240 recipes. Page 6 of 10
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Slicing cooked octopus thin and wide with the knife laid at a low angle shortens its tough fibers, so each piece chews easily. Cho-gochujang, gochujang sharpened with vinegar and sugar, coats it in a sour heat, while minari (Korean water dropwort) adds a fresh, herbal aroma and cucumber and onion bring crunch.
The first thing you taste is ground perilla seed (deulkkae), which clings to the sprouts in a pale, nutty coating. The sprouts steam in a little water under a lid rather than boiling, so they stay crunchy and hold less water.
Perilla oil and kkaennip (perilla leaves) both come from the same plant, so one bowl carries the toasty smell of the seed and the fresh, minty smell of the leaf. The egg is cooked soft in butter and folded in.
Cut into thin julienne rather than half-moons, the zucchini mixes evenly through rice when this namul goes into bibimbap. The decisive step is squeezing the salted strands hard with both hands; water left behind makes the stir-fry soggy and the bibimbap wet. With only salt, garlic and sesame oil, the pale green color stays bright, and it works warm or cooled.
Napa kimchi aged until it turns sour mellows in a hot pan, the sourness easing into a toasty sweetness. Besides the kimchi there is only a little sugar, sesame oil and sesame seeds, so how well aged the kimchi is decides the taste. Eat it while the edges are still crisp.
The small anchovies are toasted in a dry pan and set aside, while the garlic scapes cook first in the soy glaze; the fish only returns for the last couple of minutes so it stays crisp-chewy instead of hard. Scapes are never blanched, which keeps them bright green with a snap at the center.
Without gochujang in the mix, the toasty, nutty perilla oil carries this buckwheat makguksu, dressed with just soy sauce, vinegar, and a little allulose syrup. With such a simple dressing, any water pooling under the noodles dilutes it immediately.
The bitter, earthy smell of naengi (shepherd's purse), a Korean spring green, plays against the rich fat of quickly seared beef sirloin. Thin strips of Korean pear add sweetness and moisture, and the soy dressing gets its sweet-sour edge from vinegar and plum extract. After blanching, the greens are pressed gently by the handful rather than wrung hard, which keeps their aroma. Letting the dressed salad sit for about 5 minutes before serving helps everything come together.
In the five-color namul set for Chuseok and Seollal ancestral tables, bellflower root is the white one. The torn root is rubbed hard with salt to draw out its bitterness and rinsed until the cloudy water runs clear, then dressed with gochujang, vinegar, and sugar. Since it is never cooked, it stays crunchy long enough to be made ahead.
Half sheets of seaweed are spread with a very thin layer of rice and rolled tightly around just three fillings: yellow pickled radish, spinach, and carrot. The result is a slim roll that cuts into small coins, each one a single bite. Carrot is stir-fried only until it wilts so it keeps some crunch and sweetness, and the spinach is blanched briefly, squeezed dry, and dressed with sesame oil.
One bite brings the springy head of webfoot octopus (jjukkumi), its chewy suckered legs and crunchy soybean sprouts. With plenty of gochugaru and cheongyang chilies on top of that, it is properly hot.
Gochujang paste goes onto the cut faces of the crab and into the gaps in the shell, and it rests 15 minutes at room temperature. It grills shell side down over medium heat first; after the turn, more paste is brushed on the cut side and runs down into the shell over the meat. Whatever collects inside the shell ends up as a dip for the meat.
Butterbur stems are sharply bitter, so they are peeled, blanched and then soaked in cold water for a full hour; after that only a pleasant, faint bitterness remains. Braised slowly in kelp stock with soy sauce and a little syrup, the stems absorb the seasoning all the way through and come out salty-sweet with a glossy surface. Sliced red chili at the end adds more color than heat.
Blanched spinach, soybean sprouts, and julienned carrot are tossed with thin somyeon in a soy, vinegar, and plum syrup dressing that is salty, tart, and faintly sweet, with no chili paste involved. The spinach and sprouts are blanched separately and squeezed hard, because leftover water thins the sauce and makes the noodles swell and clump as they sit. Dry-sauteing the carrot without oil for a minute brings out a sweetness raw carrot lacks. Dressing the noodles before adding the vegetables seasons every strand instead of letting the sauce cling only to the greens. The garlic is stirred until evenly dispersed so no single bite turns sharp, and half a tablespoon of gochugaru makes a spicy version.
Oyster mushrooms seared in a dry pan lose their water, brown at the edges, and concentrate their savory flavor. They are tossed with baby greens and briefly blanched naengi (shepherd's purse), which keeps its earthy spring smell. The dressing loosens doenjang, Korean fermented soybean paste, with yuja marmalade and vinegar. The result tastes nutty, tangy, and lightly citrusy at once. Halved cherry tomatoes burst with juice that lightens the heavy fermented notes.
In this Chungcheong-style method the smelt are packed around the pan with every head pointing to the center, and as they fry they fuse into one crisp disc. The oil is poured off only after the disc has set firm, and the gochujang glaze is brushed on thinly, so the underside keeps its crunch. It goes to the table in the pan, scattered with green and red chilies.
In spring, when cockles are in season, their meat goes into this bowl with raw water parsley (minari) and a gochujang dressing. The cockles come out of the boiling water after 30 seconds; any longer and they shrink and turn rubbery.
Hwangtae is pollock dried through a winter of freezing and thawing in mountain air, which leaves the flesh light and full of tiny holes. Soaked and stir-fried, the shreds take the gochujang glaze all the way in and turn red, moist and chewy.
Each kkwari pepper gets poked once or twice with a fork, then rolled around a dry pan for about 3 minutes until the skin wrinkles and spots brown. The doenjang sauce goes in only after that, for 2 minutes of tossing. As it cools, the seasoning tastes stronger.
Unlike the spicy, raw-dressed dried radish salad, this version braises rehydrated radish strips with thin slices of lean beef eye of round in a soy broth until chewy and lightly sweet. Drying concentrates the radish's sugar, and the strips drink up the braising liquid as they simmer. Soaking them in cold water for at least 20 minutes, until they spring back, sets up the right final texture.
Squid takes the place of beef in this version of japchae, the Korean glass noodle stir-fry, tossed with spinach, carrot, and onion in a soy and sugar sauce. Scoring the inside of the squid in a crosshatch lets the seasoning reach more surface and keeps the cooked pieces tender. The squid gets only about a minute over high heat, since any longer turns it rubbery and leaks water that leaves the noodles soggy. The spinach is blanched separately and squeezed hard for the same reason. Boiled for no more than 6 minutes, the glass noodles stay springy and hold together in the pan.
Sliced paper-thin on the bias, about 0.1cm, the cucumber takes on the dressing quickly and turns tender while keeping its crunch. Vinegar brightens the cucumber's cool, watery freshness, and the chili heat follows quietly behind. It shows up constantly on Korean summer tables, on its own with rice or piled onto naengmyeon and bibimbap. It is mixed close to mealtime, since after about 30 minutes the cucumber starts weeping water and goes limp.
Cheongyang peppers, the hottest everyday chili in Korea, carry this raw soy dressing, and keeping or scraping out their seeds sets how sharp it gets. The tofu needs a hot pan and high heat until the underside turns deep brown; drop the heat and the tofu releases water and steams, losing the contrast between crust and soft center.
The sea squirt goes on last, over rice already topped with cucumber and lettuce, and everything is turned over with the vinegared gochujang only a few broad times right before eating. The longer it is mixed, the more of its briny aroma is lost. Even drying the rinsed sea squirt is gentle: a paper towel pressed on top, never rubbed.