Korean Recipes You Need to Try Now

So, you might have heard, there’s this pretty big winter sports event happening in South Korea this month. Thought Channel 4’s The Jump was thrilling (you’ll be the only one that did)? Think again.

Over the next few weeks, the world’s best athletes will be competing for medals in sports as wide-ranging as skeleton, curling and Alpine skiing. No, curling your hair is not a competitive event – this is a bit like ice hockey, with a big stone as a puck. And skeleton? It’s a bit like bobsleigh. You’ve seen Cool Runnings, right?!

But we’re all about cooking, obviously, so what we’re most interested in is food – who’s with us? While we try to figure out the rules of luge (just shuffle off and hope for the best, surely?), we’ll be making it our mission to tuck into some of the tastiest traditional cuisine South Korea has to offer. Like this stuff:

Ok, so the title of this first dish probably isn’t making you salivate. In Korea, it’s known as kimchi and is a staple of most meals in the country. It’s a type of fermented, shredded cabbage with onions, herbs, spices, salt and fish sauce, and On The Plate has a blog talking you through how to authentically make it.

Reckon it sounds weird? Well, Koreans probably think we’re weird for eating tasteless boiled cauliflower and carrots with traditional English meals – they’ve at least tried to liven up their veg sides a little. And when you stop to think about it, foods like pickled cabbage are pretty weird to serve up with a stew too. Cabbage, stored in vinegar until it goes completely sour? Maybe kimchi isn’t so weird after all.

You might have heard of bibimbap already; no it’s not that catchy ’90s song by Hanson, but a Korean street food dish. Its base is pretty much always the same: rice and stir-fried veg in a spicy sauce with shredded meat – pork, beef, chicken, lamb, whatever! It’s often topped with extra spice, sauce and a fried egg too, but it’s a great dish to make if you’ve got a load of random odds and ends to use up.

My Korean Kitchen has a basic bibimbap recipe for you to follow that you can easily tweak to make your own. We think it’s a much more interesting use for leftovers than the usual bubble and squeak or ‘surprise’ soup. Don’t forget to serve with your kimchi.

Pancakes! But not just any old pancakes – haemul pajeon. That’s a kind of fried seafood pancake to you and me. They make a great snack on their own or with a dipping sauce, or you could use them to mop up the juices of your Korean main, if you think of them as being a little like a naan bread.

This recipe for haemul pajeon from Uni Homemaker features what should be a pretty familiar pancake batter after your Shrove Tuesday celebrations, but with some added seafood seasoning, red pepper and spring onions. You could even think of this like a Korean omelette and have it for breakfast.

We imagine that you’ve tried sticky chicken before, but have you tried Korean-style sticky chicken? Pickled Plum has a super tasty recipe for this dish, which makes perfect in-front-of-the-ski-jumping snack food, or works well as part of a main with fried rice or spicy noodles.

The chicken marinade used here features a special type of Korean red chilli flakes that are known as gochugaru, soy sauce, honey and rice vinegar, but we reckon you could get away with any kind of vinegar really. Top with chopped spring onions for an extra fresh bite of yum.

Now, these aren’t the rice cakes you’re thinking of. They’re nothing like those crispy puffed rice snack things you spread with low-fat cream cheese and top with cucumber when you’re trying to diet. These are traditionally called tteokbokki and they’re basically little rice dough shapes that you eat covered in sauce with meat and/or veg, a bit like pasta or gnocchi.

Seonkyoung Longest has a recipe for these that she cooks up with a spicy sauce and bits of chopped-up fishcake. It might sound unusual to us Brits who are used to fishcakes with chip shop chips and mushy peas, but it works really well and makes a great filling meal.

Dessert isn’t necessarily a huge part of Korean culture, but there are a few sweet treats unique to the nation that are worth a try. Hotteok (sometimes hoddeok) is a kind of brown sugar pancake that’s often filled with more brown sugar (because, why not?), cinnamon and chopped nuts. Think strudel; think Crunchy Nut in a pancake; think tasty.

This easy-to-follow recipe from Messy Witchen will guide you through the hotteok-making process. You could eat them on their own, but if you think they’re a little dry, top with some of your Western favourites. We recommend maple syrup, or a scoop of praline-flavoured ice cream. Heaven.

We’re sure the athletes you’re watching are following a slightly stricter diet than our suggestions, but seeing as we don’t even know how to put a pair of skis on and the closest we’ve ever come to winter sports is watching Dancing on Ice, we’ll do our bit by getting acquainted with Korea’s food. We know, so noble of us.