Korean American by Eric Kim

It was only after I started writing this, that I realized I made the butter with the incorrect ingredients! I used gochugaru (red pepper flakes) rather than gochujang (red pepper paste) – whoops! It was still fabulous and the simple recipe allows the pricey steak to shine. The 1.5-inch thick steak is seared on all sides over high heat until nicely browned then the gochujang butter is added to the pan, as it melts you spoon it over the steak. Mine smelled like buttered popcorn – which could have been the gochugaru! The medium-rare steak was perfect and the spicy butter divine. Next time, I’ll have to make it as written. Ha!

I’m all about a simple tartine for dinner – especially when neither of us feels like spending all evening in the kitchen. As with so many of Eric Kim’s recipes, his Three Dinner Toasts are wonderfully simple yet packed with flavor. This one might have been my favorite. Eric takes the classic French combo of butter and radish and turns up the volume. Sourdough bread gets slathered with sweet-and-spicy gochujang butter and topped with quick-pickled, thinly sliced radishes. Crunchy, creamy, and bright.

I’m all about a simple tartine for dinner – especially when neither of us feels like spending all evening in the kitchen. As with so many of Eric Kim’s recipes, his Three Dinner Toasts are wonderfully simple yet packed with flavor. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about adding a bit of sugar to scrambled eggs – but it totally works! The pillowy eggs are spooned over toast and topped with chopped chives for a cozy, subtly sweet twist.

I’m all about a simple tartine for dinner – especially when neither of us feels like spending all evening in the kitchen. As with so many of Eric Kim’s recipes, his Three Dinner Toasts are wonderfully simple yet packed with flavor. His take on the ever-popular avo toast brings an umami punch thanks to crushed gim (Korean roasted seaweed) and a drizzle of toasted sesame oil. A simple upgrade that makes a big difference.

It was only after I started writing this, that I realized I made the butter with the incorrect ingredients! I used gochugaru (red pepper flakes) rather than gochujang (red pepper paste) – whoops! It was still fabulous and the simple recipe allows the pricey steak to shine. The 1.5-inch thick steak is seared on all sides over high heat until nicely browned then the gochujang butter is added to the pan, as it melts you spoon it over the steak. Mine smelled like buttered popcorn – which could have been the gochugaru! The medium-rare steak was perfect and the spicy butter divine. Next time, I’ll have to make it as written. Ha!

Fiery jumbo shrimp coated in a gochujaru (red pepper flake), fish sauce, and garlic glaze sitting atop a bed of creamy grits infused with gim (dried seaweed) and sesame oil and garnished with cilantro. Yes, please! It was my dream dinner and definitely earned a place in the regular rotation! Gim can be hit or miss for me in dishes, but I loved it in this take on a Southern classic.

I didn’t experience the joy that is Spam until I was in my 20s and was so sad I missed out on this deliciousness for so many years. In the intervening years, I’ve made up for lost time though. I love it best when seared on the outside and warm throughout. While the flavor of the Spam was perfect with the garlic-maple glaze, mine got a little too crunchy for my tastes. Turns out I like my Spam like I like my bacon – not crispy!

I don’t think I’ll ever need another chicken marinade! Bite-sized chicken thighs rest in a bright-green combo of jalapenos, garlic, and cilantro for anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours before roasting in the oven leading to tender, juicy meat in a delightfully spicy and refreshing sauce. Flour tortillas are then warmed, filled with the chicken, and topped with watermelon muchim (diced watermelon with jalapenos, gochugaru, rice vinegar, fish sauce, and sesame oil). The muchim provided a fresh and slightly sweet contrast to the spicy chicken. I can’t recommend these enough!

Inspired by donkkasseu (a thin, breaded pork cutlet) these thin chicken breasts are first covered in a dijon-mayo mixture, then dredge in panko flavored with curry and garlic powder and pan-fried. My chicken breasts were a little bigger than were called for and became a little unwieldy while cooking – next time I will cut them in half. The bread cutlets are topped with kkasseu sauce (Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and dark brown sugar). The quick-pickled cabbage slaw is very simple to pull together and Eric’s favorite part of the dish! All around a delicious meal.

