Napa Cabbage

Fry shreds of leftover slow-cooked pork to an irresistible crisp for this quick, gingery green bean and cabbage stir-fry.

Sauté hot Italian sausage meat with ginger and garlic, mix with veg, and dinner’s a wrap!

The most popular person at any Japanese street festival is the yakisoba guy. Standing at a small cart with a hot griddle, he wears a twisted hair band and holds two giant spatulas, one in each hand. With great energy and fanfare he stir-fries a heap of vegetables and pork with chukasoba noodles—the yellow, springy Chinese-style wheat noodles more commonly known as ramen. He finishes with a glug of the special bottled sauce that tastes like a spicier version of tonkatsu sauce, and customers walk toward him like zombies. At home, however, the dish is best cooked one portion at a time.

A warm, spicy peanut sauce makes even bean sprouts feel indulgent in this crispy, crunchy bowl.

Kimchi can be made and eaten any time of the year, but I really crave it in the spring. In this recipe, the kimchi and assorted quick-pickled vegetables are the dominant flavors, making a bright-tasting, tangy bowl. Pickling chard stems is a great way to use them up—they’ll add bits of celery-like crunch, and using rainbow chard means lots of extra color, too. Furthermore, the pickled components and the sautéed chard both keep well, meaning that they can be made in advance or packed up as good leftovers. Let the toppings come to room temperature before serving, so that they don’t cool down the bowl drastically when you stir all the ingredients together.

Chicken soup with a head-clearing kick and a generous dose of seasonal veggies will sooth all that ails you.

Chicken, seafood, glass noodles, and vegetables get briefly poached in dashi-based broth. Cutting the ingredients into uniform pieces ensures they cook in the same amount of time.

This recipe comes from New York chef Deuki Hong's father and has origins in North Korea, the ancestral home of mandu. (Sharing a border with China, it is no coincidence that mandu sounds a lot like the Chinese word for steamed bread, mantou.) Unlike versions stuffed with finely chopped kimchi, Deuki grew up eating mandu with kimchi on the side. The star in this recipe is the very generous quantity of butter, which is mixed in with the pork, garlic and ginger and adds a real-deal richness to each bite. Not typically used in East Asian cooking, butter is a fully Americanized, fully awesome way to rethink the mandu.

Once you try the combination of tangy and smoky flavors of pickled, grilled cabbage, you'll always want to make your slaw this way.

I love kimchi. To me, the world is a better place when we all enjoy kimchi. Fiery and fun, it gives a kick to all food.

Koreans celebrate the first one hundred days of life, so for my son, Hudson's, hundredth-day party, we had a bash with lots of Korean food. The next day, with my taste buds toned and thinking of the great Korean tacos I've devoured at food trucks in Los Angeles, I created this version. The marinade for the steak is to die for. I guarantee you'll want to try it with Korean-style short ribs, pork tenderloin, and grilled chicken. A little planning and prep a day ahead is a great way to save time on hurried weeknights. This steak gets even better with an overnight marinade, so you could marinate it on Monday, and it's ready to grill on Tuesday night. If you're doing it all on the same night, use the marinating time to multitask—prep your vegetables and whip up the guacamole. You'll be surprised how quickly it comes together.

Editor's note: Use this recipe to make Chef David Chang's Bo Ssäm. This is the kimchi we use most often in our cooking and in our restaurants.

This dish conveys the grandeur of formal Chinese dinners, but there's nothing intimidating about its preparation. The balance of flavors is sublime, and the presentation is striking — ruffled Napa cabbage is arranged around large pork meatballs to create the appearance of the lionlike Tibetan dog.

Broiling is a good way to brown the salmon without adding fat. For a golden color and crisp finish, don’t turn the fish while it is under the broiler; it will still cook all the way through without this extra step.

One of the preparations that make Thai cuisine so fresh and refreshing in the tropical heat is its raw vegetable salads that serve as backdrops to fish or meat. The sauce used on these salads is typically a blend of chiles, fish sauce, fresh lime juice, and herbs, with fresh cabbage as one of the side dishes. This Thai slaw is inspired by those classic recipes. Use it as a base for Thai Shrimp tacos (page 59) or for other shrimp or seafood fillings.

In this nutritious salad, papaya, red bell pepper, and cabbage provide vitamins A and C, while carrots contribute large amounts of beta carotene. Cilantro and mint supply flavonoids, and peanuts add vitamin E and selenium, all potent antioxidants.

Lots of barbecue joints in Tennessee do country-style vegetables other than coleslaw, barbecued beans, and potato salad. One of our favorites is a big pile of turnip greens doused with hot pepper vinegar to go with a side of pork ribs. We think vegetables are a critical counterbalance to rich smoky barbecued meats. Same goes with Asian barbecue. Swap the collards and turnip greens for bok choy or Napa cabbage flavored with garlic, ginger, and soy sauce. Serve this with Filipino Adobo-Q Chicken (page 94) and a big pile of fluffy jasmine rice.

A pleasing composition using a minimum of exotic ingredients, this traditional Asian dish becomes somewhat offbeat through the use of fresh tomatoes and basil.

This simple slow roast uses the pork shoulder, one of the least expensive cuts of pork—so go ahead and splurge on heritage breed pork if you can. Regardless of the variety, what makes this roast so good is the dry rub, which gently cures the pork and infuses it with flavor. Two days’ marinating time is ideal, but 24 hours is fine, too. Don’t do it if you can’t wait at least a day, though; the results will not be ideal. If you’re lucky enough to get a roast with the skin on, you’ll be rewarded with a bonus: chicharrones! The skin will bubble and puff as the roast cooks; if you want to amplify the crunchiness, after the roast is done, take off the skin and place it on a cooling rack set on the roasting pan. Continue to roast until the fat has rendered off to your liking. The accompanying slaw is inspired by the kind typically served with Carolina-style barbecue. Its sweet and sour notes complement the rich pork nicely.

In this richly flavored dish, the salmon and cabbage are cooked in rendered bacon fat; for a vegetarian variation, omit step 1 and start by heating two tablespoons olive oil in the skillet.