Korean cooking tools: 6 that make home cooking easier

Not for most recipes. The cookware notes on K for All's recipes say any wide pan works for tteokbokki, any small pot works for ramyeon and sundubu-jjigae, and any deep, heavy pot works for frying. The tools below make a few dishes easier, or closer to the way they're served in Korea. Each one is already used in at least one recipe on K for All, so you can see what it's for before you buy.

If you buy only one or two, let your favorite dish decide: a bamboo mat if you'll roll gimbap, a thermometer if you'll fry chicken, and a dolsot if you love bibimbap with a crisp rice crust.

A dolsot lets you cook and serve in the same bowl, and the food keeps sizzling at the table. Crazy Korean Cooking's bowls are stoneware made from fine clay and glazed twice, and the maker says they need no seasoning or pre-soaking. They're dishwasher safe, but the maker says hand-washing keeps them looking good longer.

For a crunchy rice crust, the maker's instructions are to coat the bowl with vegetable or sesame oil (optional) and cook it on the stovetop over low heat for 20–30 minutes, until the crust forms. The oven won't do this. Our Bibimbap and Sundubu recipes link the medium bowl, and the Samgyetang recipe links the large one for serving.

Our Ramyeon recipe notes that Koreans use a thin, light pot for ramyeon: the water boils fast, and the lid doubles as a plate for cooling each mouthful. The AHIER pot is thin aluminum, and its listing says it heats up quickly.

That speed comes with a few rules from the same listing. The pot and its handles get very hot, so use a mitt or a towel. Wash it by hand with a soft sponge, since coarse sponges or a dishwasher can damage it, and keep it for quick noodles: the listing says it isn't suited to long boiling.

A 12-inch nonstick skillet covers pajeon, the vegetables for bibimbap and most stir-fries. Our Tteokbokki recipe links a deeper pan, the Calphalon 5-quart hard-anodized nonstick sauté pan with a glass lid, which gives the sauce room to reduce quickly. It's oven-safe to 450°F and dishwasher safe, and its long stainless steel handles stay cool on the stovetop.

A carbon steel wok is worth it if you stir-fry big batches, like the four servings of jjajangmyeon in our recipe. It needs care: the Craft Wok listing says to season it before first use and to hand wash it only, and warns that any carbon steel wok can rust if it isn't maintained. Its washing routine is wash, dry with a towel, oil, then heat.

For gimbap, our recipe has you lay a seaweed sheet shiny side down on the mat, spread a thin layer of rice, line up the fillings and roll away from you, pressing firmly with the mat. The listing says the mat rinses quickly and stores flat in a drawer.

Korean fried chicken is fried twice. Our Yangnyeom Chicken recipe fries at 160°C (320°F) to cook the chicken through, then at 175–180°C (350–360°F) for the crisp crust. A clip-on probe lets you watch the oil for both rounds instead of guessing.

If you want to try the candy from Squid Game, our Dalgona recipe links a nine-piece set on Amazon. Its listing photo shows a ladle, a press, a base plate, a scraper and five shape cutters, but the package varies and the shapes are random. It's hand wash only. A stainless steel ladle, parchment paper and any cookie cutter will also do the job. Each candy takes only 1½–2 tablespoons of sugar and 1–3 small pinches of baking soda, so the set is mostly about the ladle, the press and the shapes.