Eric’s mom, Jean, sums up my feelings on pork: “I think my body likes it when I eat pork.” While I believe that now, I can’t say that about the pork chops of my youth – those thin cuts that were impossibly dry trying to prevent us from getting trichinosis! As an adult, I’ve learned to love a thick-cut pork chop cooked to exactly 145 degrees with just a sprinkling of salt and pepper – juicy, flavorful, perfection. For this version, the chops are dry brined in a salt, pepper, and brown sugar mix then seared on both sides before finishing in the oven. While the chops rest after their cook, you prepare the topping by combining thinly sliced scallions with rice vinegar, gochugaru, and brown sugar along with the sesame oil-brown sugar dipping sauce. We served this with white rice and shredded brussels sprouts. The sweet-spicy-vinegary scallion topping cuts through the meaty pork and the sweet sesame oil dipping sauce is the perfect addition to round out the dish!

As one of the Midwest mother sauces, loving ranch is in my DNA! So I had a feeling I was going to be a fan of this but didn’t expect just how much I would love it! Eric takes it easy on us – encouraging store-bought dough 😘 Once it’s stretched, you slather on ranch dressing, then layer it with mozzarella, sweet corn (I used frozen), red onion, jalapeños, and cilantro. Baked until the edges are golden brown and the cheese bubbly and melty. But we’re not done – the perfect finishing touch is the sweet-spicy drizzle of honey infused with freshly ground black pepper. We could not get enough!

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes may be my ultimate comfort food dinner. This recipe was inspired by the frozen tv dinners from our childhoods – my lunch of choice when my parents were working and I was out of school for summer. The flanken-cut beef short ribs are seared until evenly brown and nicely charred around the edges before being doused in the meatloaf glaze (ketchup, garlic, dark brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, rice vinegar, and dried oregano) which bubbles up creating a shiny sauce that coats the short ribs. Make sure you thoroughly rinse the ribs to remove bone fragments – I was left with some unpleasant shards! I wasn’t sure what to expect from the gamja salad which feels like a cross between potato salad and mashed potatoes and is dotted with cucumbers, carrots, peas, and corn. But it was phenomenal! I became completely obsessed with it. It was creamy, crunchy, tangy, and a new favorite.

I got a head start on May’s Cookbook of the Month, Korean American, with Jean’s Perfect Jar of Kimchi!

Because it needs 2 to 3 weeks to fully ferment, I started early so it would be ready just as I reached Eric Kim’s aptly named “Kimchi Is a Verb” chapter. Considering how many recipes in the book call for kimchi, the timing could not be better.

This is an afternoon project, but most of that time is spent letting the cabbage soak. Once everything is packed into the jar, it sits at room temperature for 2 to 3 days to jump-start fermentation before moving to the refrigerator.

And when Eric says “jar,” he means it: the recipe fills an entire gallon container. The finished kimchi is crisp, spicy, garlicky, savory, and tangy, with a subtle fruitiness from the apple, pear, and green plum syrup. It is a lot of kimchi, but once you start cooking through this book, that feels less like a problem and more like excellent planning.

Thin rectangles of Korean radish are salted for 30 minutes, then drained and gently squeezed before being tossed with garlic, grated red apple, white wine vinegar, green plum syrup, and an Asian probiotic yogurt drink (a new-to-me ingredient that took a little sleuthing to find at Hmart).

Traditionally served with naengmyeon, the icy Korean cold noodle dish, like Eric, we treated this more like banchan, snacking on it straight from the jar.

It hits that perfect balance of crunch, sweetness, heat, and acidity, the kind of bright bite you keep going back for with just one more forkful.

Eric Kim’s Oi Sobagi (stuffed cucumber kimchi) has one of my favorite headnotes in Korean American – in it he describes having to translate his mom’s onomatopoeia-based directions (like song-song-song-song, the sound of scallions being sliced) into an actual repeatable recipe. 

To make it, cucumbers are quickly blanched, cut into 3-inch sections, and quartered lengthwise, keeping the base intact so they hold together. Each one is then stuffed with a vibrant mixture of garlic chives, scallions, carrots, garlic, gochugaru, saeu-jeot (salted fermented shrimp), fish sauce, and green plum syrup.

You can eat them fresh, or let them ferment at room temperature for a day before digging in. The cucumbers stayed remarkably crisp, while the filling was spicy, savory, garlicky, and just a little sweet.

Such a great way to use up a big haul of late-summer cucumbers.

I love how much Eric loves cabbage! I feel like cabbage got a bad wrap when I was a kid, but it’s honestly one of my favorite veggies! Having kimchi on hand often makes for quick, flavorful, and spicy dishes like this. Spam is crisped in a pan before adding kimchi and cooking until it mellows and caramelizes. Cabbage and onions are then added to the pan and cooked for a bit – in the end, they should still be crunchy. Finished with gochugaru, soy sauce, and sugar it was delightful over white rice!

