Minari earned five Oscar nominations this year and Yuh Jung-Youn won the statuette for Best Supporting Actress. It is not only a beautiful family story that has captured everyone's heart, but it has also familiarized us with a plant that bears the same name as the feature film.
What is Minari? It is a very common ingredient in Korean food, which is also known as Korean parsley or Korean watercress., and those who have tasted it say that its flavor is quite strong. It is generally used as a condiment but it is also used to prepare something similar to what we know in the West as pancake.
Here is the recipe to prepare minari-jeon.
These are the ingredients we need: 1 bunch minari, ⅓ cup of flour, ⅓ cup of cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon of baking soda, ½ cup of water, salt to taste, a tablespoon of soybean and ¼ cup of vegetable oil.
For the sauce you will need one cup of soy sauce, two tablespoons water, ½ tablespoon vinegar, one tablespoon muscovado sugar, ½ tablespoon sesame oil, one clove garlic, ½ teaspoon sesame and pepper or chili to taste.
Directions:
- Wash the minari and cut it into 10-12 cm pieces.
- Mix the water with the soy sauce in a separate bowl.
- Add the water to the flour mixture and mix to form a dough.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
- Once the oil is very hot, pour half of the dough trying to cover the whole bottom of the pan but without mixing it so much that it mixes with the oil.
- Place the minari on top and press with a spatula so that it sticks. Then cover with the rest of the dough.
- Cook for three minutes on each side and then cut into eight triangles.
- Combine the sauce ingredients and serve with the minari-jeon.
It’s delicious!
