Recipes By Eric Kim
206 recipes found
Sheet-Pan Quesadillas
A single quesadilla thrown together on the stovetop takes mere moments, but when you want to make a larger batch all at once, a sheet pan comes in handy. Lightly greasing the pan results in the richness of a stovetop quesadilla, and the dry heat of the oven gives you crisp tortillas and bronzed, bubbling cheese in 10 minutes. A sprinkle of salt on the tortilla maximizes its inherent nutty flavor and all it needs is cheese to be a great quesadilla. But, a little extra filling in the form of vegetables — like corn kernels and onions, or leftover beans or shredded chicken — would be welcome. Serve with the usual accouterments: raw onion, cilantro and avocado, maybe sour cream and salsa or hot sauce, whatever you like to eat with your quesadillas. This recipe makes 6 quesadillas, but that amount can easily be scaled down.
Sheet-Pan Japchae
Though readily available at restaurants today, japchae — the royal Korean stir-fried glass noodle dish — is traditionally a banquet affair, eaten just a few times a year at holidays and special occasions because the labor to produce it is so high. Each vegetable, among a rainbowed array, is ordinarily stir-fried individually, but in this variation, all of the vegetables roast together on the same sheet pan in color-blocked sections for ease and deliciousness. The roasted vegetables caramelize with less effort, and then need only to be tossed with the noodles and sauce, making japchae a dish within reach for any night of the week. The spinach, mushrooms and bell pepper recall key flavors of typical japchae, but you can use whatever vegetables you have on hand or prefer. Frozen spinach might not be a conventional ingredient, but it roasts beautifully and ends up tasting almost like umami-rich kale chips or roasted seaweed. You can add a drop of toasted sesame oil, if you’d like, but the toasted sesame seeds here lend enough of that quintessential aromatic nuttiness that makes japchae taste so regal.
Chicken Perloo
The supremely comforting one-pot rice dish, perloo (pronounced every which way, including PER-low, PER-la and per-LOO), is a Lowcountry staple with roots in West Africa. This Charleston version from “Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ” by Rodney Scott and Lolis Eric Elie (Clarkson Potter, 2021) calls for two key ingredients: Charleston Gold rice, an heirloom grain, and leftover smoked chicken. Feel free to use arborio rice or another short-grain variety if you can’t get Charleston Gold; and you can buy the smoked chicken from your local smoke shop or BBQ restaurant, or in a pinch, use grocery store rotisserie chicken. You’ll just want to compensate for the absence of smokiness by adding a pinch of smoked paprika, a whisper of fire.
Bacon and Egg Don
In the pantheon of comforting donburi (Japanese rice bowl dishes like katsudon, oyakodon and gyudon), bacon and eggs aren’t traditional toppings by any means, but they sure hit the spot. Eggs, soft-scrambled in the bacon fat with mirin and soy sauce, serve as a gently sweetened duvet for the rice and a counter to the salty bacon. Mirin, the Japanese rice wine, does a lot of work here to take ordinary eggs and rice to restaurant-flavor heights. To level up the rice, stir in 1 tablespoon rice vinegar and 1 teaspoon mirin while fluffing it. A sprinkle of furikake (rice seasoning) and shichimi togarashi (seven-spice blend) might feel like gilding the lily, but their nuanced savoriness completes this dish.
Crispy Tofu
For the crispiest, crunchiest tofu, freeze it first. Tofu is mostly made up of water. When that water turns to ice, then melts and runs out, it leaves behind a more compact, spongy tofu, which is especially great at becoming cacophonously crisp in the oven without a lick of breading. This method — just oil and salt and a hot sheet pan — also concentrates and accentuates the comforting taste of soybeans: gently sweet with a quiet savoriness, and, at the caramelized edges, a little nutty like popcorn. With just a generous sprinkle of salt, the tofu’s true flavor shines. But you could serve the tofu on a large platter with your favorite dipping sauce, or stuff it into a sandwich with iceberg lettuce and mayonnaise.