As much as I love kimchi, I wasn’t exactly sure I’d be a fan of it in sandwich form, but I should have known to trust Eric! The kimchi is mixed with a little sugar and sesame oil and then placed on fluffy white bread that is smeared with mayo. With the crusts cut off, it feels like an upgrade on your standard finger sandwiches!

Kimchi Bibimguksu with Grape Tomatoes is the perfect late-summer dish for enjoying some of your farmers market finds. And while some boiling is involved, it’s served cold, making this a refreshing break from the summer heat.

Cooked somyeon noodles (thin Korean wheat noodles) are tossed in a simple gochugaru-sesame dressing, then combined with chopped kimchi, halved tomatoes, julienned cucumbers, and a soft-boiled egg.

While Eric prefers grape tomatoes in this, I can never have enough cherry tomatoes (I prefer their thinner skins), so I used those instead.

Even Alex, who is typically raw-kimchi-averse, loved this one!

These little kimchi pancakes are speckled with bacon and parsley and are cooked in bacon fat until crispy on the outside with fluffy interiors. I could not stop eating them! The soy/rice wine vinegar dipping sauce was the perfect accompaniment to cut a little of the fat.

I love a loaded baked potato and am so happy to have this one in my back pocket! Eric’s secret ingredient is a little sugar sprinkled over the potato before adding all the other goodies – which helps balance the flavor profile. The spuds are topped with shredded mozzarella, finely diced kimchi, sour cream, chives, and bacon. YUM! Eric says you can use Yukon gold or Korean yellow potatoes. While both were good, I preferred the Korean yellow potatoes!

Aside from the pot needed to boil the pasta, this is essentially a one-dish wonder. You start by quickly browning the short ribs, then add kimchi, onions, and garlic, seasoned with gochugaru, soy sauce, and sesame oil. Add water, cover, and let it bake low and slow for up to 3 hours, until the meat is falling off the bone and the kimchi has melted into the braising liquid. Once the short ribs are meltingly tender, skim the fat, discard the bones, and shred the meat — leaving you with a deeply flavorful sauce to toss with wide ribbons of pappardelle that soak up every bit of it. Finish with parsley and parmesan, and dinner is served.

The name says it all! The spicy, bold-red stew packed with kimchi and slices of pork belly was one of the best versions I’ve had.

This was a dish borne of food scarcity following the Korean War. It includes many of the leftover military rations like Spam, Vienna sausages, and American cheese slices – Ina would say it’s kimchi jjigae with the volume turned up! This hearty, savory, and spicy stew is bursting with flavor – the base sauce is a mixture of garlic, gochugaru, gochujang, soup soy sauce, and sugar, and the stew is packed with Korean radish, onions, Spam, an assortment of meat (I used hot dogs and Vienna sausages), bacon, napa cabbage kimchi, jalapenos, and scallions. To that, water is added and brought to a gentle boil for 15 to 20 mins until any raw meat is cooked through. The ramyun noodles are then added and cooked before being topped with a slice of American cheese and served with rice. It’s a pot of warm, soul-satisfying deliciousness! The only thing I would change next time is opting for meat other than Vienna sausages – it was my first time having them and didn’t love the mushy texture.

Doenjang is a fermented soybean paste and the base of this jjigae. To make, onions and scallions are cooked with doenjang, water, and sesame oil before adding silken tofu and enoki mushrooms. Zucchini is added right before serving. The flavors were on point for this, but I still can’t claim I’m a very big fan of tofu – but I’m determined to keep cooking with it!

Cornish hens have held a special place in my heart ever since a memorable Valentine’s Day meal from my childhood, when my mom prepared one just for me – I felt so grown-up having my very own bird. As Eric does best, he takes a short list of ingredients and transforms them into an unforgettable dish. The recipe begins by stuffing the hens with glutinous rice and whole garlic cloves. He then nestles them in a pot with ginger, onions, and a sprinkle of white pepper, simmering everything in water for an hour. The result? Tender, fall-off-the-bone meat in a light yet flavorful broth. Garnished with fried shallots and fresh cilantro you serve with the aromatic fried shallot oil alongside for dipping the succulent meat. On a bone-chilling day, this warming soup is the perfect antidote.

This dish really exemplifies why I love this cookbook: simple ingredients combined to create deeply flavored, satisfying meals. The fiery stew braises chicken legs in a soy sauce, gochujang, and gochugaru (Korean red pepper flake) base with garlic, onions, carrots, jalapeños, and Korean yellow potatoes. A finishing touch of sesame oil and scattered scallions completes the dish. Served over white rice to temper the heat, we were licking our bowls clean! While I couldn’t find Korean yellow potatoes, Eric suggests Yukon Gold in a pinch!

