Korean Food Challenge Part 1

I plan on doing expanding my exploration of wild food to cook Korean dishes with wild food.  My wild food harvest challenge led to a better understanding of wild food, but my recipes were often just simple pan fries of meat and wild greens. Sometimes the results were not so delicious.

My challenge this time around is to learn how to make Bibimpap.  It's really simple to make just preparing and procuring the ingredients is tricky if you are new to Korean cooking. The ingredients look much different than the result. This dish uses fernbrake which is wild harvested and its found everywhere near mountains I've noticed. I think they need to be steamed and added to rice with some sauce, an eco egg, and some gochujang and thats it.

There is word for potted wild vegetables that are used in Korean cooking called Chwinamul. According to a free encyclopedia, this word refers to Korean leaf vegetable. A free encyclopedia provided the following.

"It consists of the leaves of various species of wild flowering plants, including Aster scaber. There are approximately 24 edible varieties in Korea of which most are found on mountains. The leaves have a distinctive scent and their consumption is believed to be healthful, as they are full of protein, calcium, vitamins B1·B2, niacin, and iron. They are often sauteed until they wilt and served as a banchan (side dish), included in dishes such as bibimbap, and even used for medicinal purposes.

In modern Korean agriculture there are many domesticates that are used at potted vegetables that would not traditionally be considered Chwinamul and many that are still wild.

GMarket has provided me with what's on the market to explore.  Such as 다래순 참나물 시래기 무말랭 부지갱  토란대 목기고춧잎  and 도라지, many of which are present in Korean cooking of your better quality restaurants.

The thing about these plants common to pre-refrigeration is that they are dried and then re-hydrated when ready to cook. For my quest to be a locavore eating the wild varieties of these plants makes a lot of sense because they are totally sustainable. Becoming a better forrager and cook means that I will have to understand how these plants look before and after processing. They can look completely different and to be frank many leaves look like stir-fried spinach when cooked or similar to other varieties.


Some examples:
부지갱 before
부지갱 after

도라지 before 
도라지 after
 
All of this is messy to figure out and I love the detective work needed for this kind of research. I know in my head that the more Korean know the better because western internet resources and books are still behind this great stuff.