Dak-bokkeum-tang닭볶음탕

Chicken cut into pieces, stir-fried with seasoning and then simmered has been around for quite a while. The late-Joseon household manual Sallim Gyeongje describes chogye (炒鷄), chicken stir-fried in sesame oil and then cooked with water. A 1924 cookbook, Joseon Musang Sinsik Yori Jebeop, notes that in Songdo (today's Kaesong) stir-fried chicken was called doritang, and the 1925 collection Haedong Jukji records that the doritang (桃李湯) of Pyongyang was famous. Early-1920s versions were seasoned with soy sauce and black pepper; chili flakes appear in a 1946 cookbook, Joseon Eumsik Mandeuneun Beop. One view holds that today's red version took hold around the 1970s, as Korea's poultry industry grew.

The dish is just as famous for the debate over its name. For years it was widely called dak-doritang, but in 1992 the National Institute of Korean Language, judging dori to come from a Japanese word for chicken, proposed dak-bokkeum-tang as the preferred term. Others have long argued that dori comes from a native Korean verb meaning to chop roughly. The institute has said the argument has some merit, but without historical written evidence it is hard to reverse the decision. Whatever you call it, it is the same spicy chicken braised with potatoes until the sauce turns thick.