[Cooking Talk] No More Worries About Winter Side Dishes! Dried Radish Strips

Dried radish strips

“Ttak tak” The sound of a knife cutting something on a wooden cutting board can be heard.

The slices are cut to a consistent thickness, neither too thin nor too thick, suggesting that my mother’s second round of drying radish strips (mumalraengi) has begun. The first batch of mumalraengi was dried well under last autumn’s sun and is being enjoyed deliciously, so the winter mumalraengi becomes the second round.

Autumn radishes and napa cabbages are left after making kimchi and stored in jars used as storage containers. Napa cabbage has a shorter shelf life than radish, so only a moderate amount is kept; as winter begins, it is used up by making soups, side dishes, and pancakes, leaving none leftover. However, radish is more durable than napa cabbage, so every year my mother keeps more than necessary. Although napa cabbage appears on the table just as often, as the year changes and winter deepens, its shelf life decreases, causing the radish to sometimes develop wind damage and start drying out, which diminishes its flavor.

At that point, she becomes anxious. The method to preserve radish for a long time after winter is to make mumalraengi. Because the weather is cold and the sun sets early, it is impossible to dry radish strips outdoors in winter, so a dehydrator must be used.

All the remaining radishes are taken out, washed, and drained, then cut into strips of consistent thickness. Autumn radishes are full of moisture, making them relatively easy to slice, but cutting radishes that have lost some moisture in winter is no easy task. Even chopping large radishes into manageable pieces with a knife is a big challenge.

When a “crack~” sound is heard, the split radish pieces are sliced to an appropriate thickness and then julienned again to a consistent thickness.

Because radish fibers run straight, it must be sliced along the direction in which it stands so that after drying, the strips remain straight and elongated. My mother always says while making mumalraengi that if the strips are too thin, they become tough, and if too thick, they become soggy, so they must be cut evenly?not too thick or thin?to achieve the best taste.

One batch of mumalraengi is enough, but every year when making the second batch, we promise with crossed fingers not to do it next year, yet every year we forget and make the second batch again.

Mumalraengi is lightly soaked, seasoned with red pepper powder and red pepper paste to be used as a side dish, and added to various mixed dishes with squid, skate, and sea snails. The mumalraengi absorbs moisture, making the strips chewy and the mixed dishes clean and flavorful. When finely chopped and added to dumpling filling, the soaked mumalraengi gives a chewy texture that tastes like meat. Also, if the dried radish is well roasted in a pan or puffed like rice cakes at the market and brewed as mumalraengi tea, it has a savory flavor. Cooking and enjoying mumalraengi is now my responsibility.

Written by culinary researcher Lee Mi-kyung (http://blog.naver.com/poutian), photos provided by Naturement