A whole chicken gently simmers in water with yellow onion, celery, carrots, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorns for just two hours – enough to infuse the stock without drying out the meat. Even better, there’s no breaking down required; the meat practically falls off the bones. After cooking, the tender chicken is shredded and returned to the strained broth. Once simmering again, you drop in handmade sujebi dumplings and cook until perfectly chewy. Garnished with fresh celery leaves (or cilantro, in my case, since I had extra lying around) the finished dish is warm, comforting, and heavenly. It’s officially my new favorite chicken-and-dumpling recipe!

The dish leans on all three of the Korean mother jangs: ganjang (soup soy sauce), doenjang, and gochujang to create a spicy, umami-rich, complex soup that’s low on effort but high on flavor. It’s as easy as simmering pork spare ribs for about an hour, resulting in fall-off-the-bone meat and savory pork broth, then adding Korean yellow potatoes (I used Yukon Gold) and bok choy along with all the jangs. The dish is finished with a sprinkling of sliced garlic, onion, jalapeños, and whole perilla leaves, and served over rice.

This is an afternoon project for sure as the milky beef bone stock simmers away for 3 to 3.5 hours. The velvety, beefy stock is then poured over somyeon (wheat noodles), and topped with thinly sliced brisket and a salty, delicious garlic/scallion gremolata. It’ll be my new go-to when I’d feeling under the weather! You do need 5 pounds of beef bones, but luckily the bones can be used multiple times!

I love a simple dish which requires no kitchen skills, just a little patience and time to allow all the ingredients to do their magic. After several hours of gentle simmering, you are rewarded with a rich stock, but rather than straining out the ingredients, you have a complete, warming, and delicious meal. Those magic ingredients include bone-in beef short ribs, onion, garlic, scallions, dasima (dried kelp), and Korean radish. The results are supremely tender meat, tasty radish “steaks,” and a comforting broth. A generous pile of fresh mint and cilantro leaves provides a bright, herbaceous contrast to the soup’s earthiness

Eric shares two methods for making the perfect white rice: his and his mother’s. Both are great, and honestly, I use them interchangeably depending on how much attention I feel like paying. Eric’s method gives me slightly better results: fluffy, separate grains that are never mushy. But his mom’s is much more set-it-and-forget-it, which usually wins when I’m juggling several dishes at once.

I love the combination of runny yolks with rice – I could eat it every day for breakfast. For this easy dish, an egg is fried in sesame oil and soy sauce, then placed on top of warm white rice and sprinkled with gim and capers. That’s it! Eric says this is “the kind of food you make for yourself when you’re hungry but too tired to cook” Simplicity at its best.

This dish took me back and reminded me of weekend breakfasts growing up – where I always topped my eggs with ketchup! I haven’t done it in years, but still love the combination! For his take on omurice, Eric makes fried rice with onions, grape tomatoes, scallions, soy sauce, and ketchup which is topped with a perfectly fluffy omelet and a zig-zag of ketchup. The breakfast of champions!

I’ve never met a kimchi fried rice that I didn’t love and Eric’s Kimchi Fried Rice may rank among my favorite ever! It’s one of the spiciest I’ve had and the gim nest with an egg yolk in the center makes for one beautiful presentation! The extra gochugaru also lends a vividly bright red color to the dish and is where a lot of the heat comes from. It’s a quick dish and perfect for that leftover rice lingering in the fridge. The gochugaru is bloomed in butter before adding onion followed by finely chopped kimchi and sauteed, Next, rice, kimchi juice, sesame oil, and fish sauce are added and cooked. The final step is key: pressing the mixture into a flat disk and leaving it undisturbed for a couple minutes so some of the rice can get crispy! To serve, you sprinkle on gim and add the yolk – I adore the combination of egg yolk and warm rice.

I can never get enough Spam. For this version of kimbap, Eric caramelizes the Spam with maple syrup and garlic powder before rolling it with perilla leaves, white rice, and gim. So delicious.

I loved this version of kimbap! Eric takes ground beef and seasons it with garlic powder before browning and caramelizing. It’s then mixed with onion, pickles, ketchup, and mayo and distributed on white rice that’s been spread over a sheet of kimbap. Topped with American cheese and thin pickle spears, the kimbap is rolled up tightly, sliced, and (believe me) devoured! It reminded me of a McDonald’s cheeseburger in the best way possible!

