240 recipes. Page 4 of 10
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Halved and scored in a grid, the eggplant cooks cut side down under a lid, and the trapped steam turns the inside creamy while the skin keeps a little bite. The soy and garlic sauce is spooned into the cuts while the eggplant is still hot.
The konjac is blanched for two minutes first to get rid of its faint limey smell. Shallow crosshatching on both sides lets the soy glaze settle into the grooves, and once it is done it cools completely before serving, which evens out the seasoning.
Made with early-spring shepherd's purse, this kimchi is eaten as soon as the seasoning settles in the fridge, and sweet rice paste gives the chili and anchovy sauce dressing enough body to cling to the thin stems. Washing takes more care than anything else in the recipe: soil hides between the fine roots, and any left behind makes the whole batch taste muddy and bitter.
A big platter piled with somyeon, shredded cabbage, cucumber, carrot and torn lettuce arrives tossed in a spicy-tangy gochujang dressing. Each vegetable brings its own kind of crunch against the soft noodles, and the dressing of gochujang, vinegar, sugar and soy hits sweet, sour and hot in quick succession. Sesame oil and toasted seeds round off the sharpness without dulling it.
King oyster mushrooms sliced lengthwise and seared in a dry pan turn golden outside and stay chewy inside, giving this salad its meaty bite. Perilla oil, nutty and slightly grassy, meets lemon juice in the dressing so a light acidity lifts the browned mushrooms. Shredded perilla leaves bring a sharp herbal aroma that fades quickly once dressed. The bowl is best eaten soon after tossing.
Bok choy usually ends up in stir-fries, but blanched and dressed with doenjang (Korean soybean paste) it becomes a namul with crisp stalks and an earthy, salty seasoning. Rub the dressing right into the hollow of each stalk with your fingers.
The rice is spread out in the bowls and left to steam off for about three minutes before the cucumber, lettuce, perilla leaves and flounder go on. Straight onto hot rice, the fish would turn lukewarm. Half the cho-gochujang, a sweet-sour chili sauce, is drizzled on for the first mix, and the rest goes in to taste.
Salt is the only seasoning. The heat goes off when a strand of potato bends without snapping, which leaves a little crunch in the middle.
Soy-marinated short rib meat, seared over high heat, comes topped with a pile of green onion shreds that have been soaking in cold water. Each pick of the chopsticks takes hot meat and cold, crisp onion together.
On drying racks in Gangwon-do, pollock freezes and thaws dozens of times over the winter to become hwangtae, and the flesh ends up full of sponge-like pores. Braised in soy sauce with gochujang, it takes the salty-sweet seasoning in through those pores, all the way to the middle rather than just on the surface.
Skipping the usual long salting, raw napa cabbage goes straight into the chili seasoning and the leaves stay crunchy, cool, and full of juice. Green plum syrup brings a rounded sweetness that fermentation would otherwise supply, softening the salt of the anchovy sauce. Tossing stops as soon as the red paste coats the leaves evenly, because any water left on the cabbage, or too much mixing, thins the seasoning.
Japaguri, known abroad as ram-don since a film introduced it to international audiences, cooks a black bean sauce instant noodle and a spicy one together so the roasted-bean sweetness runs straight into chili heat. Onion and green onion fried in oil first lay down a sweet, savory base. Only half the spicy seasoning is added, enough heat without burying the jjajang flavor, and that packet is also the dial for anyone who wants more fire. Once the noodles are about 80 percent cooked, all but roughly 120 ml of the water is poured off: leave more and the sauce tastes thin, leave less and it turns stiff. The pot comes off the heat when the sauce clings glossily to every strand.
Mackerel, grilled until the skin crackles, is broken into big flakes while still warm and piled onto cold romaine and perilla leaves. The dressing is soy sauce with yuja (Korean citron) marmalade and sesame oil, and its sweet-tart citrus sits well with the oily fish.
Slightly bitter chwinamul is blanched for 2 minutes and dressed with doenjang, soup soy sauce and sesame oil, then finished with perilla powder and scallion. The doenjang is worked in with spread fingers so it reaches between the leaves, and the greens rest five minutes before serving. In winter, when fresh chwinamul is not around, dried chwinamul soaked until soft can stand in.
There is no separate sauce here. Unsalted butter melts into the hot rice, shredded jangjorim (soy-braised beef) goes on top, and its braising liquid is spooned over a little at a time until the seasoning tastes right. An egg yolk and crushed roasted seaweed finish the bowl, and with jangjorim already in the fridge it comes together in about 15 minutes.
This has been a fixture of Korean school lunches and staff cafeterias for decades. The potato is cut into thin, even matchsticks; when the widths vary, the thin strips break while the thick ones stay underdone.
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.
The potatoes finish with a sweet-salty soy glaze clinging to the outside and a floury interior. Because their wrinkled skins catch the sauce quickly, the shishito peppers wait until the potatoes are about halfway done and still keep a bit of crunch. The heat is mild enough for children, and once the glaze sets the dish holds its flavor at room temperature in a lunchbox.
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.
Thick, springy jjolmyeon noodles get tossed in a sweet, sour and spicy dressing of gochujang, vinegar and sugar. Cabbage and cucumber soaked in cold water stay crisp against the heat, while a halved boiled egg rounds things out. The noodle is said to have started in the 1970s as a production mistake at a noodle factory in Incheon.
Soft rehydrated wakame and lightly salted cucumber slices sit in a cold, sweet-sour dressing of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar and sesame oil. The recipe is built around plain dried cut wakame that only needs soaking, so there is no blanching step. Salted wakame or a ready-made seaweed salad from the chiller case will not give the same result, since their texture and seasoning differ.
Both the small bulbs and the leaves of dallae, a Korean wild chive, go in raw, tossed in soy sauce, vinegar, gochugaru and sesame oil. Cleaning takes the longest: soil hides between the bulbs, and the dark core and loose outer skin have to come off.
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.
Flakes of green gamtae are scattered through a glazed stir-fry of tiny anchovies and sliced almonds, giving a familiar banchan an extra sea smell. Gamtae is a seaweed from Korea's southern coast, milder and less bitter than sea lettuce.