8 Korean dishes for those looking to try something new

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Kimchi, spicy rice dumplings, pear marinated beef, sweet and sour chicken and other recipes.

We have collected the most popular Korean dishes. All recipes are uncomplicated, with a few rare ingredients. Look for them in Asian grocery stores in your city or on delivery sites.

1. Kimchi - a spicy snack

This simplified Korean traditional snack recipe is perfect for beginners. Koreans put hot kochukara peppers in kimchi with a pronounced taste. But if you didn’t find it, replace it with the usual red ground.

Ingredients

• 1 kg of Chinese cabbage (medium-sized head of cabbage);
• ¼ glasses of salt;
• 1 tablespoon of grated garlic;
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce or 3 tablespoons of water
• 1–5 tablespoons of kochukar or ground red hot pepper;
• 200 g daikon or carrots;
• green onions.

Preparation

Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters. After removing the stalk, cut each quarter into 4–5 pieces, about 5 cm wide. Place the cabbage in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and remember with your hands. Pour drinking water, it should cover the vegetable. Place a plate on top and press down with a weight, such as a can of water, for 1–2 hours. Then rinse the cabbage three times in cold water. Drain in a colander and leave for 15-20 minutes.

In the same bowl, combine garlic, ginger, sugar, and fish sauce (or water). Add 1–5 tablespoons of kochukar or red pepper, depending on the flavor you want.

Press lightly on the cabbage to drain off any remaining water, and transfer everything to the bowl of sauce. Add coarsely chopped onions and strips of daikon or carrot. Mix everything thoroughly with your hands. It is best to do this with gloves, because the sauce can burn and stain.

Place the mixture in a 1 quart glass jar, leaving a couple of centimeters on top. Press with your hand so that the juice comes out and close the lid tightly. Place a plate under the jar: the brine can rise and leak.

Keep in a dark place at room temperature. Kimchi is ready in 24 hours, but you can marinate it to your liking for up to five days. Open the jar once a day and press down on the cabbage with a clean spoon so that the brine completely covers it. When you're done marinating, transfer the kimchi to the refrigerator. Store no more than 2-3 months.

2. Kimchi tige - spicy stew

In Russia, this dish is called soup, but Koreans themselves distinguish between thinner kimchi soup and thick kimchi tige. For cooking, you will need kochudian pepper paste. It has a long shelf life and is useful for many Korean dishes.

Ingredients

• 500 g kimchi;
• ⅛ glasses of kimchi brine;
• 2 cups chicken or beef broth
• 200 g of pork;
• 200 g tofu - optional;
• 1 onion;
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons of sugar;
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons of kochukar or ground red hot pepper;
• 1 tablespoon kochudian pepper paste;
• green onions.

Preparation

Chop the kimchi coarsely, onions into half rings, green onions into strips 2 cm long, meat into small pieces. Add all the ingredients except the tofu to the pot. Cook for 10 minutes over medium heat. Stir, place chopped tofu on top and cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve with fresh green onions and rice.

3. Gimpab - Korean rolls

Below is a classic gimpab recipe, but in principle it can be made with any filling. If your refrigerator is missing something, skip or replace an ingredient. Add ham, sausages, or crab sticks instead of grilled meats. Pickled daikon can be replaced with pickled cucumber or kimchi, carrots with bell pepper.

Ingredients

• 200 g of round grain rice;
• 100 g of boiled or fried beef;
• 70 g pickled daikon;
• 4 nori sheets;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 cucumber;
• 1 egg;
• Sesame oil;
• frying oil.

Preparation

Boil rice. Cut the carrots into thin strips and fry in oil. Break the egg into a bowl, mix the yolk with the egg white, pour into a greased skillet and fry.

Cut the cucumber and meat into strips, pickled daikon and scrambled eggs into long thin strips about a centimeter wide.

Add two teaspoons of sesame oil to the rice, salt to taste. Divide into four parts.

Place the nori on a bamboo mat and spread a quarter of the rice over the sheet, 1–2 cm from the edges. Line a quarter of each filling on top. Moisten the edge of the nori a little with water to make it sticky, and roll everything into a roll. Cut into circles 1, 5-2 cm wide.

Repeat with the three remaining sheets.

4. Spicy chicken in sweet and sour sauce

It is a popular fast food in South Korea and is served in numerous specialty restaurants. The recipe includes glutinous rice flour, which makes the batter thicker and the chicken crisper. If not found, add the same amount of starch instead.

Ingredients

For chicken

• 1½ kg chicken legs or wings;
• 2 tablespoons of wheat flour;
• ¼ cups of starch;
• 2 tablespoons of glutinous rice flour or 2 tablespoons of starch
• 1 egg;
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda;
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper;
• 2-3 cups cooking oil.

For the sauce

• 2 tablespoons of kochudyan;
• 3 tablespoons of sugar or 2 - honey;
• 4 cloves of garlic;
• 3 tablespoons of ketchup;
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Preparation

Rinse the chicken, dry and place in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, flour, starch, baking soda and egg. Stir with your hands.

