Dak-gui

Whole or jointed chicken grilled over open flame, seasoned simply or with a bold gochujang glaze.

Dak-gui is one of the oldest preparations in Korean cooking, with references to grilled chicken appearing in Joseon-era culinary texts that describe banquet menus for the royal court. The dish appears in two broad families — baek-suk style, using whole unseasoned chicken grilled gently, and the more commonly encountered yangnyeom style, where pieces are brushed with a gochujang-based glaze during cooking to create a fiery, lacquered skin. Village gatherings throughout the Gyeonggi and Chungcheong provinces historically featured whole grilled chicken at autumn harvest festivals, and the tradition of communal outdoor grilling with chicken persists at Korean camping trips and university club outings today. The gochujang-glazed version became a fixture of Korean street food markets in the 1970s and is now sold at pojangmacha stalls nationwide. When grilled properly over charcoal, the skin turns crackled and deeply coloured while the meat remains moist, and the pleasant bitterness of charring balances the sweet heat of the glaze. Modern iterations sometimes brine the chicken overnight in a salt and sugar solution before grilling to ensure juiciness.