Spicy squid rice bowl (Ojingeo-deopbap)

A large frying pan or wok, a sharp knife and two small bowls. Use a kitchen scale for these metric quantities. Rinsing, soaking and steaming water is additional where stated.

Have the fishmonger clean the whole squid, or remove the innards, ink sac, eyes, beak and internal cartilage yourself. Peel the outer skin. Pat dry. Lightly score the inner mantle without cutting through, then cut into about 5 by 3 cm pieces; cut the tentacles into 5 cm lengths. The source 580 g is the whole squid weight, before cleaning.

Slice the onion 5 mm thick, carrot into thin 4 cm pieces, chiles diagonally 5 mm thick and green onion diagonally 1 cm thick. Remove chile stalks. Shred the perilla into 1 cm strips.

Mix all sauce ingredients: 32 g gochujang, 9 g gochugaru, 14 g soy sauce, 12 g sugar, 18 g starch syrup, 14 g minced green onion, 18 g garlic, 3 g ginger, 11 g rice wine, 6 g sesame oil and 0.4 g pepper. Separately mix 7 g starch with 15 g water.

Mix the cleaned squid, onion, carrot, chiles and sliced green onion with the sauce. Heat 12 g neutral oil in a large pan over high heat. Stir-fry for about 5 minutes, until the vegetables soften and the squid is opaque and fully cooked throughout, reaching 63 C / 145 F. Avoid overcrowding; cook in two batches if necessary, dividing oil and sauce.

Add the perilla. Stir the slurry again and add it; keep stirring over the heat until the sauce thickens and loses its raw starch taste, then turn off the heat. Unlike the source immediate shutoff, check thickening before stopping.

Divide 920 g hot cooked rice between four plates and spoon the cooked squid and sauce alongside or over it. Serve immediately.