Coming soon – I’ve made but haven’t posted

This is cozy, comforting, and packed with flavor – even better it comes together without much fuss. You start by browning chunks of skinless pork belly, then toss in eggplant (the recipe calls for globe, but I used Italian since that’s what I had), yellow onions, carrots, and lotus root (I used frozen). Everything stews together in water for about an hour until the veggies are tender. Then you stir in instant Korean curry mix and fresh spinach, cooking just until the spinach wilts and the flavors meld. Serve it over hot rice and dig in. She’s not my prettiest plate, but she was oh so heavenly. All weeknight meals should be this good!

Asparagus, sugar snap peas, and peas get tossed in a punchy soy-wasabi-green plum syrup dressing, then piled over rice cooked in sesame oil until deeply golden. I may have taken “scorched” a little too far, some of my rice crossed the line into burnt. I think I had the heat up a little bit too high! While the rice crisps, the eggs go onto a sheet pan in the oven, which is one of those small, smart moves that keeps everything moving. Everything gets layered into a bowl and finished with thinly sliced radish and parsley. It’s light, fresh, and perfect once that runny yolk works its way into the rice.

Warm white rice is slicked with sesame oil, topped with a confetti of flying fish roe (I only found the orange, but let’s pretend it’s rainbow), and crisp bites of zucchini, cucumber, and cherry tomatoes quick-pickled in rice vinegar and sugar. It’s finished with perilla and cilantro – unless, like me, you swear you bought perilla but discover your veggie drawer tells a different story. Aside from cooking the rice, dinner’s on the table in under 15 minutes. No oven, no sweating over the stove – just bright, briny, crunchy-juicy deliciousness. Bookmark this for next July, when the last thing you want is hot kitchen.

Fluffy white rice is topped with a bit of sesame oil and gochujang, then mounds of color-blocked roasted vegetables: golden butternut squash, crispy Tuscan kale, caramelized red onion, sweet red apple, and wild mushrooms. A raw egg yolk nestled in the center adds a luxurious, creamy element calling you to mix all the ingredients together. Eric has brilliantly simplified the classic bibimbap process by roasting vegetables on two sheet pans, providing convenience without compromising on flavor. While relatively similar to his previous iteration, for the NYT version he opts for a fried egg, sweet potatoes (vs butternut squash, and skips the apples. 

I never knew I needed rice cakes in my risotto until now – their satisfying chew is the perfect addition to this delightfully creamy Winter Squash Risotto with Chewy Rice Cakes! This was my first time cooking with kabocha squash (aka Japanese pumpkin), which I found on a recent trip to H Mart. It’s sweeter than butternut squash and incredibly easy to prepare using Eric’s microwave steaming method. The tender flesh is puréed with heavy cream, while the risotto itself follows your typical prep: arborio rice slowly cooked with shallots, celery, white wine, and chicken stock until creamy. Once the rice is cooked, you add the rice cakes, puréed squash, and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and heat through. A final garnish of additional grated parmesan and fresh black pepper completes this comforting dinner.

I faced my fear of cooking whole fish starting with this dish. My original plan was to buy, scale, (possibly gut) and then cook the fish, but the Hmart near me only had scaled/gutted yellow croaker so I dodged having to do the whole thing. That’s the part that intimidates me the most, but that will have to wait for another day. The preparation of this is simple – the filets are heavily salted and placed in the fridge overnight to dry out a bit. The next day you pan fry until golden brown and crispy on both sides. Another dish that proves simplicity is best when done right. The flakey white fish with crispy skin was seasoned perfect!

The whole recipe hinges on one very smart step: dry-brining the salmon steaks with salt for 30 minutes. It concentrates the flavor, helps lock in moisture, and somehow makes the salmon taste even more like salmon, in the best possible way. Unless, of course, you hate salmon like my husband, in which case keep scrolling. After that, the salmon roasts in a very hot oven with sliced celery and mushrooms, which soak up all that rich, savory salmon fat as everything cooks. Serve it with white rice and that’s dinner: simple, flavor-packed, mostly hands-off, and done in about an hour.

Coming soon

Cooking with whole fish is something I’ve only gotten comfortable with in the last couple of years – thanks in part to Eric’s pan-fried croaker in Korean American. So I figured it was time to try his Maeuntang, a warm, spicy Korean fish soup made with a whole trout cut into pieces. The preparation couldn’t be simpler: thinly sliced Korean radish is sautéed with gochugaru, soy sauce, and sesame oil until fragrant, then simmered with water, the trout, ginger, and garlic. Once it comes to a boil, sliced onions go in and everything cooks together for just ten minutes – as Ina would say, how easy is that! Served with peppery watercress and a bowl of white rice, it’s light yet deeply comforting – the kind of soup that warms you from the inside out on a cold Maine day.

