Kkaennip Namul (Perilla Leaf Namul) Recipe
Fall is quickly approaching here in Indianapolis, the weather is beautiful and the evenings are getting quite chilly. Bill and I have been getting out a lot. This weekend, we’ll be traveling to Saint Louis to see our friends for a couple of days. We hope to visit some veggie friendly restaurants there! We’ll make sure to bring some pictures back. 🙂
When the weather starts turning cold, the Kkaennip plant starts flowering. Once it starts flowering, you don’t get to have the bigger leaves for too long. So you need to make the dishes you want to make pretty quick. Since I have been posting about kkaennip (perilla leaves), I thought I would post about another side dish that we enjoy often.
This is a base side dish that Koreans often make around Choosuk – Korean Thanksgiving. I frequently make this dish to get dark green leaves into our diet. We also use this as a vegetable in our bibimbap. Just add some of this kkaennip namul with some pepper paste, brown rice, kimchi, sliced nori (kim) and sesame oil, and you’re set for a great bibimbap! We always add our flaxseeds and sesame seeds as well! 😉
Kkaennip Namul (Perilla Leaf Namul) Recipe
Ingredients:
3-4 bunches of Perrilla leaves
1/2 – 1 Tbs of soy sauce (more or less to taste)
1/2 Tbs of sugar (more or less to taste)
2 tsp sesame oil (more or less to taste)
2 tsp diced garlic (more or less to taste)
Directions
1. Wash and blanch the perilla leaves for about 10 seconds so they turn greener in color and a little softer in texture. For this dish, it is okay to leave them in longer if you want the leaves to be softer.
2. Remove excess water and let perilla cool.
3. Mix the sauce ingredients together, add to the the cooled perilla leaves and squeeze sauce into leaves with your hand. Really mix it well with your hand (remember, sohn-maht -hand taste!) so the sauce ingredients soak into the leaves.
4. Add sesame seeds into the mix or top perilla with it as a garnish. Serve!
Blanch and slice them!
Make sure to separate the leaves from each other before adding sauce.
Mix it well with your hand! Sohn-maht, right?
There we go. 🙂
Serve with brown rice and other banchan! Another yummy kkaennip recipe. Have I convinced you to grow it in your backyard yet?! 😛
The Vegan 8 Korean 
My parents live in St. Louis! 😀 I hope you enjoyed your visit there.
We loved it, a very cool city! 🙂
Are there any Korean restaurants that you know of in “the Lou”? I only know of one Korean grocery store.
Hey Lu! No… we spent just two days there with our not-so–much-Korean food eating friends, so our knowledge is very limited! 😛
I’ve seen this leaf at the market and have always wanted to try it–I made it today and yum!
Oh good… So it wasn’t too strong of a flavor for you! Great!!
Hi Sunnie! Where did you get kkaennip seeds in the U.S.? I’m so curious! Recipe looks great, by the way.
We were able to get them in our local Korean grocery store. They always carry some Korean vegetable seeds. Hope you can find some!
I have been growing this plant this year and have been enjoying harvesting leaves tremendously, since this plant is deer-resistant and practically grows by itself as long as it’s watered. I have been looking for good recipes using those leaves for long term use.
I have good amount of leaves frozen to cook.
Thank you so much about infos for this plant. My question- why the leaves on the bottom do not grow big? Only the leaves on the top of the plant , grow big. How can I grow those small ones grow big?
Hi, Billi. That’s great to hear. I imagine it’s just an issue of needing more space or light – so either spacing out the plants more or harvesting the leaves on top. But we usually just have several plants and let them grow as they will so they require so little caretaking, as you mention. Good luck!