Korean lettuce side dish (sangchu-namul)
In summer, my grandma’s garden is filled with lettuce!They grow thick stems and they’re actually so crunchy and sweet when cooked!This traditional recipe is from my grandma 👵🏻 but it’s also very often made by monks at Korean Buddhist temples💚
Ingredients
- 400 g Romaine lettuce (1 lb) 2 heads of mini-romaine
- 1 tablespoon Doenjang (Korean fermented soybean paste)
- 1 tablespoon Maesil-cheong (Korean green plum syrup)
- ½ tablespoon Myeolchi-aekjeot (fish sauce) sub with Guk-ganjang (light soy sauce) for vegan ver.
- 1 tablespoon Sesame oil
- ½ tablespoon Gochugaru
- 1 teaspoon Toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
Making the dressing
- In a salad bowl, add Doenjang, Maesil-cheong, sesame oil, fish sauce, gochugaru, sesame seeds and stir well.
Prep lettuce
- Cut romaine lettuce into bite size pieces and thinly slice the stem ends.
- Rinse it well and keep the stem ends separated.
Blanch lettuce
- In a pot, boil water over high heat. Once boiling, add a pinch of salt.
- Start by blanching the stem ends for around 1 minute.
- Add the rest of romaine and cook for another minute. Stir to cook evenly.
- Drain and shock in cold water. Squeeze out the excess water with hands.
Combine with dressing
- Mix thoroughly with your hands (of course, you can use chopstick, spoon, fork, whatever you're comfortable with!)
