Kinpira Gobo (Stir-Fried Burdock and Carrot)

Variations

• The browning here is the kind that needs no heat. Browning and the Maillard reaction sets enzymatic browning beside Maillard and caramelisation and names this dish as its example. The other two need sugar and protein together or sugar alone, and both need heat; this one does not. Cutting the cells open lets polyphenol oxidase meet the oxygen in the air, and the reaction runs at room temperature, in under a minute, with no heat at all. It is the same reaction that browns a peeled apple, a cut potato and a halved avocado.
• Which is why it goes into water — but for a different reason than potato does. Gamja jeon and gamja jorim also soak cut potato, and that is to rinse the starch off. Burdock is soaked to keep oxygen away from it. Same action, different purpose — which is why potato can soak as long as you like while burdock past five minutes starts losing its aroma into the water.
• You cannot make it tender, so you cut it thin. Burdock is mostly indigestible fibre, inulin among it, and twenty minutes of cooking will not soften it. Knife skills says "uniform size is a cooking decision, not a cosmetic one" — here what decides the dish is not uniformity but thinness. It is a case of the knife solving what cooking time cannot.
• Sasagaki is the traditional cut. You turn the root against the blade and shave slivers off it as if sharpening a pencil, so every piece is a different thickness. It gives more surface than matchsticks, so it takes the seasoning better and cooks faster. The photograph and this recipe are the matchstick cut, which is what most home kitchens do; both are considered correct.
• Frying in toasted sesame oil is the condition cooking oils grants it under. That guide files it as a finishing oil — a low smoke point, and an aroma that heat destroys. Kinpira uses it from the start because getting that aroma into the burdock is the point, and it gets away with it because nothing is on the heat for even ten minutes. The guide names this dish as the case that keeps the condition, and sets hwangtaeguk and miyeokguk against it as the ones that go past it.
• Leaving no liquid is what separates it from nikujaga. Nikujaga keeps its broth and pooling in the bowl is correct there. Kinpira goes in a lunchbox, where liquid would wet the rice. The same soy, mirin and sugar, the opposite finish.
• It looks like eomuk bokkeum and myeolchi bokkeum but those coat an already-cooked ingredient in seasoning, while this cooks a raw vegetable and drives the seasoning away at the same time.
• Kinpira is somebody's name. It comes from Sakata no Kinpira, a strongman of Edo-period jōruri puppet theatre — burdock being tough and strong. It is a rare case of an ingredient's character becoming the dish's name.
• It does not have to be burdock. Lotus root, carrot alone, potato, udo, celery, even carrot peel. The method became the name, so it is still kinpira whatever goes in.
• Why it is such a good lunchbox dish. It loses nothing as it cools, there is no liquid to wet the rice, and it keeps four days. Its place is beside onigiri and miso soup.

Tips

• Fill the bowl of water before you pick up the knife. It is the one point in this recipe where getting the order wrong cannot be undone — cut everything first and it is already brown.
• Do not peel it. Scrape the soil off. Peeled burdock looks cleaner and smells of almost nothing.
• Vinegar in the water is optional. It stops the browning more decisively and takes some of the earthy smell with it. For five minutes, plain water is enough.
• Use a wide pan and spread it out. Piled up in a small pan the water cannot leave and you are steaming rather than frying (browning and the Maillard reaction).
• The seasoning goes in at the end, all at once. In from the start, the sugar burns while the burdock is still raw.
• Control the heat with the chilli. Leaving the seeds in makes it considerably hotter (chilli and heat).
• Crush the sesame seeds as you add them. Whole, they release almost nothing.
• Make more than you need. Four days in the fridge, and it freezes. It is better on the second day than the first.