Seasoned Perilla Leaves - (깻잎무침)

So I finally bit the bullet and made the seasoned perilla leaves this afternoon. I've been having severe headaches the last few days, so standing in the kitchen wasn't something I wanted to do but the thought of letting all these leaves go to waste got my butt into action.

Here goes! This is one of the MR's favorite dishes and it's a lot easier to make than you might think. =)



The first step is to wash and let dry all your perilla leaves. It took seriously forever washing them one by one. After I was done washing them, I was tired so I left them sit in the colander while I took a long nap. By the time I got up, all the leaves were nice and dry. I bought 3 bags of leaves.......I would say this is well over 100 leaves.



In a separate bowl, mix together the following:

• 1 CUP soy sauce
• 1/2 CUP water
• 2 TB red pepper powder
• 1 TB sesame oil
• 1 TB rice wine
• 1 TB gook ganjang
• 1 TB minced garlic
• 1/2 small onion (sliced THINLY)
• handful of green onions (chopped)
• optional: handful of buchoo (chopped)

Have questions about any of the ingredients? Check out Korean Cooking 101!



I had some buchoo left over from the yulmoo kimchi I made earlier in the week, so I decided to throw those in there as well.



Add some chopped green onions...



Mix it around really well and you're ready to begin~



Lay one leaf down into a deep container and add a little bit of the sauce mixture.



Keep going until you use ALL the leaves.......ONE at a time. Yep, this takes time and patience! =P



If you feel like you're gonna run out of sauce, just use the sauce that has now dripped into the bottom of the container. I just scoop from the bottom and keep going.



Before you know it, you'll have used all the leaves up. What seemed like way too many leaves will condense and fit nicely inside your container.



Use your fingers and push all the leaves down firmly into the sauce mixture. Every few days, I'll take the bottom half of the leaves and bring them up to the top.  After about a day or two, you're ready to eat! Enjoy~~~

P.S. This is a side dish you eat with rice. Most people take a leaf and wrap it around their rice. It's much too salty to eat alone!