Peanut Butter Noodles
This nutty midnight pasta is a dream to cook, as it requires just a handful of pantry staples and one pot. Peanut butter (the less fancy, the better) anchors a creamy sauce swathed in umami. Accentuated by a good, salty Parmesan, these noodles recall those cheesy peanut butter sandwich crackers. They make an ideal dinner for one, but the amounts can easily be doubled or quadrupled as needed. For an equally gripping vegan alternative, try swapping out the butter for olive oil and the cheese for nutritional yeast.
Chocolate-Covered Strawberries
When you bite into one of these chocolate-covered strawberries, the shell will snap audibly and crack with a crisp, satisfying sharpness before pooling on your tongue as it melts. By tempering the chocolate, essentially melting and cooling it to the right temperature, it forms a delicate shell that yields to juicy berries. This type of stabilized chocolate is glossy and doesn’t melt at room temperature. The easiest way to temper chocolate at home for candy making, as this recipe does, is to melt a portion of store-bought bar chocolate in the microwave or in a bowl set over recently simmered water, and to then cool it down by stirring in more unmelted chocolate (called seed chocolate). There’s no need for a candy thermometer because you can rely on your senses: The chocolate is ready for dipping when it’s just a touch warmer than your bottom lip.
Parmesan Braised Beans With Olives
At the Manhattan restaurant Ci Siamo, the chef Hillary Sterling serves these dynamic beans topped with a tinsel of fried rosemary and sage, a shower of salty cheese, and a flourish of olive oil and black pepper. For a dish so luxe in flavor, it’s surprising how everyday its ingredients are. At the restaurant, Ms. Sterling uses at least four different types of beans (such as flageolet, scarlet runner, small white, tiger’s eye and Tarbais), but at home, any mix of white, brown and black that you prefer will be beyond delicious. With crusty bread and a glass of wine, these beans can be enjoyed as a meal on their own.
Black Sesame Rice Krispies Treats
The combination of butter-fried black sesame seeds and toasted sesame oil creates an aromatic whammy of nutty sesame flavor in otherwise classic Rice Krispies treats. To quickly and evenly distribute the cereal in the sticky melted marshmallows, it helps to use two utensils and stir the blend like you’re frying rice. Pressing the mixture into a 9-inch square baking pan turns out perfect squares, but the size and shape of your vessel is up to you. Another option is to spread out the mixture on a greased sheet pan into airy clusters. If you want to feel like a kid (or are one), you can put those clusters into a bowl and pour over milk to enjoy as cereal.
Jansson’s Temptation (Creamy Potato Casserole)
One of Sweden’s most delicious exports, Jansson’s temptation, otherwise known as Janssons frestelse, is a creamy potato casserole with melty onions and umami-packed tinned sprats (see Tip). There are a few theories as to the origin of this Swedish classic, which is often served with schnapps as part of the Julbord, or Christmas table. One suggests that it was named after a 1928 silent film, while an older story says that it was named after the opera singer Per Adolf Janzon — but that one’s “not so likely” according to Jens Linder, a Swedish food writer. What we do know, Mr. Linder says, is that Jansson’s temptation did not appear on the Christmas table until after World War II, establishing itself as a holiday food only in the 1970s.
Wanja Jeon (Pan-Fried Meat and Tofu Patties)
These celebratory meat-and-tofu jeon — a variety of Korean pan-fried fritters, patties and savory pancakes — are peak party food. This brilliant recipe from Daniel Harthausen, the chef and owner of Young Mother, a pop-up restaurant in Richmond, Va., calls for a touch of baking soda in the meat mixture to give the patties a little lightness and lift. Unlike most traditional jeon recipes, these start on the stovetop and finish cooking in the oven, which means you can take your time assembling them in advance, then bake them off right before serving. Enjoy these meaty delights with Mr. Harthausen’s special dipping sauce (see Tip), a simple herb salad dressed with some of that sauce, as well as rice and kimchi.
Dwaeji Bulgogi (Spicy Pork Bulgogi)
In this chile-fragrant variation of the Korean grilled beef dish bulgogi, a quick but impactful marinade tenderizes thin slices of pork. Sweet and spicy dwaeji bulgogi, known to some as jeyuk bokkeum, can be both a weeknight staple for the family and a crowd pleaser for a gathering, not least because you can marinate the meat in advance and cook it whenever you’re ready to eat. Wrapping the juicy red pork in grassy, aromatic perilla leaves (a mint-family herb that you can find in Korean grocery stores) is a beautiful eating experience, but lettuces such as red leaf, romaine and butter lettuce work as well. A side of white rice helps sop up the saucy, flavorful pork.
