Garlic Season in Korea

Oh Garlic, I do love you.

But an evening with raw garlic is like an evening with too much alcohol – I always regret it in the morning. Still, the sight of a garlic truck parked on the side of the street just makes me happy. And now in June it is the time to see bunches of garlic for sale everywhere.

There’s so much garlic used in Korean cooking that it’s been common to keep a big batch of crushed garlic in the freezer. You can even buy plastic containers for garlic that keep it in handy individual compartments. Of course if you don’t want to peel and crush it yourself you can buy tubs ready crushed from the supermarket. And I recommend this because after a while trying to peel garlic with your nails really starts to sting.

WHERE IS FAMOUS FOR GARLIC IN KOREA?

Danyang in North Chungcheong province is famous for garlic. And there is garlic on sale everywhere.

Take a look at our overnight trip to Danyang where we sampled raw trout (with garlic) a set dinner course (featuring garlic), and a bowl of marsh snail stew for breakfast (probably with garlic). There are other garlicy dishes to try in Danyang too including fried chicken with garlic and barbecued meat with, guess what, garlic.

Do you eat garlic with sashimi?

When I first came to Korea I was surprised to see how sashimi was served in restaurants. In Japan sashimi was always eaten with soy sauce and wasabi. But here it will be served with lettuce and perilla leaves which you can use to wrap the sashimi and eat with spicy chilli sauce and garlic! Or you can mix (bibim) the slices of raw fish with raw veg and spicy sauce.

That’s how we had it in Danyang. We were served a huge plate of raw trout with an equally enormous plate of sliced raw greens and a MASSIVE portion of minced garlic. You’re supposed to put some fish and some vegetables in your bowl and then mix with raw garlic, bean powder, and spicy sauce.

This way you get to eat a lot of veg too and I’m getting used to this style of eating sashimi but I still like to eat the fish separately, just with soy sauce and wasabi, as I think the chilli sauce can hide the taste of the fish. And the veg is tasty as a salad on its own.

What are garlic scapes? 

When it comes to cooking in Korea there’s an attempt to use ALL of the plant (or animal) and not to waste anything. All the edible parts of the garlic plant are used. This month my parents-in-law sent us some garlic scapes from the farm in the countryside.

Garlic scapes are the flowering green stems that grow above the ground from the garlic plant (which is underneath the soil). I’ve never seen them in the shops back home but they are in season in June. And you can cook them in all sorts of ways like you do with garlic cloves.

What can you do with garlic scapes? 

Last night with my dinner I ate some raw garlic scapes with a spicy chilli dip.

I love the crunchy, garlicky flavour. But the taste can be quite strong… And this morning I could still taste them and Mr Kim ‘fainted’ when I walked passed him – rude.

There are lots of recipes online. I want to try this one for garlic scapes chutney. (there are some lovely pictures of garlic scapes too) But for a more Korean flavour this recipe from Maanchi looks good!

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