Dan Gray is a restaurateur and food blogger in Seoul, South Korea.
This summer, NPR is getting crafty in the kitchen. As part of Weekend Edition's Do Try This At Home series, top chefs are sharing their cleverest hacks and tips — taking expensive, exhausting or intimidating recipes and tweaking them to work in any home kitchen.
This week: We go to Seoul, South Korea, to make banchan — those endless small plates of pickles and veggies that traditionally accompany rice or soup.
The Chef
Korean-American Dan Gray has lived in Seoul for more than a decade. He says no meal is complete without banchan.
"With a Korean meal, you always have to have some side dishes," Gray says. "If you went to a Korean place and it didn't have any side dishes, you'd know that place is really poor. It's really bad. You shouldn't be there."
Gray is a restaurateur and food blogger, writing at Seoul Eats. He also loves to cook. He just doesn't have a lot of time for it. So he's constantly looking for clever hacks and shortcuts to make dinner time a little simpler.
The Hard Way
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NPR
Gray seasons the eggplant banchan with sesame oil. Red pepper flakes can be added to the eggplant to taste, as well.
Banchan are part of what's popularizing Korean food around the globe. There are many different kinds of banchan, and they're typically served in smaller portions — banchan literally translates to "half-plate."
So the hard way requires preparing each different type of banchan individually — each in small quantities.
The Hack
Gray can make three types of colorful banchan in a single pot, using the same water. And he can do it quickly — just 17 minutes, in the demonstration he gave us.
"This is really a hack," Gray says. "This is like the bachelor's way of making side dishes. Sorry, but your Korean mother will hate me making it this way."
You'll need:
Ingredients
One bunch (about 1 lb) of soybean sprouts, rinsed and drained
One bunch of spinach, washed
Two eggplant
Salt
Three cloves of garlic, minced
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Crushed sesame seeds
Red chili flakes (add as desired)
Equipment
One large pot for boiling
One large pot filled with cold water and ice for shocking
Tongs or strainer to remove veggies from pot
Instructions
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NPR
Three plates of banchan — bean sprouts, eggplant and spinach -- took only 17 minutes to prepare.
The order of operations is key, because you're using the same water to cook three different types of vegetables. We'll start from the lightest color — the white bean sprouts — and work up to the darkest, eggplant.
Boil a big pot of salted water. Dump the bean sprouts into the water.
While that's cooking, prepare an "ice bath" for the veggies in a separate bowl. "You need to have something with cold water, because between each thing that I'm going to blanch, I'm going to shock it in cold water," Gray explains.
The sprouts can cook anywhere from five to 10 minutes, depending on how crunchy you like them. Take them out of the boiling water and shock them in the cold water.
Squeeze. With each vegetable, drain by wringing them out with your hands. (It's a hack, after all. The fewer cooking utensils, the better, right?)
Put bean sprouts aside, and to the same pot of boiling water, add the spinach.
Let the spinach cook for only about 30 seconds to a minute, until wilted.
Take out the spinach, shock in cold water and once it's sufficiently cold, squeeze as much moisture out of it as possible, forming the spinach into a ball.
Cut the spinach ball into quarters and put on a plate.
Whole eggplants go into the water last. Boil until soft and easy to tear.
Take out eggplant, shock in cold water and wring it out. The more moisture you can wring out of the eggplant, the more it will absorb the sesame oil you add later.
The eggplant should be soft enough to shred with a fork or tear with your hands into thin, bite-sized strips. Plate the eggplant.
To flavor the vegetable plates, add a little minced garlic, sesame oil and soy sauce to taste. Use your fingers to work in the oil, garlic and soy sauce, then top the dishes with crushed sesame seeds. For the eggplant, add red pepper flakes to taste. And there you have it.
Serve with rice and, if you'd like, soup. A main meat dish isn't necessary, as banchan often is the meal.
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Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR's Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network's coverage of both Koreas and Japan, and filed from a dozen countries across Asia.