Matcha Latte Cookies
This is a matcha latte in cookie form. Atop the chewy, Grinch-green cookie sits a cloud of ermine icing, an old-fashioned boiled-milk frosting (like the kind you might find in midcentury American baking and grocery-store cupcakes), whose sugared lightness balances out the more intense, bittersweet base. Out of the oven, these cookies might look puffy, but as they cool on their pans, they will continue to cook and deflate, becoming their truest chewiest selves. If you want to skip the frosting, a little powdered sugar is a lovely, snowy finish.
Naengmyeon (Cold Noodles in Chilled Beef Broth)
The secret ingredient to mul naengmyeon, the North Korean cold noodle dish that is now a staple in South Korea and the world, is the mul — water. Whether in the form of dongchimi (radish water kimchi) broth or cold water from your tap or fridge, H2O is a powerful ingredient: When mixed with a rich beef yuksu, the brothy foundation of this dish, then frozen for a couple of hours, it becomes a savory slushy that makes the cold, chewy buckwheat noodles taste even more alchemically divine. This recipe is dense, there’s no doubt about that, but it’s the real deal, and comes from the family behind Olle restaurant in New York City. The main lesson of naengmyeon is that most of the work happens on the front end. Once you have the broth made and the toppings assembled, for the next few days, your meals will be sorted — a bowl of naengmyeon available to you at the drop of a hat, the mere boil of a noodle.
Orzotto Alla Carbonara
This carbonara swaps out spaghetti for smooth, velvety orzo. It’s up to you how much you want to treat this eggy, peppery comfort like pasta or like risotto, where orzo is used like rice (minus all that stirring). For more of a risotto flavor, you could cook a finely diced shallot, maybe even some celery or celery seed, in the guanciale fat before adding the orzo, then add a splash of white wine. This creamy pantry dish is best eaten right off the heat, but it is odd how, even straight out of the fridge, it still stays glossy somehow, like a dreamy pasta salad.
Green Bean Casserole
In the original 1955 green bean casserole recipe, the home economist Dorcas Reilly called for canned cream of mushroom soup. It is, to be clear, delicious. But almost as easy is a quick homemade sauce zhuzhed up with celery salt and nutmeg, pantry spices that make food taste good. Plus, without the mushrooms, the green beans here can fully shine. This casserole should be spoonable — and who has the extra time on Thanksgiving to hand-trim all those green beans? In November especially, it makes sense to take advantage of frozen cut green beans. In this recipe, half of the beans are simmered in broth to bring out their hyper savory flavors and the rest are baked into the casserole to maintain their color and structure. Don’t hesitate to use the store-bought French-fried onions in a can. They cannot be improved.
Hot and Tangy Buffalo Salmon
Imbued with the hot, sharp flavors of Buffalo wings, this salmon dinner can be ready in the time it takes you to hang your hat, wash up and pour yourself a cold lager. Glossed with a buttery, vinegary hot sauce and bejeweled with crunchy celery and blue cheese, this weeknight fish dish is a straight shot to Nickel City magic.
Braised Green Beans and Potatoes
In this simple but powerful recipe, fresh green beans are the alpha and the omega, the bean and the broth. You know a recipe is going to be good when it calls for both onion powder and garlic powder in addition to fresh onion and fresh garlic. The muskier dried versions of these alliums aren’t redundant; they lend fortification to the savory structure that only onion and garlic can build. The potatoes, simmered until soft and fuzzy at the edges, make this holiday side dish — served, please, with a slotted spoon, as part of a buffet plate — feel more like a complete meal when enjoyed later, as leftovers. The ham hock (or smoked turkey leg) isn’t just an afterthought, said Scotty Scott, this recipe’s author and the author of “Fix Me a Plate.” Picked off the bone and chunked into a bowl with the green beans and their rich broth, the meat is a reminder of the soft but important boundary between special and ordinary.
