Gondre ✦

Gondre

What it is

Cirsium setidens is a mountain thistle whose young leaves are picked in the Gangwon highlands and dried, and Jeongseon built its signature dish on it: gondeure-namul-bap, rice steamed with the rehydrated leaf and dressed with perilla oil. It entered the kitchen because a spring leaf dried in May would still feed a household in February.

In the kitchen

Dried gondre needs a long soak and a real boil, not a quick rehydration: overnight in cold water, then twenty to thirty minutes at a simmer, then rinse. Undercooked, the leaf stays fibrous and no dressing repairs it.

Goes with

Perilla oil Rice Guk-ganjang Garlic Sesame Doenjang Soy sauce Salt

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