Myeongyeopchae-bokkeum (명엽채볶음, Stir-Fried Pollack Strips)

Myeongyeopchae-bokkeum lives or dies in the first minute after the sauce hits the pan. The dried pollack strips are thin and dry before you begin, so you are not trying to brown them. You are softening the fibers, glazing them quickly, and stopping before they tighten. Stir too long and they chew like paper. Stir just enough and they stay tender for days.

This is mit-banchan (a keeping side dish), the quiet kind that sits in a small container at the back of the refrigerator and saves a meal when the rice is hot and nobody has time. It is lighter than jinmichae-bokkeum (stir-fried dried squid), less red, less sweet, and kinder to children and elders. My teacher kept this sort of dish in the house because a table with one reliable banchan is already less lonely.

Notebook 41 says 150 g dried pollack strips, 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, and 1 1/2 tablespoons rice syrup. That is the balance I use because the fish is delicate. 손맛 is real; I measure it anyway, so the next cook does not have to guess. Tonight this dish asks for low heat, quick hands, and restraint.