms brown on the underside instead of turning watery. Garlic cooked first in the olive oil scents the pan, and the mushrooms and spinach pick up that aroma as they follow. Spinach goes into the same pan only long enough to wilt, so the leaves stay bright green and the mushrooms keep their bounce. Balsamic vinegar, added off the heat, brings sweetness and acidity, and grated Parmesan adds a salty finish. It comes together quickly, making it an easy side for dinner or a snack with wine.
Spinach wilted briefly in butter takes the place of bacon or ham, sitting between a toasted English muffin and a soft poached egg under hollandaise. Moisture is what ruins it: squeeze the spinach hard and keep the toasted halves spread apart so their steam does not turn them soggy. Fresh eggs hold a neater shape in the poaching water, and the hollandaise needs a gentle bain-marie, since too much heat splits it.
Paneer, an Indian cheese that holds its shape instead of melting, sits in cubes in a bright green spinach sauce and chews a little like firm tofu. For this North Indian vegetarian curry the spinach is blanched for only a minute before blending and simmered briefly, which keeps the green vivid.
The spinach is squeezed hard before it is seasoned, the carrot is sauteed to drive off water, and the rice is left to cool a little before it is spread on the seaweed. All three steps are there to keep the gim from going soggy. The finished roll and the knife both get a thin coat of sesame oil before slicing.
Spinach brings a faint bitterness to the doenjang broth, and the wilted leaves leave it tinged a pale green.