Hodu-Ueong-bokkeum (Burdock & Walnut Stir-fry) · Lee Hye-jung

Make her mat-ganjang first (it keeps, so do it any time): bring 1 cup dark soy sauce, 1 cup mirin, 1.5 cups cheongju and 10 g of kelp to the boil, drop straight to LOW and simmer exactly 10 minutes.

💡 This is her own recipe, published in the same Altoran episode as the burdock. If you would rather not make it, the tips give a straight substitution.

Take the pot off the heat. Once it has cooled a little, add the lemon slices, the carrot slices and the sesame seeds. Pull the kelp out after a day.

💡 Both her cautions are worth obeying. Lemon boiled in soy goes bitter from the pith, so it waits for the pot to cool; and kelp left in too long turns the sauce slimy — that is her stated reason for the one-day rule.

Break the walnuts up roughly. Peel the burdock, wash it well, cut it into matchsticks and drop them straight into a bowl of water with 2 tbsp of vinegar.

💡 Burdock browns the moment it is cut — the vinegar water stops that and also softens the earthy edge. Cut it straight into the bowl rather than letting the pile sit on the board.

Pour 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp cooking oil into a pan and fry the walnuts over medium until they are crisp and smell toasted, 2–3 minutes.

💡 Mixing sesame oil with plain oil is the trick — sesame oil alone burns and turns acrid at frying heat. The plain oil raises the smoke point while the sesame still perfumes the pan.

Add 1 tbsp of the mat-ganjang and 1½ tbsp of maple syrup to the walnuts and toss them once more over the heat until glossy. Tip them out and set them aside.

Drain the burdock and pat it properly dry. Heat sesame oil and cooking oil in the pan, add the burdock and stir-fry over MEDIUM.

💡 Wet burdock steams instead of frying, and steamed burdock never gets that glassy sheen. Take the extra thirty seconds with a tea towel.

Once the burdock has softened and lost its stiffness, turn the heat UP and give it one more hard fry.

💡 Her order is medium first, then high — soften it through gently, then hit it hard at the end for colour and a bit of char. Doing it the other way round scorches the outside while the inside stays woody.

Add 2 tbsp mat-ganjang, 1 tbsp cheongju and the snipped dried chilies, then 2 tbsp maple syrup and a final 1 tbsp of sesame oil.

Toss it through with CHOPSTICKS, not a spatula, until every strand is coated and shining.

💡 Chopsticks are her instruction and they are the right tool: they lift and separate the strands, where a spatula presses and mashes them into a mat.

Turn the burdock out onto a wide tray and spread it into a single layer.

💡 Spread it out and it cools fast, which is what keeps it crisp. Left heaped in the hot pan it goes on cooking in its own steam and slumps.

Mix the reserved walnuts through the burdock only NOW, off the heat, and it is done.

💡 This late marriage is the whole design. Walnuts stir-fried in with the burdock would soak up the sauce and go soft; kept apart until the end, they stay crisp against the glossy strands.

Serve at room temperature as a banchan. It keeps in the fridge for about a week.