Heat three cups of vegetable oil in a saucepan. Dip chicken in it: if there are bubbles, start cooking.

Roast the chicken for 10 minutes over high heat. Then put it in a colander, wait a couple of minutes to let the oil glass. Place back in the saucepan and cook for another 10 minutes until golden brown.

Make the sauce. Fry the grated garlic in oil. Add ketchup, honey or sugar, kochudian and vinegar and cook over low heat for 7 minutes.

Combine cooked chicken with hot sauce and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

5. Omuk - fish sticks

Popular street food that comes in long patties or strips on a stick.

Ingredients

• 200 g white fish fillet;
• 100 g squid fillet;
• 100 g peeled shrimp;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• ½ onion;
• 1 teaspoon sugar and salt
• 2 tablespoons flour;
• 2 tablespoons of starch;
• 1 egg white;
• 1½ cups sunflower oil for frying.

Preparation

Chop the squid fillets and the stoned fish fillets. Place all ingredients in a blender and grind into a paste.

Heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat, then reduce to medium. Grease a spatula with oil, put the minced meat on it, form an oblong cutlet with a knife and carefully place it in a saucepan. If it doesn't work, make balls with a spoon.

Fry the patties for 5-7 minutes until golden brown, turning them over from time to time. Put the finished ones on a napkin so that the glass is oil. Serve hot.

6. Tokpokki - spicy rice dumplings

Garetok, or tok, are sticks of rice flour. Making them at home is quite time consuming, so buy a semi-finished product. Rice dumplings are prepared with vegetables, omuk fish sticks or just like that. The main thing is to season them with hot sauce.

Ingredients

• 200 g rice dumplings;
• 200 g of white cabbage;
• 1 onion;
• 2 eggs;
• 2 tablespoons of kochudyan;
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons of sugar;
• ⅓ a glass of water;
• green onions;
• frying oil.

Preparation

Boil the eggs. Coarsely chop the cabbage and onions, green into strips 2 cm long.

Fry the onions. Add cabbage, green onions, kochudian, soy sauce, sugar to it and cover with water. Simmer until the cabbage is tender. Add rice dumplings and keep for another 10 minutes. Finally, add whole, peeled eggs to the dish.

Serve with rice or kimbap.

7. Pulkogi - grilled beef in a pear marinade

The name of the dish means “fiery meat” as it is traditionally grilled. But now Koreans are preparing this dish in a frying pan.

Ingredients

500 g of beef

For the marinade

• 1 soft pear;
• 1 onion;
• 1 carrot;
• 4 cloves of garlic;
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons cane sugar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• ground black pepper - to taste;
• green onions.

Preparation

Peel the pear and blend with the onion and garlic in a blender. Chop green onions and carrots. Combine all marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add thinly sliced meat to it, stir and leave in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Pan or grill the meat. Serve with rice.

8. Bibimbap - rice with vegetables and meat

Bibimbap is made with many ingredients that are carefully laid out on top of the rice, then mixed and eaten. If there is not enough food in the refrigerator, you can cook the dish with bean sprouts, spinach, carrots, eggs, sesame oil and kochudian. These ingredients are required, add the rest as desired. The traditional bibimbap recipe also contains ferns, which are hard to find here.

Ingredients for 4 servings

• 200 g of rice;
• 200 g of beef;
• 300 g soy sprouts or mung bean (golden beans);
• 200 g spinach;
• 4 eggs;
• 1 carrot;
• 1 bell pepper;
• 1 zucchini;
• 1 cucumber;
• sesame;
• Sesame oil;
• frying oil;
• 4 tablespoons of kochudyan;
• soy sauce;
• garlic;
• green onions;
• honey or sugar.

Preparation

Boil rice. Cut the meat into strips. Add a tablespoon each of grated garlic, soy sauce, honey, some sesame seeds and sesame oil. Put it in the refrigerator.

Boil the soybean sprouts in salted water for 20 minutes. Do not pour out the broth and leave some sprouts in it. This is a soup that will still come in handy. Season the removed sprouts with salt, a teaspoon of grated garlic and sesame oil.

Pour boiling water over the spinach and chop. Add a teaspoon of grated garlic, some sesame oil, sesame seeds and salt.

Cut cucumbers into semicircles, other vegetables into thin strips, salt. Drain the vegetables. Fry them separately in sunflower oil for about a minute. Add a clove of grated garlic to cucumbers and zucchini. Wash the pan each time or wipe it down with a dampened paper towel.

Fry the meat. Make fried eggs. Place a quarter of the rice on the bottom of a deep plate. Place a quarter of all meat, vegetables and sprouts on top in a circle. Fried eggs are in the middle, sometimes Koreans put raw yolk instead. Drizzle sesame oil over the dish and add some sesame seeds. Put a tablespoon of kochudyan on top. Repeat this for the other three servings. Heat the sprouts broth, add the green onions and serve with the bibimbap.