Nurungji

Cooked rice pressed into a pan and left completely alone until it lifts off in one crisp disc.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 600 g steamed short-grain rice, as on its own page, cooked and still warm
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil, optional
• 500 ml hot water, if making it as a drink

Method

1. IT IS LEFT COMPLETELY ALONE UNTIL IT LIFTS OFF IN ONE PIECE. Rice pressed into a dry pan over a low heat and then not touched, not stirred, not peeked under, for fifteen to twenty minutes. The disc separates itself when it is ready: you will hear it stop sizzling and the edges will curl up from the pan. Prodded or lifted early, it tears into fragments and the whole thing is a pan of toasted crumbs instead.
2. THE HEAT IS LOW AND THE PATIENCE IS THE TECHNIQUE. High heat scorches the contact face black while the rice above it is still soft, and burnt rice is bitter all the way through. Low, slow, and the colour comes up evenly to a deep gold.
3. THE RICE IS PRESSED THIN AND EVEN, about a centimetre, with the back of a wet spoon. Thick patches stay soft in the middle; thin ones burn. Evenness is the only thing being asked of the cook here.
4. WARM RICE WORKS AND COLD RICE DOES NOT, which is the opposite of the fried rice on this site. Cold grains have dried and separated and will not knit into a disc; warm rice is still sticky enough to fuse.
5. A HEAVY DRY PAN AND NO OIL, or the barest smear. Oil fries it and gives something closer to a rice cake; dry, it toasts, which is a different texture and the right one.
6. AND IT IS TWO THINGS AT ONCE, which the page should say: eaten as a crisp snack broken into pieces, or hot water poured over it in the pan and drunk as a thin nutty soup at the end of a meal.
7. Steamed rice made as on its own page, and used while still warm.
8. A heavy dry frying pan set over a LOW heat.
9. The rice tipped in and PRESSED flat and even with the back of a wet spoon, about 1 cm thick, right to the edges.
10. Cooked 15 to 20 MINUTES, UNTOUCHED. Not stirred, not lifted to check.
11. Listened to rather than watched: the sizzling quietens and the smell turns from steamy to toasty.
12. Done when the edges have curled away from the pan and the disc slides when the pan is shaken.
13. Slid out onto a board in one piece and cooled 5 minutes, when it crisps further.
14. FOR A SNACK: broken into shards. Keeps a week in a tin.
15. FOR SUNGNYUNG, the drink: the hot water poured straight into the pan over the disc, brought to a brief simmer and scraped, then taken off and drunk from bowls with the softened rice in it.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes