Squid Stir-fry (Gap-ojingeo-bokkeum) · Kim Jin-sun

Score the cleaned cuttlefish in a crosshatch on the inside face, then cut it into bite-size pieces.

💡 Score the inside, never the outside. The inner surface contracts more in heat, so the cuts open into ridges that catch sauce — and scoring stops the piece curling into a tight tube.

Cut the onion into thick wedges, the cabbage into bite-size squares, the green onion on the diagonal, and slice the carrot and Cheongyang chilies.

Mix the sauce in a bowl: gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, oyster sauce, minced garlic, corn syrup and the extra-hot chili powder. Leave a gap for the blanching liquid — that comes in a moment.

Put 5 tbsp of cooking wine and 5 tbsp of water into a pan and bring it to a boil over high heat.

Add the squid and cook it for about 50 seconds over high heat — 40 seconds for medium squid, 30 for small.

💡 Fifty seconds. Use a timer, genuinely. Squid is tender for about a minute and then tough for the next forty — there is no middle ground and no rescuing it. Her three size timings exist because this window is that narrow.

Pour the pan through a sieve to lift the squid out — and KEEP the liquid underneath.

💡 She writes '국물 버리면 안돼요' — don't throw the liquid away. It is squid essence reduced with rice wine, and 6 tbsp of it is a listed sauce ingredient. Pour it down the sink and the sauce loses its entire seafood backbone.

Cool the squid in cold water, changing it two or three times, until the pieces are properly cold to the touch.

💡 This is the second of her two tips and the one people skip. Hot squid keeps cooking in its own heat on the way to the bowl — shocking it cold stops the clock dead, so the 50 seconds you just timed actually means something.

Stir 6 tbsp of the reserved blanching liquid into the sauce bowl.

Wipe the pan, add 6 tbsp of olive oil, and heat it over high heat until it shimmers.

Add all the vegetables at once and stir-fry them for 2–3 minutes over high heat, until the edges have caught some colour but the cabbage still has a crunch.

💡 The vegetables get the pan to themselves and they get high heat. This is the only browning in the dish — the squid is already cooked and cannot be asked to do it.

Once the vegetables are golden, return the cold squid to the pan with all the sauce and stir-fry for exactly 1 minute.

💡 One minute — just long enough to heat the squid through and cook the raw edge off the gochujang. The squid is not cooking here; it is being reheated. Everything past 60 seconds is turning it to rubber.

Turn the heat off, add 1 tbsp of sesame oil, toss once, and serve immediately with rice.