The Morning Call

THE JOY OF BANCHAN

Master small side dishes that enhance Korean meals

- By Eric Kim

In Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel “Pachinko,” a restaurant owner approaches the protagonis­t, Sunja, after hearing of her famous kimchi. Sunja’s reputation preceding her, the owner hires her on the spot to supply his restaurant’s banchan — the small side dishes that often accompany a Korean meal.

“Any fool can make a marinade and grill meat,” he tells her, “but the customer needs a fine array of banchan to make him feel like he’s dining like a king, wouldn’t you say?”

Banchan are one of the great joys of Korean cuisine, complement­ing the entree, such as a grilled meat or a bubbling stew, but treasured in their own right. Many people like to eat them as appetizers, though they’re meant to go alongside the rest of the meal. Most restaurant­s serve them on the house, as a gesture of hospitalit­y.

During the Joseon dynasty in Korea, which lasted from 1392 to 1910, the court served multiple daily meals to the king, including a royal table (called surasang) that consisted of 12 banchan — plus rice, soup and other dishes.

Some restaurant­s today come close to this regality, even making banchan the focus of the meal. The Odae Mountain restaurant, in the Gangwon province of South Korea, serves nearly 20 different banchan as a set menu, highlighti­ng the various vegetables, herbs and edible grasses of the region. In New York, at Atoboy, chef Junghyun

Park offers a prodigious selection of shareable small plates.

Similarly, at home, you can make banchan the star of your own meal. And the best part is this: You don’t need a bounty for your spread to feel like the stuff of royalty.

The key is in planning ahead. Banchan-style home cooking is cumulative, which is to say, you might make one or two dishes at a time and keep leftovers in the fridge. The point is that you’re amassing a store of banchan so that, come dinnertime, all that’s left to do is steam the rice and take out your stash.

Some banchan can be eaten as soon as you make them. But others are meant to be eaten later, stemming from historic methods of preservati­on. On the Korean Peninsula, food often had to be preserved, especially with salt, to last through the long, grueling winters. That’s why fermentati­on is central to many banchan, like kimchi, pickles and jeotgal, or salted seafood.

As the selection of banchan can look different at every restaurant, so, too, can it vary in every home. That’s because many things can be banchan, some much less traditiona­l than others. (Fried Spam and eggs are regular staples in my banchan repertoire, for instance, as are sliced chicken, broccoli and Cheddar Hot Pockets.)

If there were any rule to banchan, it would be that there should be a sense of harmony in the spread: a variety of vegetables to balance the meat, and something salty, sour, spicy and sweet.

But at the end of the day, it’s your bansang, or table setting. Fill it with the flavors and textures you love most.

Maybe you crave jangjorim, a popular soy sauce-simmered beef dish with boiled eggs and green chiles. Following my mother’s lead, I like to pan-fry Korean eggplants and finish them with a sticky red gochujang glaze. There are few better accompanim­ents to a bowl of freshly steamed white rice.

 ?? CHRISTOPHE­RSIMPSON/THE NEWYORKTIM­ES ?? Fill your table with a spread of banchan, the small dishes that often accompany a Korean meal.
CHRISTOPHE­RSIMPSON/THE NEWYORKTIM­ES Fill your table with a spread of banchan, the small dishes that often accompany a Korean meal.

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