Vinegar Makes Korean BBQ Better: What To Cook In Koreaworld
In the followup book to their New York Times bestseller, Koreatown, which explores the expanse of Korean cooking in the United States of America, authors Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard further look at the evolution of Korean food here and overseas, and how it’s globalization has affected it in KOREAWORLD.
From sweet-and-spicy barbecue to raw seafood preparations and savory stews, vinegar is omnipresent throughout Korean cuisine. I talked with Matt about vinegar’s ubiquity and a few recipes from Koreaworld that highlight its fundamental role.
What was your favorite use of vinegar you encountered while doing research in Korea?
The most common use [of vinegar] to me is in water ice noodles, aka naengmyeon, but I think one of the coolest recipes is yuja chojang. It’s a classic use of vinegar. [You] add rice wine vinegar (or apple cider vinegar) to gochujang, yuja cha (citron honey tea), sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil and garlic. This is the foundation sauce for hwe [small slices of raw fish, similar to what you see in sushi]. You see it all over Korea, but we focused on it while visiting Jeju Island.
*Robard notes that different from Japanese sashimi, Koreans freshly butcher their fish just before serving it, giving it more of a chew as rigor mortis sets in. i This dipping sauce is served alongside.
I’m so curious about the Manuel Jangaji (PIckled Whole Garlic Cloves) from the book. How do you use them?
Pickles work with any barbecue dish. In the book Hunje Udae Kalbi (whole smoked short ribs) is our version of Texas-style BBQ. In the first book we have bulgogi, and tabletop BBQs in general — [banchan, vegetable side dishes, like this one] reset the palate, offering some astringency to go with the sweetness of barbecue. I found it to be a really nice refresher, but you have to be careful … Raw garlic is not my jam but the pickling smooths it out.
*This brine is 1:1 cider or rice wine vinegar:water, with 1 tablespoon of kosher salt. The garlic sits covered and refrigerated for two weeks before being tossed in a spicy gochujang/gochugaru soy sauce, mirin (or soju) and rice syrup marinade. These will keep in the fridge for a month.
Another interesting recipe isbe your Oi Muchim, aka Sweet-and-Sour 7UP Pickled Cucumbers. Are they more sweet or sour, and what’s up with the 7UP?
They’re never that sweet — bread & butter pickles are way sweeter. These are in that sour realm. They get a little sweetness from 7UP or Sprite. Pickled elements are typically for banchan , you don’t [typically] add a pickle relish to the top of something.
*Robard writes that these pickles remind him of something in between the “hard sour snap of Katz’s full sour pickles” and the lightly marinated seasoned cucumbers customarily served as banchan.
Speaking of 7UP, I see vinegar is mentioned titularly in your Bibim Guksu, Chilled Buckwheat Noodles with Vinegar and Lemon-Lime Soda Sauce — what does the vinegar do for the dish?
Yes! Vinegar and lemon-lime soda! This is part of that cold noodle traditional where vinegar plays a huge role. Adding vinegar plays against the buckwheat, and adds personality to a pretty basic starch.
*The sauce starts with gochujang, gochugaru, grated Asian pear or apple, sugar or fruit preserves, balanced out by the lemon-lime soda and cider or rice vinegar. There is soy sauce and garlic in the mixture too. It’s refreshing both because it’s cold, and cleansing. A spicy, lip smacking, slurpable noodle dish!
Sweet-and-sour seems to be both tradition and trend — is your Tangsuyuk Via Dongbei Guo Bao Rou (sweet-and-sour pork) using vinegar as a mode of preservation of flavor?
Basically, this is [part of] Korea’s long tradition of Chinese [culture and cuisine]. I don’t think it’s a traditional preservation technique, as it has more heritage with the higher courts (Korean royal court cuisine). In Korea, I think the palate leans sweet … and has heat to it. Sweet and heat. Gochujang, if you take it straight, is sweet to start, and finishes with heat.
*This version of Korean Tangsuyak is the best of both worlds, a sweet-and-sour combo. presented in the style of Chinese Dongbei Guo Bao Rou, which is a crispier-style compared to the prior. This mashup is an interpretation by Lucas Sin, a chef and social media star; Tangsuyak is usually tossed with vegetables like wood ear mushrooms, onions and carrots, while the latter is more meat-forward, with very little vegetable garnishes.
Where is vinegar in this recipe, is it used as a foil for the sweet heat?
I don’t know if vinegar is a foil, it resets the palate, used in the marinade as a way to bring in extra flavor and tenderize … as a generalization it's [vinegar] used as a contrast.
What brands of Korean vinegars would you suggest trying to source?
I don't have a [go-to] brand, but my [Korean] vinegars have always been Sempio or Bibigo. Rice vinegar is what we call for most in our recipes, apple cider vinegar in certain places. The first book has a lot of vinegar in it — daikon wraps , potato salads, and many dips and marinades.
What do you see as the future of Korean cuisine, and is vinegar a part of that?I
It’s generally a vegetable and seafood diet. Korea has a limited amount of land, it’s a peninsula, so there’s not much harvesting of meat. There’s always a bottle of vinegar on the table. Mainly, vinegar helps as a marinade, like for low tide crabs, it makes them taste better — marinades are part of the alchemy [of Korean cuisine]. It’s not like Thailand which has an infinite amount of products — [but in Korea] vinegar is a booster.