Cooking with Royalty: The Richness of 가리찜
Fig. 1, Modern interpretation of Galbijjim from the Royal Palace as seen in Jewels of the Palace. [4]
by Leandra Djomo
The Siŭichŏnsŏ
During the Chosŏn Dynasty, Korean cuisine known as 한식 (hansik) was a very important aspect of life in the Royal Palace. The 시의전서 (Siŭichŏnsŏ) was a Korean cookbook compiled in the late 19th century and printed by the Daegu Printing Joint Stock Company, but the manuscript is estimated to have been around since the late 1800s. [1]
This manuscript contains the recipe for 가리찜 (karitchim), the predecessor of what is more commonly known as 갈비찜 (galbijjim) today. Karitchim was a common dish cooked for banquets in the Royal Palace during the Chosŏn Dynasty. There are no sources that point to an exact maker or consumer of this dish. As it was cooked in the Royal Palace, karitchim was made by the royal cooks which mainly consisted of women, but the main chefs running the kitchen were men. Galbijjim is meant to be eaten with friends and family, and takes after karitchim as karitchim was a dish eaten during feasts or large gatherings. The difficulty in recreating this dish was the unclear wording in the recipe which gave the illusion of ample instructions yet was very vague simultaneously.
Karitchim (가리찜)- Chosŏn Dynasty Style
“Cut beef rib into small pieces of about 1 ch’i and boil. Blanch beef stomach by putting it in hot water briefly. Also put beef lungs, tripe, whole radish and kelp together [into the pot] and take out after boiling soft. Finely chop the radish like you would chop radish for soup. Cut the other meats likewise. Cut and shape kelp like pieces of dominoes. Also chop shiitake mushroom and manna lichen, but add green onions and minari after blanching. Mix the various sauces and flour together and stir-fry after kneading. Leave a bit of soup water and then transfer to a plate. Fry an egg and shred it together with manna lichen to garnish.” [1]
Trials & Tribulations
Challenges with this recipe came not during the process, but at the preparation stage. The small hurdles were my inability to find beef stomach, lungs, and tripe to create the meat broth. I also could not find minari nor could I understand what manna lichen was despite my extensive research online. On my hunt for minari, the lady at the local Korean market looked perplexed as she wondered what I needed minari for. Thanks to her, my hunt stopped at my first stop as she informed me, I would not be able to find minari anywhere in St. Louis. So, I consulted Michael Pettid’s expansive knowledge on Korean cuisine. I found that minari (wild parsley) was a typical food used as medicine, curing many ailments such as post-menstrual abdominal pain and aiding in healthy skin. [2] It can be added in soups, which explains its presence in this recipe, especially a recipe found in a cookbook that mainly catered to the elites. I tried substituting the minari for wild parsley or parsnip (closely related to parsley), yet none were available in my local stores.
The next challenge was to decode the translated recipe. Many elements of the instructions were cryptic and left space for multiple interpretations on how to proceed. I had to sit down and restructure the recipe for myself in a way that made sense in the context of gastronomy and with the limited ingredients I had.
-
Cut beef ribs into small pieces of about 1 inch and soak in cold water for an hour to remove excess blood.
Blanch beef ribs by putting them in hot water briefly. Also put whole radish and kelp together in the pot with the beef and take out after boiling soft to make broth.
Drain meat, kelp, radish and set broth aside.
Finely chop the radish like you would chop radish for soup. Cut and shape kelp like pieces of dominoes. Chop shiitake mushrooms and green onions.
Make seasoning sauce and add flour to create thickness. Add to meat and stir-fry.
Add broth back to the pot with chopped radish, domino-shaped kelp, chopped shiitake mushrooms and green onions. Reduce until reaching desired broth level.
Fry an egg and shred it to use as garnish.
Transfer to a plate and enjoy!
Something I hadn’t considered as I was preparing my dish were the measurements. The only measurement visible is the 1 ch’i I needed to cut the meat. I instinctively interpreted this as cutting the meat in 1-inch pieces, considering that the particular cut of beef ribs I bought were very thin and small. However, 1 ch’i roughly equals 1cm, but that did not make sense to me with the type of beef cut I was working with so I went with 1 inch. [3] Further, I come from a home that doesn’t use measurements simply because of the tacit knowledge that was passed down to me through generations of cooking and learning the same national dishes. I have “restored behavior,” which is a ritualized pattern of behavior I developed growing up in the kitchen with my mother. [5] Thus, I took this tacit knowledge with me when recreating this dish first with my preparation of the meat which was not mentioned in the recipe. I took it upon myself to soak the meat in cold water for an hour to remove all the excess blood. This is a technique my mother taught me, and it never crossed my mind to not do this step as it is strongly instilled in me from years of watching my mother do it.
The Biggest Hurdles
The lack of measurements, however, could have led to a varying richness in the broth compared to what the Korean chefs did in the Chosŏn Dynasty. When boiling the radish and kelp while making the broth, the recipe calls for the whole radish to enter the pot. However, it never says how much kelp is needed; in this case, I lacked the necessary knowledge to cook kelp as I had never done so before. Thus, I put the whole packet of kelp in the pot which led to a very rich, deep kelp flavor to the broth. However, the taste of the kelp was overwhelming and definitely not meant to be as overpowering once I ate the karitchim. Despite this slight flaw, the rest of the process went smoothly with no problems as I followed my decoded instructions.
