Mandu Salad. I'm finally back in Seoul after a month long stay in the US. Katie and I spent Sunday cleaning up the kitchen studio for our next shoot! I was (secretly) curious to see what Katie was eating while I was gone. I opened up our refrigerator and peeked inside...
There was nothing there beyond the usual suspects: tub of Kimchi, container of lettuce, old spaghetti sauce. I smirked as it seemed that Katie dined out with friends for most nights and unofficially closed down the kitchen 🙂 Good for her!
Next, I peeked into the freezer and saw two large bags of mandu (Korean dumplings) in the back. She laughed and told me that mandu had been her go-to, late-night snack. She also said that she learned a tasy way to eat mandu.
Skip the soy sauce. And instead, pair it with a salad. A gochujang-based salad! We ended up making it as I was curious. I was impressed by the salad dressing - it had the right balance of spicy, sweet and tangy. The sauce actually reminded me of jjolmyeon sauce, but slightly lighter and less spicy. I agreed - an exciting way to eat dumplings!
Cooking notes: Feel free to use any type of dumplings! No need to stick to Korean mandu.
Ingredients
- Dumplings - 8-10 or however many you want!
Salad Ingredients
- Cabbage - 2 layers
- Lettuce - 5 pieces
- Perilla leaves - 5 optional
- Carrot - small piece length of your pinky
- Sesame seeds - few shakes optional, garnish
Gochujang Salad Sauce
- Gochujang - 3 Tablespoons
- Vinegar - 2 Tablespoons
- Sugar - 2 Tablespoons
- Minced garlic - ½ Tablespoon
- Sesame oil - ½ Tablespoon
Instructions
Veggie Prep
- Wash all your veggies. Put them in a salad spinner or let them drip off excess water.
- Cut cabbage into very thin slices (the thinner the better).
- Cut lettuce into thin bite-sized sections.
- Take stems off the perilla leaves and cut leaves into thin sections
- Julienne the carrot. The thinner the better
- Note: Feel free to throw in other veggies that are leftover in your refrigerator.
Make Marinade
- Thoroughly mix together all of the ingredients listed under 'gochujang salad sauce'
Make Salad
- Pour in about 75% of the gochujang salad sauce over the mixed greens. Give it a toss and sample it. Add more sauce if you need (I ended up using all of it). Garnish with sesame seeds.
- Cook your dumplings. Make them extra crispy 🙂
- Time to plate: Place a scoop of salad into the middle of the plate. Then arrange dumplings around the salad.
- Bon Appetit!
Notes
- See video for more details
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