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Tart Neunggeum Shines with Sugar, Rich Meat, and Cinnamon
Neunggeum is a small, tart apple that Koreans ate long before Western apples arrived. It's too sour to enjoy raw, but it's very useful in the kitchen: steep it into syrup, roast it with pork or duck, or simmer it with cinnamon and cloves.
What Belongs in a Bowl of Hyacinth Beans
In September, the hyacinth bean vine finally blooms and sets its flat purple pods. Young pods and mature seeds need different treatment in the kitchen, and here's how to handle each one, plus a tip on ginger from a 17th-century Korean medical classic.
What Goes Well with Red Goji — Jujube, Ginger, and a Little Oil
Goji berries ripen from August through October, but eaten straight off the branch they're oddly flat. Here's how steeping with jujube and ginger, cooking with oil, and blanching the spring shoots each bring out something different.
Rapeseed Greens: What Do You Set Against That Peppery Finish?
Rapeseed sown in September winters over and comes back tender in early spring — and 30 seconds in boiling water is only half the job. Here's how chogochujang, perilla oil, and doenjang each handle the leaf's peppery, faintly bitter finish.
Good Partners for Mugwort: Rice Flour, Doenjang, and Roasted Soybean Flour
Mugwort returns on its own every spring, but its bright, bitter punch needs a partner. Rice flour, doenjang, and roasted soybean flour each tame it in a different way — and when you add the leaves decides how much of the scent survives.
What to Have on Hand When You Simmer Lilyturf Root
September is division season for lilyturf, but a clump split now won't give you roots for a while — so start in the kitchen with dried tubers instead. Pull the core, add jujube and Korean pear, and let the ginger go in at the very end.
False Daisy, Simmered with Two Jujubes
False daisy grows low and damp along ditches and paddy banks, and its sap turns black the moment you break a stem. Here's how to gather it in August, dry it, toast it, and simmer it with a couple of jujubes so it's actually pleasant to drink.
A Yellow Sauce Mixed from White Mustard Seed — What to Serve It With
White mustard sown in an August gap will be ready by late fall, and its seeds carry a heat that only appears once they're crushed and wetted. Here's what's happening inside the seed, and how to turn it into the yellow mustard you already know.
A Bowl of Chilled Cucumber Soup to Cool Down on a Sweaty Summer Day
A no-cook Korean chilled cucumber soup (oi-naengguk) made with garden-fresh cucumbers — tangy, refreshing, and ready in minutes for hot summer days.
Quick Refrigerator Pickles from Your Misfit Cucumbers
Summer cucumbers ripen all at once, and plenty of them come out crooked or uneven. They taste just fine, so when you can't eat them all fresh, turn them into quick refrigerator pickles. They're ready in a day — all you need is the right brine ratio and to pour it on hot.
Five-Minute Pesto from Just-Picked Basil
As summer deepens, balcony basil grows faster than you can keep up with. The easiest answer is a fresh pesto you can whip up in five minutes with nothing but a blender.