108 recipes. Page 5 of 5
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Ninety grams of scorched rice, broken into chunks rather than crumbs, is added for the last three minutes. It is served while the edges have melted into the broth and thickened it but the centers still have some bite. Seasoning waits until the rice has swelled and the stew has thickened.
Gochujang alone seasons this squid stew, giving the red broth a sweet, rounded heat, and one whole squid goes in as rings and tentacles. Scoring the inside of the body makes the rings curl as they cook and pulls the sauce in between the layers. The squid joins only after the zucchini and tofu have had about five minutes, and two or three minutes is all it takes.
Mackerel or beltfish both work for this spicy fish stew. The radish gets a five-minute head start, then the fish pieces are laid in a single layer and simmered with the lid slightly open to let the fishy steam escape.
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.
Country-style doenjang gives this stew a dense, earthy body, and the Cheongyang chili added at the very end cuts through it with a sharp, clean heat. Half a block of tofu is torn by hand into rough chunks and simmered gently for 3 minutes so the pieces hold together.
Thinly sliced beef brisket, not the usual anchovy stock, supplies the savoriness, giving this doenjang jjigae a meaty rather than oceanic lean. Rice-rinse water forms the base and softens the soybean paste, and the edges of the potato break down a little as they cook, thickening the broth on their own.
Wheat dough is torn by hand into thin pieces and dropped into the clam broth. Each piece comes out a slightly different thickness, and each one chews a little differently. The clams go in once the dough floats up translucent, the lid goes on, and the stew goes to the table right away, since sujebi swells quickly.
Beans, corn and squash, the three sister crops, share one pot here and are eaten with a spoon, broth and all. The recipe follows the stew chef Loretta Barrett Oden shared on PBS, using fully cooked canned beans and leaving out the dumplings that came with it. Unlike succotash, which is cooked down in a skillet, this one keeps plenty of tomato broth, and the corn and squash go in last so the kernels stay whole and the squash holds its shape.
As it simmers, the tough stems of the ugeoji (blanched outer napa cabbage leaves) loosen and soak up the doenjang. A little gochujang tints the broth reddish, and rice-rinse water gives it more body than plain water would.
This stew comes from farm households that picked apple snails off the rice paddy banks and dropped them into their doenjang stew, and the ingredient list is still just snails, doenjang, tofu, zucchini and anchovy stock. Snail meat toughens with long boiling, so it goes in after the zucchini has had about three minutes, and the tofu follows at the very end for a minute or two.
Summer yeolmu, young radish greens, leaves a faint bitterness at the end of each spoonful of doenjang broth. It is best while the stems still crunch, so it does not simmer for long.
With no chili flakes and no doenjang, just beef stock seasoned with soup soy sauce and salt, the broth stays clear. The tofu is nudged in with a ladle and left unstirred for five minutes to soak up the stock; browning it lightly in a pan first keeps a toasty surface even in the broth.