Very few dishes are as classic as a shrimp cocktail at a party! For this spin, Eric cooks the shrimp in boiling water infused with lemon and Old Bay seasoning. The Old Bay didn’t come through for me – I may sprinkle a little on the shrimp next time! The dipping sauce skips the horseradish and gets its heat from the wasabi and gochujang – a word of warning to the spice averse that wasabi really hits you in the back of your mouth and will 100 percent clear your sinuses!

For this simple showstopper, chunks of raw lobster are tossed with mayonnaise, flying fish roe, soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions, and lemon zest, then stuffed back into the shell and roasted until just tender. To round out the meal, Eric pairs it with a crisp Bibb lettuce salad dressed in a bright lemon-Dijon vinaigrette. It’s easy enough for a weeknight but elegant enough for a dinner party!

I was so intrigued by the beautiful photo, I had to try this dish and get over my fear of killing 2 pounds of blue crab – since the crabs aren’t cooked you need to buy them live and kill them yourself right before marinating. Unsure of where to find live blue crab near me, I stopped by a seafood shop in Chinatown and was able to get a dozen for $16! Fifteen minutes in the freezer numbs the crabs with the added benefit of making them a little less mobile. To kill, you pierce the center bottom (where the heart is) and slice down decisively. I felt like a crab serial killer. You then clean the crabs and added them to the cooled soy mixture imparted with jalapenos, garlic, ginger, onion, red apple, dried kelp, green plum syrup, and brown sugar. The crabs are refrigerated in the liquid for up to two days before you’re ready to dig in. The delicate crab meat turns a light brown and soaks in the sweet, very salty, nicely spicy liquid. Garnished with thinly sliced jalapeno and served with rice to balance the saltiness. It’s a lot of work getting the crab meat out, but believe me, it’s worth the effort. Take your time and savor every morsel!

I adored this chilled soup packed with cherry tomatoes, scallions, and Persian cucumbers swimming in a vinegary “broth” favored with garlic, green plum syrup, and soup soy sauce. Crushed ice is added right before serving making for a very cold, refreshing treat that I’ll be making all those summer days when it’s too warm to even think about cooking.

Coming soon

Raw Brussels Sprout Muchim takes shredded Brussels sprouts and dresses them in vinegar, garlic, toasted sesame oil, gochugaru, fish sauce, and sugar. It had just the right amount of heat, with a nice dose of acid – something that is always lacking at the Thanksgiving table.

A delicious take on sigeumchi namul that is a cross with creamed spinach you’d find at a steakhouse.

Personally, I’m not always a huge fan of gim (dried roasted seaweed) especially when it’s the star of the dish, so this wasn’t a particular favorite.

Smashed fingerling potatoes that are fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside are served on a bed of sour cream dip infused with gim, garlic, and toasted sesame oil and garnished with scallions. A new favorite side

I loved this simple side. Since I didn’t have a grill, I made this on my griddle. The meatiness of the mushroom is perfect with the salty spiciness of the homemade ssamjang (doenjang, gochujang, garlic, vinegar, and honey).

Eric teased these right before the release and it was one of the first recipes I made from the book! Crispy chickpeas coated in a glossy, spicy red sauce and topped with scallions and sesame seeds. It’s a tasty snack.

Eric is right, you’ll use this magic-gochugaru dust on all your roasted veggies. A combo of gochugaru, paprika, brown sugar, and garlic powder – made a large batch of it to have on hand for any time I need a simple side with lots of flavor.

This will be another favorite side. The fried scallions provide a nice crunch and the salty, spicy, sweet sauce of soy, gochugaru, brown sugar, sesame seeds, and garlic is perfection.

believe me, no one missed the turkey, and everyone absolutely loved these birds! As I do with most roast chicken (thanks to Samin Nosrat) I salted them 24 hours in advance to allow the salt to penetrate the meat. It’s not a must, but my chicken game has improved drastically since starting. The chicken is then roasted until cooked through and the skin is browned and crispy. Out of the oven, the chicken is slicked with bright red yangnyeom sauce made of ketchup, maple syrup, gochujang, strawberry jam, dark brown sugar, and garlic. It was sweet/spicy perfection – we made extra sauce to dip the chicken in as well! So freaking good.