Maple-Soy Pork Chops With Shichimi Togarashi
Shichimi togarashi is a citrusy, savory Japanese seven-spice blend featuring ground red chiles, roasted orange peel, black and white sesame seeds, sansho pepper, seaweed and often ginger. You can extend those sharp, multilayered flavors with lime juice, maple syrup and a touch of soy reduced to a sticky pan sauce that slicks quick-cooking pork chops in this easy recipe. Try to find bone-in loin chops with nice fat caps around the curved outer edges for richness and succulence. Serve with white rice and green beans, or alongside a big crunchy salad.
Chicken Karaage
At 750 Myrtle Diner in Brooklyn, Kaoru Ayabe single-fries his chicken karaage low and slow at a steady 320 degrees. In this variation of Japanese fried chicken, inspired by Mr. Ayabe’s wonderfully light and crunchy karaage, boneless thighs are gently seasoned with ginger, soy and sake — plus a hint of sugar for balance — so the flavor of the meat can be appreciated. What’s special about this karaage recipe, beyond the low and slow single fry, is that the marinated chicken pieces get dipped in beaten egg before gaining their craggy armor of starch (corn or potato). Fried in a rippling pool of neutral canola oil, this humble but stellar appetizer is best enjoyed with a carafe of sake or an ice-cold beer. (Watch Eric make this on YouTube.)
Rosé Shrimp
This zippy, pink shrimp dish captures the crisp and flowery flavors of rosé wine in just 20 minutes. A dusting of herbes de Provence, bloomed in hot, shrimpy olive oil, amplifies the savoriness that crustaceans cooked in butter and wine tend to provide, like that of shrimp scampi. Piment d’Espelette — the fruity, moderately spiced pepper named after a commune in France and prevalent in Basque cooking — turbocharges the color and flavor of the shrimp. This chile can be swapped in a pinch (see Tip), but don’t skip the orange zest; it brings out the wine’s inherent fruitiness. Serve this dish as an appetizer with crusty bread, or as an entrée with pasta or white rice, whatever can sop up the rosy pan juices.
Pesto Pasta With Shrimp and Salmon
Anyone who makes pesto knows how quickly its vibrant color can smirch. But this Nickelodeon-green variation on the Genoan classic, from the chef Meliano Plasencia of Da Andrea in New York City, achieves a velvety sheen thanks to a couple of tricks: A high-powered blender aerates the mixture, leaving behind the smoothest emulsion. (A food processor won’t achieve the same results but they’ll still taste delicious.) Ice cubes prevent the basil from heating up and oxidizing. The pine nuts in Mr. Plasencia’s original recipe, which won second place in a pesto invitational back in 1985, have been nixed in recent years to accommodate diners with allergies. Without the nuts, this pesto tastes of pure basil. If skipping the seafood, you could up the pasta to one pound, or refrigerate any leftover pesto, an instant soup or sandwich flavor booster, in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Eggplant Parmesan
The distinct layers of breaded eggplant, rich tomato sauce and melted cheeses are what make this version of the Italian American classic perfectly calibrated (and, frankly, easy to make). Eggplant Parmesan is a labor of love, but this recipe streamlines the process so the cooking can feel relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. Long sheets of panko-breaded eggplant slices crisp up gloriously in the oven on a sheet pan, which means no frying. Store-bought jarred marinara sauce works beautifully here, but homemade can lend its own kind of delicious character (see Tip). A fully baked and cooled eggplant Parmesan will keep in the freezer, tightly covered, for up to 3 months. Why You Should Trust This Recipe Eric Kim sliced, salted, breaded, layered and baked more than 10 pounds of eggplants to develop this recipe. He consulted multiple chefs and employed their tips and techniques in his final version.
Grilled Pork Chops With Plum BBQ Sauce
The bright, sweet-tart flavor of ripe plums comes through in this streamlined pork chop dinner. Cooking the juicy gems into a simple barbecue sauce leads to fun, fruity results. You could add your favorite spices, such as ground cumin, smoked paprika or fennel seeds, or let the vibrant plum aroma shine on its own. This would be great alongside wild rice, roasted potatoes or a big green salad.