Kkaennip-namul (Seasoned Perilla Leaves)

Kkaennip-namul begins at the market, not at the stove. Look for young perilla shoots, kkaennip-sun (깻잎순), with tender stems and small leaves. The big raw leaves for ssam are good in their place, wrapped around grilled meat, but this dish wants the younger plant. Cook the month you're standing in: late spring through summer is when it tastes most alive.

The work tonight is small but exact. Blanch just long enough to quiet the raw edge, rinse to stop the cooking, then squeeze with care. Too much water left in the leaves makes the seasoning slide off. Too hard a squeeze bruises them into a tired clump. After that, season in a bowl before the pan, because every namul deserves to be tasted alone before it meets the rice.

Notebook 19 says 250 grams of trimmed young perilla takes 1 tablespoon soup soy sauce, 2 teaspoons perilla oil, and one small clove of garlic. Not a cloud of garlic. Not enough soy sauce to turn it brown. Let it taste like itself: green, nutty, a little wild, with perilla oil carrying the leaf back to its own seed.