It was absolutely the crowd favorite – but how can you go wrong when the first step is infusing butter with scallions, celery, and onion!? If that wasn’t enough flavor, you then combine with milk, turkey stock, soy sauce, sesame oil + seed, and Parmesan before finally adding eggs and the dried-out sourdough cubes. Spread in a casserole dish and sprinkled with more sesame seeds and Parmesan – you bake until the stuffing has set, and the top is nice and brown. Its texture is very similar to Ina’s savory bread puddings – which have been my go-to for years! It’s also a great make-ahead dish as it can be fully assembled the day before and then baked on Thanksgiving!

I’ve never met a deviled egg I didn’t love, and these may be a new favorite! The dream combo of yolk, mayo, sesame oil, and soy sauce makes for a creamy, savory filling that I could have just squeezed directly into my mouth. If that’s not your thing, you pipe the filling into the egg whites, sprinkle with black sesame seeds, and top with a teeny square of gim.

This reminiscent of my aunt’s chantilly (both are cheesy, creamy rice dishes) but this has the wonderful addition of broccoli and lightly caramelized red onion! Once the individual ingredients are ready (rice cooked, onions caramelized, bread cubes toasted) it’s just a matter of mixing everything together, spreading in a casserole dish, and baking! I loved the ease of using frozen broccoli in this, too! As Eric notes, this can be assembled ahead of time and baked day of – even better!

Eric’s inspiration behind this decadent and satisfying dish was corn cheese banchan (a side dish) in Korean restaurants. The base of the mac and cheese is rigatoni covered in a mozzarella bechamel with plenty of corn, jalapeños, and red onions mixed in. My absolute favorite part was the jalapeño bread crumbs – made with panko, mozzarella, and thinly sliced red onion and jalapeno. Eric describes them as “savory, granola-like cheese clusters” – for me they tasted like mozzarella stick’s answer to popcorn chicken with a little kick. 😍 I could have eaten an entire bowl of just the topping!

love that Eric calls his Honey-Buttered Goguma Casserole with Turmeric “a pregame for dessert” – it’s such an apt way to describe the savory sweetness of these types of dishes at Thanksgiving! His take on sweet potato casserole uses goguma – a yellow-fleshed Korean sweet potato that is understandably a popular snack just on its own. Further sweetened with honey and brown sugar and flavored with soy sauce, cinnamon, and turmeric, the casserole is baked until set and then dotted with marshmallows before a brief stint under the broiler for toasty perfection. Even for someone like me who’s not a huge sweet potato casserole fan, this was delicious! I hope all the Thanksgiving prep is going well – can’t wait to see all your amazing dishes!

Coming soon

Learn a lesson from me: I accidentally bought 1.25 pounds of thickly sliced boneless pork belly rather than the uncut pork belly slab the recipe calls for. To remedy this, I tied all the slices together to recreate a “slab” prior to coating it in the coffee, garlic, and bay leave rub. It worked pretty well but try to find a slab and save yourself the headache! The pork belly is roasted and the resulting meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender and juicy, and the rub so flavorful. The bo ssam is served with onions that have been soaked in a soy, vinegar, and wasabi mixture which helps cut the fattiness of the pork. It’s topped with homemade ssamjang and served with sliced garlic, salted fermented shrimp, and rice wrapped up in a lettuce leaf.

For this mix of deliciousness, wild mushrooms and scallions are roasted before being tossed with cooked dangmyeon (sweet potato noodles) and a sauce made of sesame oil, brown sugar, maple syrup, and garlic. This was my first time trying dangmyeon and I love the chewy bite paired with the caramelized, crispy-edged mushrooms in the slightly sweet sauce.

This is such an easy dish to make! After a quick rinse to remove any bone fragments from the butcher’s saw, the ribs are marinated overnight in a rich, velvety blend of Korean pear, garlic, ginger, Sprite, soy sauce, mirin, brown sugar, and vegetable oil. The sweet-salty marinade tenderizes the meat while packing it with flavor. The next day, the ribs go straight onto a sheet pan and into a blazing-hot oven until cooked through and beautifully caramelized. Piled over rice and finished with scallions, it’s an effortless, satisfying meal!

I love the simplicity of this, which took inspiration from his dad’s recipe, slicking the baby back ribs in olive oil and sprinkling with salt and pepper before roasting in a very hot oven. The simple treatment allows the ribs to shine! I typically have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude when it comes to mint, but the sweet and tangy mint sauce served alongside these ribs was the ideal complement, balancing out the richness of the pork perfectly.

xxx

You had me at twice-fried chicken (Let’s be honest, it had me at fried chicken), but that’s just one trick that creates the supremely crunchy and satisfying chicken – the other is the genius potato starch coating! I was in awe of the crispy and crunchy crust encasing the perfectly tender and juicy chicken. And while the chicken was phenomenal on its own, the sweet-spicy soy, garlic, and jalapenos glaze takes it to the next level. The recipe is easily one of my favorite homemade fried chickens! It checks all the boxes and may be the only home-fried chicken recipe I ever need!

