The Foundation of Lim Seong-geun's Cooking: 3 Sauces and a Knife Demo

Even when you cook with the same ingredients, a different seasoning base changes the direction of a dish. We gathered Im Seong-geun's videos on his all-purpose soy sauce, the stir-fry sauce he uses for spicy squid stir-fry, and his geotjeori (fresh kimchi salad) seasoning, so you can connect them to dishes you often make at home. It's four videos: three seasonings plus a short knife-skills demo.

If you have soy-based braises, stir-fries, or steamed dishes in mind, start with the all-purpose soy sauce; if you're making a spicy stir-fry, start with the squid stir-fry episode. On days when you want to toss some vegetables as a side for the table, you can go for the geotjeori seasoning. Rather than just memorizing the names of the seasonings, seeing which dishes they're actually used in makes it easier to decide what to make for your own table.

If you make a seasoning once and use it multiple times, it helps to look separately at the amount for making the base and the amount you add to a single dish. The final 14-second knife-skills video is included as a short demo for observing prep technique. Try choosing one dish to make first, then watching the seasoning and prep steps you need in order.

Choose the all-purpose soy sauce as a base seasoning for braising, stir-frying, and steaming, the squid stir-fry sauce for spicy stir-fries, and the geotjeori sauce for dressing vegetables. The final knife video is a demonstration that briefly shows his hand movements.

It helps to separate the amount of base sauce you make from the amount you add to a single dish. Check the reference ingredient quantities for each dish as well, and for large-batch sauces, decide how much you will actually use, then scale down the whole recipe before you start.