The biggest difficulty with this dish was when it came to the seasoning/sauce. The recipe gives no indication of which ingredients I need for the sauce and so to remake the karitchim as accurately as possible, I substituted the sauce with that found in the Jewels of the Palace’s modern interpretation of galbijjim served in the Royal Palace . While substituting, I still followed the instructions of the original recipe by adding the flour and kneading as instructed as well as leaving out unnecessary ingredients from the modern seasoning recipe such as pear juice. [4] This resulted in a light-colored sauce, in fact too light due to the flour. I was expecting a darker-colored seasoning due to the soy sauce having the largest measurement. I forwent the leeks as they were a substitute of the green onions that were already in the karitchim recipe.
-
The Chosŏn Dynasty’s royal cuisine used garnishes to revitalize dishes through the natural colors of ingredients. These five colors–green, red, yellow, white, black–correspond to five elements of nature as well as five tastes. Koreans believed that the balance of the five elements was equivalent to a balanced diet and thus, an imbalance would lead to ailments. [5] The karitchim recipe calls for a fried egg garnish as the last step; the egg represents the color yellow, the earth element, and the taste of sweetness. This category is believed to aid with digestion. [5] I did not feel any difference in digestion after consuming the karitchim, however, I did not pay attention to this concept while eating. Although, the five-colored garnishes rule demonstrates that “[ingredients] [were] not defined solely by their objective functional properties [but by their] symbolic values that are contingent on the local context.” [6] This particular attention to color, nature, and taste as a harmonic trio demonstrates that Chosŏn royal cuisine cared not only about health and quality of their food, but of aesthetic as well.
Jewels of The Palace
Galbijjim (갈비찜-braised short ribs of beef with vegetables and nuts)*
Seasoning
8Tbsps soy sauce
4Tbsps sugar
4Tbsps chopped leek
2Tbsps chopped garlic
2Tbsps sesame oil
2Tbsps sesame seeds
a pinch of pepper
1 cup meat broth
1/2 (pear juice 8Tbsps) pear
Preparation
Peel the skin of the pear, grate it and mix with the seasoning ingredients.
Method
Combine the trimmed beef ribs with 2/3 of the seasoning mixture. Mix well. Pour in the broth till it is level, and cook on medium heat until completely cooked. [4]
*This is not the full recipe and only the sections pertaining to the seasoning.
가리찜
Braising Process
Results
The Beauty of Banchan
Banchan (반찬) are not only staple complimentary side dishes to the main meal in Korea, they also play a part in the Five-Colored Garnishes discussed earlier. In order to get the full experience of what a Royal Palace banquet was like, I decided to make a cucumber side dish found in Madame Yi’s encyclopedia for women in the late Chosŏn era. Thus, the makers of this dish were Korean women who stayed in the household and took care of their children, cleaned, and did all the cooking. However, this popular dish was consumed by everyone regardless of class as Madame Yi’s encyclopedia was meant for any and all women.
From what I could see of the karitchim recipe, it was a heavy and rich dish. Therefore, I was curious to pair it with a fresh side dish that was eaten in the Royal Palace which could elevate the karitchim. Within the 5 colors, green represents the element of wood, has a sour taste, and is usually consumed during the spring; one of the main functions of green garnishes is to detoxify which was my goal in pairing it with this dense meat dish. [4]
A Yongin Area Recipe for Cucumber Pickles (Oi chi)
“Remove the stems from a hundred cucumbers, throw out any that are spoiled, and place them in a pot. In clear water used to wash rice, add some cold water and a lesser amount of salt so that it is a bit bland. Pour the water in the pot and rotate the cucumbers from top to bottom the next day. Do every day for six or seven days until fermented. This is the Yongin cucumber pickles, which are famous in our country. ”
The recipe was straightforward except for the sentence that says to use “clear water used to wash rice.” At first I interpreted this as simply the using water that I would use to wash rice, but after further inspection, I understood it as meaning using the water that was already used to wash rice. I came to this conclusion because I would later add cold water, therefore, I don’t think Madame Yi would make such a distinction if I were to use the same water.
Overall, I found the pickles to be too salty and not very appetizing, but I generally am not a fan of pickles. Despite this, when eating them with the karitchim, I felt more comfortable eating such a dense dish.
This video from September of 2020 shows how a typical galbijjim is made. I only watched galbijjim recipe videos after cooking my own karitchim as to not influence my process. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the steps I took and followed for the karitchim are the same for the galbijjim.
Did This Dish Transport Me to the Royal Palace?
No.
To be frank, I probably would not serve this to anyone other than my family simply because I lacked the necessary skills to cook this dish such as cooking with radish and kelp for the first time. My knowledge of how to cook meat definitely saved the taste of the dish and the fermented cucumbers came down to a personal preference. However I am still impressed with how the results came out considering this is my first time cooking karitchim or anything galbijjim adjacent.
Although I followed the Five-Color Garnishes that is highly valued in Korean cuisine, due to the taste, the King would spit this out, throw it in my face, and ban me from the kingdom! At least I can say I tried.
References
[1] 시의전서 (Siŭichŏnsŏ)
[2] Pettid, Michael J. , "Science, Food and Health in Chosǒn Korea" , in The Routledge History of Food, 71. ed. Carol Helstosky (Abingdon: Routledge, 08 Oct 2014 ), accessed 30 Nov 2021 , Routledge Handbooks Online.
[3] Pettid, Michael J., and Kil Cha. “Volume 1, Liquor and Food, Part 1.” In The Encyclopedia of Daily Life: A Woman’s Guide to Living in Late-Chosŏn Korea, 76. University of Hawai’i Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1bn9jks.7.
[4] Han, Bok Ryeo. Jewels of the Palace Royal Recipes from Old Korea, 107-111. Translated by Ji-Young Kang. Korean Food Foundation, 2015.
[5] Guth, Christine. “Tacit Knowledge.” Chapter. In Craft Culture in Early Modern Japan: Materials, Makers, and Mastery, 154. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2021.