Blanching and Seasoning Namul

Namul is the Korean word for edible greens, shoots and roots gathered from fields and mountains, and for the seasoned side dishes made from them. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture distinguishes raw preparations (saengchae) from cooked ones (sukchae), and notes that cooked namul are by far the more common on the everyday table. Most cooked namul are made one of two ways: stir-fried in a little oil, or blanched and then dressed with seasoning. This page covers the second method, which is the backbone of dishes like sigeumchi-namul and kongnamul-muchim.

Step 1: Prepare and blanch

Trim roots and tough stems, then wash the vegetables well; spinach in particular carries grit near the crown. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and salt it lightly.

• Use plenty of water. Home-preservation guidance from the National Center for Home Food Preservation notes that the water should come back to the boil within about a minute of adding vegetables; if it takes longer, the pot is overloaded. The same logic applies to namul: a crowded pot stews the greens instead of blanching them.
• Keep it brief. Tender leaves such as spinach need only a short dip, often well under a minute, until they wilt and turn bright green. Sturdier vegetables such as soybean sprouts, bellflower root (doraji) or rehydrated bracken (gosari) need longer to lose their rawness. Blanching times published for freezing (about two minutes for most greens) are deliberately thorough; namul cooks usually stop sooner to keep some bite.
• Why blanch at all? Brief heating inactivates the enzymes that dull color and flavor, rinses away surface soil and microbes, and softens the vegetable so it can be squeezed and seasoned.

Step 2: Cool quickly

Lift the greens straight into cold water to stop the cooking. Preservation guides recommend cooling for roughly as long as the vegetables were blanched. Rinsing also removes any lingering grit and, for some wild greens, a little bitterness.

Step 3: Squeeze firmly

Gather the cooled vegetables into small handfuls and press out as much water as you can. The encyclopedia makes the reason plain: excess water dilutes the seasoning and leaves the dish watery. Squeezing in portions is easier than wringing one large ball, and it keeps leaves from tearing. Long greens are often cut into bite-size lengths after squeezing.

Step 4: Season by hand

The Korean verb muchida means to mix or dress, and namul is traditionally seasoned with the fingertips so the dressing reaches every strand. A typical base is soy sauce (or salt), minced garlic and green onion, finished with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. Salt is often chosen over soy sauce when a cook wants to keep a vegetable's natural color bright. Some namul use doenjang, gochujang, perilla oil or a pinch of gochugaru instead. The encyclopedia notes that vinegar is generally not used in cooked namul, and that older recipes sometimes used ground pine nuts where sesame is used today.

Season lightly, taste, and adjust; it is easier to add salt than to take it away. Many cooks add the sesame oil last so it coats rather than soaks in.

The cook's hand

Koreans have a word for the flavor that comes from a cook's skill: son-mat (손맛), literally “hand taste.” Standard Korean dictionaries define it as the taste that arises from the handiwork of the person preparing food, and the word is closely tied to home cooking. The Korean Food Promotion Institute makes a similar point about namul specifically, observing that the same dish varies with the skill of whoever makes it. Because namul has so few ingredients, small choices (how long to blanch, how hard to squeeze, how much garlic) show up clearly on the plate.

Related techniques and dishes

• Blanched and dressed: sigeumchi-namul, kongnamul-muchim, sukju-namul, chwinamul-muchim.
• Stir-fried namul: sturdier or dried vegetables such as gosari-namul and doraji-namul are often softened and then sautéed in oil; see stir-frying.
• Raw saengchae and muchim: musaengchae, oi-muchim and buchu-muchim skip the blanch and are dressed raw, often with gochugaru and a touch of vinegar.

Dried namul and the seasons

Before refrigeration, greens were dried in season and rehydrated later as mungnamul, so namul could be eaten year-round. The encyclopedia records the custom of eating several kinds of dried namul at Jeongwol Daeboreum, the first full moon of the lunar year, traditionally believed to help people weather the coming summer heat. Plates of two or three namul, arranged so their colors complement one another, remain a familiar part of the Korean table.