Gamja Bokkeum (감자볶음)

2024-07-30

Commentary and Notes

The simplicity of this recipe is its greatest strength. Or, maybe I'm just saying that because this recipe is too simple to even write down. Add whatever additional ingredients or seasoning you want. Cheese? Go for it. Lao gan ma? Great idea. Those little mini sausages they serve on a toothpick? I'd toss them in.

Recipe

Ingredients

Prep

Step 1: Prep the Veggies

Peel each potato, and julienne into thin strips. This is just a fancy way to say: cut them into little matchsticks. You can easily do this by cutting the potatoes lengthwise, spreading them like you're about to shuffle a deck of cards, and then cutting them into the aforementioned matchsticks. Wash and drain the potatoes to get rid of some of the starch.

Finely mince the garlic cloves. You decide how fine you want them — I like to have small pieces of garlic in this dish so I don't mince them into a paste.

Step 2: Stir-fry

Set a (wide) pan on the stovetop and bring it up to medium heat, the sesame oil should shimmer when you add it to the pan. It's important to use a pan with enough surface area for the potato; you don't want to crowd the pan, unless you want unevenly-cooked potatoes. Add the garlic and fry until fragrant, but take care to not burn it. Then, add the potatoes.

Stir-fry until potatoes are soft and floppy, or crispy (do what you want). Add a sprinkle of sesame seeds at the end to garnish and to impart a nice, toasty flavour. Salt and pepper to taste.

Epilogue

Gamja (감자) Bokkeum (볶음) literally means "potato mixture" in Korean. This is a banchan (side dish) from my childhood that I distinctly remember, for some reason.

I remember having it in the very first apartment that we stayed in when we moved to Canada. It was a pretty dingy place; white-tiled kitchen that seemed mildly dirty even after a deep clean, appliances that were an off-white (before "off-white" was a trendy colour, so you know it wasn't on purpose), carpet that felt rough under your feet.

There was a grocery store a block away that we'd sometimes visit, run by an older Korean ajumma who'd give me a double bubble gum if she felt like it. The grocery store felt old; with brown tiles that would have felt more at-place outside. I also think they sold plants, it was pretty humid in there. I just checked Google Maps and it's now a Mediterranean grocery store.

A quick and simple dinner would be a bowl of white rice with a side of gamja bokkeum, along with some roasted seaweed (the kind that Whole Foods or whatever sells as "snacking seaweed" for $4 now).

When my dad made dinner, this would invariably be one of, if not, the only side dish on the table — kimchi wasn't a side dish, it was a requirement, though I didn't eat it at the time.

As I'm writing this recipe, I'm realizing that I haven't had this dish in years, and I'm writing down my best approximation of what actually went into preparing it. I guess I'll make it when I'm back in Seattle.