108 recipes. Page 2 of 5
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Thick rounds of zucchini are hollowed into little cups and filled with beef, tofu and shiitake before steaming. Soft zucchini and dense filling come in the same bite, with thin strips of egg crepe on top.
Manila clam broth is naturally salty, so a little soup soy sauce is enough, and more would bury the clean, mineral sea flavor. For a stronger soup, the answer is more clams rather than more seasoning.
Ground pork plus onion, zucchini and cabbage all cut to the same 1 cm dice means every spoonful picks up a bit of everything once the sauce is mixed into the rice. The chunjang (black bean paste) is fried in oil for a minute first to take away its harsh edge, lifted out, and returned only after the vegetables have cooked.
One zucchini and a spoonful of salted shrimp (saeujeot) are about all this side dish needs. The shrimp brings a savory saltiness, so extra salt is rarely needed.
Cheonggukjang smells far stronger than doenjang, and once it is stirred into the stock its earthy, heavy aroma takes over the whole pot. Leaving the soup covered off the heat for a few minutes before serving softens that smell noticeably.
Turn on the range hood before the cheonggukjang goes in. The smell as it boils is strong, but the broth itself tastes deep and nutty, and because the soybeans are only briefly fermented, they keep a sticky, stringy texture. It is eaten hot, ladled over rice and mixed in.
Only the foam gets skimmed from this doenjang broth, and the brisket fat left in gives the soybean-paste soup a rich, beefy body. Onion, zucchini, and oyster mushrooms simmer before the meat goes in, and their sweetness softens the salty, fermented edge of the paste. The final adjustment comes from soup soy sauce rather than more paste, since doenjang brands differ in saltiness. The thick knife-cut noodles cook right in the pot rather than separately, thickening the broth with their starch and giving it a heavier, almost creamy feel. If the soup reduces until it turns too cloudy or salty, 100 ml of water and one more boil set it right.
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.
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.
Bok choy turns up more often in Chinese cooking, yet it suits doenjang soup well. It sits in supermarkets all year, which makes it a handy replacement when there is no napa cabbage, and zucchini and tofu fill out the bowl alongside it.
The wild chives keep their bulbs: only the papery skin is peeled off, and they are cut, roots and all, into 4 cm pieces. The bulb end is where the scent is strongest. They go into the doenjang broth after the heat is turned down, and the burner is off within a minute.
Poaching chicken breast directly in the anchovy stock gives the clear broth of janchi guksu, Korea's party noodle soup, an extra savory layer. A little sesame oil tossed through the shredded chicken makes the lean breast meat taste moist, while separate yellow and white egg-crepe strips, zucchini, and carrot add color. The recipe scales up easily, making it practical for feeding a crowd.
Cleaned blue crab sits on the rice, which cooks in anchovy-kelp stock with doenjang dissolved in it, and the crab's sweetness and the earthy paste soak down into every grain. After the rice has rested, one more minute over low heat builds a layer of nurungji (scorched rice) on the bottom. Doenjang varies in saltiness from brand to brand, so start with a tablespoon and taste the stock.
Only soy sauce, cooking wine and garlic season it, and lightly, so the sweetness of Korean zucchini (aehobak) and the shrimp come first. It holds up well at room temperature.
Zucchini, onion and tofu simmer in anchovy broth, and the shredded perilla leaves get only the last thirty seconds. Any longer and the leaves darken and their aroma goes dull. The tofu is scooped in with a spoon instead of cut, leaving rough surfaces for the broth to soak into.
The deodeok root is peeled, tapped lightly to open the grain, then sliced on the diagonal about 5 mm thick; cut thinner, it loses its scent. The broth is rice-rinsing water with a tablespoon of gochujang and half a tablespoon of doenjang stirred in.
Pieces of rested wheat dough, stretched thin by hand and torn straight into the pot, cook into chewy, rough-edged dumplings in an anchovy-kelp broth. Letting the dough rest allows it to stretch without snapping back, and the thinner each piece, the faster it cooks while keeping its bite. Potato releases starch that gives the soup natural body, and ground perilla seed turns it milky and nutty. It is a rainy-day staple in Korean home cooking.
Blue crab starts in cold water and boils for 12 minutes to make the stock behind this porridge, releasing a natural sweetness from the shells and meat. Once the crab cools, picking the meat from the legs as well as the body gives the porridge plenty of sweet flakes to bite into.
Pressed out with both thumbs as it is torn, each piece of dough ends up thin at the rim and thicker in the middle, chewy and tender in one bite. Potato thickens the broth as it cooks, and with crumbled laver on top the bowl is a whole meal, no rice needed.
Ground perilla seed and the starch from potatoes thicken this stew on their own, leaving a broth that coats a spoon with no extra thickener. Dumping all the perilla powder at once is the usual mistake, since it clumps and scorches on the bottom. Stirring it in a little at a time avoids both.
Pushing the doenjang through a fine sieve before it meets the broth keeps lumps out, and lumps are where bitterness concentrates. Anchovy stock and fermented soybean paste reinforce each other, so the soup tastes complete without extra seasoning.
Okara, the soy pulp left over from making tofu, gives this porridge a nutty, hearty body that lets half a cup of rice make a filling pot, and anchovy stock adds savory depth underneath. The pulp goes in only once the rice is half softened, which lets the grains break down without the okara simmering for too long. Freshly ground soaked soybeans, for anyone making their own pulp, taste noticeably beanier than store-bought.
Three potatoes, anchovy stock and a spoonful of doenjang are all it takes, which makes it a standby when the fridge is running low. Starch from the potatoes thickens the soybean-paste broth slightly as they cook.
With no meat or seafood, the broth depends almost entirely on the doenjang itself. Every brand is salted differently, so the paste goes in a little at a time, tasting as you go.