Stir-fried Squid · Ryu Soo-young

Pull the legs from the squid body — the innards come away with them. Remove the clear quill from inside the body and pull out the hard beak from the centre of the legs, then rinse everything.

Cut the body open flat and score the white inner side in fine diagonal lines, cutting no more than halfway through. Then cut the body and legs into bite-sized pieces.

💡 The scoring lets the squid curl and grab sauce. Cut too deep and the pieces fall apart in the pan.

Slice the onion into strips, cut the green onion on the diagonal, slice the garlic thin and chop the chilies. Have everything within arm's reach — from here the pan moves fast.

Heat the pan on high with the cooking oil and 1 tbsp of sesame oil until the surface shimmers and moves like water.

Add the green onion first, then the garlic, then the chilies, stir-frying on high for about 1 minute until the edges of the green onion brown and the oil smells sharp and toasty.

Turn the heat down to the LOWEST setting. Add the gochugaru and stir constantly for 2–3 minutes — it should turn glossy and stain the oil deep red, never black.

💡 Beginner warning: this is the single step that decides the dish. If you smell anything acrid, the flakes have burned — throw it out and restart, because the bitterness will not cook away.

Still on low, add the sugar and keep stirring for another 3–5 minutes until it melts into the chili oil and the mixture looks like a loose, glossy paste.

Raise the heat to high and pour the soy sauce down the rim of the pan so it hits bare hot metal. Let it bubble hard and darken for 10–20 seconds before stirring it in.

💡 Burning the soy sauce on the rim is where the smoky 'wok' flavour comes from — pouring it straight onto the food just makes it salty.

Add the gochujang and the sliced onion and stir-fry on high until the onion softens slightly and turns red all over, about 1–2 minutes.

Add all the squid at once, put the lid on, and cook on medium for 2 minutes. The squid will release its own water — this is the only liquid in the dish.

💡 Never add water. Squid is mostly water already, and adding more is what turns this into a soupy, pale stir-fry.

Take the lid off, turn the heat to high, and boil the liquid down for about 1 minute WITHOUT stirring — let the sauce catch and darken on the pan bottom.

Now scrape that caramelised sauce off the bottom with your spatula and fold it back through the squid.

Kill the heat immediately, finish with a drizzle of sesame oil and the sesame seeds, and serve at once over hot rice.

💡 Squid goes from tender to rubbery in under a minute. The moment it is done, it leaves the pan.