Cycle 3 – Item 293

24 (Wed) October 2012

Minari Stir-Fry

3.0

by me

at home

-Oksu, Seongdong, Seoul, Republic of Korea-

with W and DJ, MIL

Minari is morning glory – maybe.  Ipomoea aquatica.  It’s ubiquitous throughout certain tropical parts of Asia, including the Philippines, where it’s called “kangkong,” Cambodia, as “trokuon,” and Laos, as the Thai term “phak boong.”  It’s also available in Korea, though in slightly different form.

It’s become my new go-to vegetable, apparently.   During recent travels, when I could’ve ordered my long-time favorite gailan, which is difficult to find in Korea, I’ve opted for the morning glory instead.

Whatever the appellation, the vegetable is a long reed (weed) with the hollow, firm stems that retain their integrity upon cooking (especially in the Philippines) and the smaller leaves that are more fragrant, more bitter (especially in Korea), thus offering an interesting range of textures and flavors.

Here, I stir-fried the minari with garlic, daepa, and ginger in oyster sauce and a few drops of fish sauce.  The trokuon that I encountered in Cambodia was often prepared like this, along with some salted soy beans, which I regrettably don’t have.  By contrast, the kangkong in the Philippines, where I first learned to appreciate it, usually came as adobo.  I’m referring to the vegetable itself by the Korean term because the local variation seems to taste a bit different than what I remember from other countries.  In any case, I’m still working on perfecting the recipe and technique.

ADDENDUM

21 November 2012

Minari is not morning glory, but rather water celery aka water dropwort.  Oenenthe javanica.   They look and feel similar, so I thought they might be distantly related, but they’re not even in the same order (see for comparison 3.321 Thai Phak Boong Fai Daeng).

(See also GLOBAL FOOD GLOSSARY)