Bireum-namul (Seasoned Amaranth Greens)

Bireum belongs to hot weather. In the market it sits in loose green bundles when spring greens are already gone, cheap enough that no one brags about buying it. That is usually where the good banchan hide. Cook the month you're standing in, and in summer, this is one of the greens that answers.

The whole dish lives or dies in the blanching and the squeeze. Too long in the pot and it goes dull. Too wet in the bowl and the doenjang slides off. Too much paste and you lose the soft, mild nature of the leaf. My teacher would press the squeezed greens into my palm and ask, without looking up, whether I had left water or life in them. There is a difference.

This is a weeknight namul, not a showpiece, and it deserves the same notebook as a holiday dish. You season it alone, taste it alone, and only then let it sit beside rice, soup, and the other banchan. Write down your doenjang amount after you taste your own paste. One tablespoon in my bowl may be two teaspoons in yours, and that is exactly why memory needs a measure.