Seasoned chili pepper leaves (Gochunip Namul)

It's side dish of chili pepper leaves that are blanched and seasoned.

Koreans use many part of plants that usually are not eaten in western cuisine.  Growing up I herd that pepper leaves have more nutrition than peppers so I learned how to make delicious side dish and I enjoyed it a lot. This year I got lots of pepper leaves from someone farming near me.  I had so much so I blanched and dehydrated some in the sun, some of them freeze to use later. Today I made the seasoned pepper leaves side dish from the frozen ones.

Ingredients:

2 cups blanched pepper leaves (any kind of pepper leaves work!)

Seasoning

 1 1/2 tablespoon Korean pepper paste (gochujang)

1 tablespoon honey or agave nectar

1 tablespoon liquid braggs aminos (soy sauce)

1 tablespoon almond meal or perilla powder (optional)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 tablespoon roasted sesame seed

1 teaspoon sesame oil or perilla oil

Garnish

1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds

1 green onion (white and green part), chopped

Direction:

1. Thaw frozen pepper leaves in medium cold water. Rinse couple times and squeeze water out.  If use fresh leaves, blench it in boiling water about 2 minutes and rinse with cold water to stop cooking. Leave the leaves in the cold water over night or several hours to take out bitterness from the leaves. when ready to make it, rinse one more time and squeeze water out.

2.  In a small bowl, make seasoning by mixing pepper paste, honey, braggs aminos, seed or nut meal, garlic, sesame seed and sesame oil. 

3.  In medium bowl, add pepper leaves and seasoning. 

Mix them well by hand. Good idea to use a glove!

Enjoy it itself or with warm sticky rice!