7.046 LAVA

7.046

20 (Sat) February 2016

Mul Mandu

2.0

by me

at home

-Apgujeong, Seoul-

with the boyz

The Prodigal Son Returns for Mommy Dearest, Day 1.

In Seoul.  Flew in this morning.  For the sole purpose of buying dinner for my mother on her birthday (well, seeing the kids are a bonus — bigger than the main thing — and the wife too maybe).  Because I’m that kind of son.  Flying back to Manila on Monday.

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Just boil for 10 minutes, drain, serve, with dipping sauce.

The simplest method for cooking mandu, compared to pan-frying (see for example 3.017 Pan-Fried Mandu) or steaming (see for example 4.189 Steamed Mandu…), is boiling in water — “mul = water.”

Whereas hand-made Korean dumplings are traditionally bigger, each containing about a heaping tablespoon of filling (see for example 7.013 Mandu), northern-style more than double (see for example 7.018 Mul Naeng Myeon), the packaged mul mandu products sold nowadays tend to be smaller, closer to Chinese wontons.

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Lava is a game that we play.  Spreading out blankets in the living room to make a boat that floats on a sea of lava.  Unable to leave the boat, else we burn in the lava and die, we secure all essentials in advance, including food and drink, entertainment.  In practice, we never maintain the illusion for very long, someone breaking the rules every few minutes, like to use the bathroom.  But the setup is fun. The coffee table constitutes part of the boat.

The standard — the only — dipping sauce for mul mandu consists of soy sauce + sesame oil + minced garlic + sliced scallion + chili powder + sesame seeds + sugar.

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