Minari side dish (Minari-muchim: 미나리무침)

Today I’m going to show you a very simple, delicious, and easy vegan recipe, using minari, a vegetable that’s very common in Korean cuisine. It’s also known as “water dropwort” in English. It’s used as a main ingredient in some dishes, and is added to others to impart its unique, herby flavor. I love to have it in spicy fish stew. Fresh minari added at the last minute before serving gives the fish beauty and fresh herbal flavor.

Last year there was a movie about Korean immigrants in the US named Minari, which was very popular and won many awards. A lot of people asked me to make a recipe using minari but I had to wait until it was in season again to do it. If you’ve made my spinach side dish recipe (sigeumchi-namul) before, you might notice this recipe is similar. You could also use watercress, too.

Ingredients

Directions

Trim, blanch, and wash minari:

1. Cut off the tips of the roots and discard.
2. Remove the loose leaves from the stems by raking your knife blade down them at an angle.
3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the minari and blanch 30 seconds to 1 minute. Take it out with tongs and transfer to a bowl.
4. Rinse the minari under cold running water. Rinse and drain a couple of times to clean and stop it from cooking.
5. Squeeze out excess water.

Make minari-muchim:

1. Cut the minari into small pieces.
2. Combine the minari, soy sauce, garlic, green onion, sesame oil, and sesame seeds in a bowl. Mix it altogether by hand and transfer to a serving plate or bowl.
3. Serve with rice.