Sigeumchi Namul

Korean spinach blanched for seconds and dressed by hand with sesame oil, garlic, and toasted seed

Origin: Korea

From the journey of Spinach.

This is one of the fixed components of the Korean table and one of the quickest things on it. Namul covers the whole family of seasoned vegetable side dishes that appear as banchan alongside a Korean meal, and the spinach one is the most common of them all. It is also one of the five obligatory colours on a bowl of bibimbap, where it supplies the green, and it is a required dish at the ancestral rites of charye, laid out with bellflower root and bracken. The technique is a study in restraint. The spinach goes into hard-boiling salted water for thirty to forty seconds only, is lifted straight into iced water, and is then squeezed dry. That is the whole of the cooking. What follows is dressing rather than cooking: toasted sesame oil, garlic, a little soy or salt, and toasted sesame seeds crushed between the fingers as they go on. The verb matters. Muchida means to dress and mix with the hands, and Koreans regard using tongs or a spoon here as a small failure of care, because you cannot feel whether the seasoning has reached every strand. Which seasoning is used marks the occasion. Everyday namul takes soy sauce and a clove of garlic. The version made for ancestral rites takes salt alone and no garlic at all, since strong-smelling alliums are traditionally excluded from ritual food, and the result is paler and cleaner.

Ingredients

Spinach

  • 500 g spinach, washed, roots trimmed but bunches kept whole
  • 1 tbsp salt, for the blanching water

Dressing

  • 2 cloves garlic, finely grated
  • 1.5 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce, or 0.75 tsp fine salt
  • 1 tsp caster sugar, optional
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
  • 1 whole spring onion, very finely sliced, optional

Method

  1. Bring a large pan of water to a hard rolling boil and add the tablespoon of salt.
  2. Plunge the spinach in and press it under with chopsticks. Count thirty to forty seconds from the moment it goes in.
  3. Lift it straight into a bowl of iced water and swirl until completely cold.
  4. Gather the spinach into a ball and squeeze firmly until no more water runs out, then squeeze once more.
  5. Loosen the squeezed ball with your fingers so the strands separate, and cut across into 5 cm lengths.
  6. Add the garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, and sugar if using, and mix with your hands, lifting and turning rather than stirring.
  7. Crush the sesame seeds lightly between your fingers as you scatter them over, add the spring onion if using, and toss once more.
  8. Serve at room temperature as one of several banchan.

Notes

Korean spinach is sold in bunches with the pink root crown attached, which is trimmed but often left partly on and split, since it is sweet. Any spinach works; young leaf spinach needs only twenty seconds. For the ritual version served at charye, use salt instead of soy sauce and omit the garlic and spring onion entirely. It keeps two days refrigerated but the colour dulls; make it the day you want it. Use it as one of the vegetables on a bowl of bibimbap, alongside carrot, bean sprout, courgette, and bracken. The same method and dressing works for bean sprouts (sukju namul), watercress, and young courgette.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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