Maesil cheong ✦

Sirop de prune verte (maesil)

What it is

Green ume are picked in June before the rains, layered with their own weight in sugar and left about a hundred days, until osmosis has drawn a clear syrup out of the fruit. The plums are strained off and discarded at that point: raw and unripe they are not eaten, the kernel above all, which carries amygdalin.

In the kitchen

Use it wherever a dressing needs sugar and acid at once — a spoonful to two of soy sauce, with vinegar and gochugaru — and add it off the heat, since the almond-blossom note boils off in seconds.

Goes with

Gochujang Soy sauce Toasted sesame oil Garlic Ginger Cucumber Rice vinegar

Same species

Bergeron apricot Almond Almond flour Almond oil Amardine Amarena cherry in syrup

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