Minari, in season right now, adds refreshing touch to all-time favorite samgyeopsal
Minari is not just the winner of the Golden Globe for best foreign language film and the winner of best supporting actress award at the Academy Awards in 2021.
While the film "Minari" may have introduced the vegetable to audiences worldwide, not many people know that the herb heralds the first days of spring in South Korea.
Minari is a long-stemmed, leafy green vegetable that bears a physical resemblance to parsley. Sometimes called water celery or water dropwort in English, minari is known for its somewhat mildly bitter aftertaste, refreshing aroma and is claimed to have detoxifying properties. It is usually popular in Korean cooking and often used as an herb in stew dishes, blanched lightly and seasoned as namul or used in making buchimgae or grilled savory pancakes.
Another way to add minari to your table is to pair it with samgyeopsal, pork belly.
At the vibrant Jonggak Avenue of Youth, located in the heart of Seoul's Jongno district, lies Jukmagodon, a Korean pork belly restaurant. A good three-minute walk from Exit No. 4 of Jonggak Station on Metro Line No. 1 will take you to the three-story restaurant.
The eatery's signature dish is minari samgyeopsal. Once you order the dish, the staff brings pork belly aged for three to five days to the table and grills the meat.
As you wait for the meat to be grilled to perfection, a number of the usual side dishes are served: green salad with soy sauce-based dressing; pickled Siberian onion leaves, bean sprouts and fern brake namul, stir-fried fish cake and kimchi. Haemul sundubu-jjigae, a spicy stew with silky soft tofu, is served free of charge. For the meat, five types of condiments are offered: green onion sauce, wasabi, fresh cream sauce, barbecue sauce and salt.
When the pork belly starts to turn a little brown, the staff adds on minari, some of the side dishes as well as sliced onioin, zucchini, shiitake mushroom and potato to the grill.
Once everything is cooked, wrap minari around a piece of pork belly and dip it into the green onion sauce for the first bite.
If you want a unique twist, try wrapping the pork belly with thinly sliced rice cake wrap and dip it in barbecue and cream sauces. Adding salt and a dab of wasabi to bring out the rich flavor of the meat is another way to savor pork belly. Also, try enjoying the meat with fried kimchi. Rice can be ordered by bowl for 2,000 won.
A minari samgyeopsal set serves 300 grams of pork belly and is priced at 34,000 won ($23.12).
There are other great dishes to try at Jukmagodon.
A special pork omakase -- a dining style where guests leave the choice of dishes to the chef -- that serves 550 grams of pork roll, pork shoulder, skirt steak and shrimp grilled in butter is priced at 99,000 won. It is also the restaurant's signature menu item. Other cuts of pork are also available.
When you are finished with meat and if you have room for some more food, try jang kalguksu, hand-cut noodles served in spicy broth, priced at 16,000. There are several other noodle dishes as well as kimchi cheese fried rice priced at 9,000 won.
Jukmagodon is open 2 p.m. - 11 p.m. daily, except Sundays. The last order is at 10:30 p.m.
junheee@heraldcorp.com