Thinly sliced ribeye, season with a lemon pepper mixture containing sugar and garlic powder is seared in a scorching skillet until cooked with crispy edges – each batch takes just over a minute to cook. Topped with pickled shallots (my favorite), jalapenos, and cilantro, the dish is delicious served with rice.

This cocktail is a mixture of half soju and half vermouth flavored with the juice of a clementine. I loved the soju/clementine combo, but the vermouth (which I enjoy as a background flavor) seemed to overwhelm the drink. I may try different portions next time!

AKA butt bread. Not being much of a bread baker, this recipe turned out perfect – slightly sweet, pillowy with a golden crust. It was best right out of the oven but just as delicious toasted and slathered with some golden butter. It’s a great afternoon project but most of the time involved is inactive.

I loved the story behind this recipe – it was inspired by the first thing Eric’s Dad ate after arriving in America from Korea: a buttery KFC biscuit! I think it’s time to get new baking powder as I keep encountering rising issues. These didn’t get the height I was hoping for but they were still buttery and delicious and the strawberry jam was divine.

Korean Pear Galette with Salted Cinnamon Whipped Cream – both elements were delicious, but my new obsession is that whipped cream! I was eating it by the spoonfuls and licking the bowl to ensure none was wasted. I’m not sure if I’ll ever need whipped cream prepared another way! To make the galette, thinly sliced Korean pears are tossed with grated fresh ginger and lemon zest, lemon juice, cinnamon, and brown sugar then shingled on a rolled-out pastry dough, the edges of which are folded over the pears, brushed with heavy cream, and sprinkled with demerara sugar. Baked until the crust is browned and the filling bubbly, once cooled you slice up and serve with a dollop of that heavenly whipped cream – the key is the salt that really makes the flavors pop!

Coming soon

For this, honeydew is puréed and sieved, then the juice is combined with egg yolks and sugar that have been gently warmed and whisked into a thick sauce. That gets folded into whipped cream, poured into a lined loaf pan, and frozen until sliceable. It was the perfect, refreshing summer dessert, although I think I may have over-folded mine. I didn’t get quite the height I was hoping for, and some of the honeydew juice separated and froze at the bottom. But I kinda like the look! While enjoying a slice, my mind immediately raced back to childhood in Ohio and the once-a-year treat at the Milan Melon Festival: melon (cantaloupe) ice cream. Turns out, I am a fan of melon. It just needs to be cream-based and frozen.

Eric first convinced me that gochujang belongs in dessert with his phenomenal gochujang caramel cookies, so I had a strong feeling I’d love this one too when I finally made it a couple weeks ago. It’s such a simple addition, but the gochujang adds real complexity and a gentle, lingering sweet heat that pairs beautifully with bittersweet chocolate. Beyond that, the recipe couldn’t be more straightforward: eggs, olive oil, vanilla, and chocolate, baked in individual ramekins until set on top and irresistibly gooey in the center. Do not skip the optional finishing dusting of powdered sugar and gochugaru – it’s the perfect sweet-heat note for this deceptively simple dessert.

As part of the book release, Eric hosted a virtual cooking class to make this cake! I loved the look – the black sesame is mixed into the batter but floats to the top as in bakes making a delicious crust. This is a chewy cake (from the glutinous rice flour base) and quite tasty!

Who doesn’t love a snacking cake? My problem is not “snacking” on the whole cake in a single afternoon!

Eric closed out Korean American with this Whipped Cream Snacking Cake with Fresh Fruit – a moist, vanilla-scented sponge piled high with maple-macerated fruit and a cloud of whipped cream.

While the fruit is flexible, I followed Eric’s lead with strawberries, peaches and kiwi, plus a plum I had lying around.

The fruit and all its maple-sweetened juices are spooned directly over the cake, soaking into the sponge, topped with whipped cream and garnished with strawberries. It’s light, airy and the perfect way to use any lingering fruit in your kitchen.

And adding this to my file of “improperly whipped cream” I always take it a little too far in the stand mixer, so I decided to whisk it by hand. Naturally, I still gave it a few more whisks than it needed and lost that perfectly smooth finish. I would have added a splash of cream to loosen it, but I was out. Fortunately, slightly overwhipped cream still tastes amazing!