Pyeonsu is a steamed square dumpling stuffed with vegetables and beef. Pyeonsu is served chilled or floating in a cool soy sauce soup. It is a summer delicacy. The dish gets its name from the Chinese characters for the word, “Pyeonsu” which means “a small fragment on the water.”

Ingredients

● Broth:

200 g beef (brisket, shank), 10 cups water, ½ tbsp clear soy sauce, 2 tsp salt

● Fragrant seasoning:

20 g green onion, 4 cloves garlic

● Dumpling skin:

- 12 cups wheat flour, ½ tsp salt, 6 tbsp water

- 150 g minced beef (top round), 3 stems brown oak mushrooms

● Seasoning sauce:

- 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar, 1 tsp minced green onion, ½ tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp ground black pepper, 1 tsp sesame salt, 1 tsp sesame oil

- 150 g pumpkin, ¼ tsp salt

- 250 g mung bean sprouts, 5 cups water, ½ tsp salt

- 1 tbsp pine nuts

- 10 cups steaming water

- 1 ea egg, 3 stalks watercress, ½ tbsp wheat flour, 1 tbsp edible oil

● vinegar soy sauce:

- 18 g (1 tbsp) soy sauce, 15 g (1 tbsp) vinegar, 15 g (1 tbsp) water, 3 g (½ tbsp) pine nuts powder


1. Clean blood of beef for broth with cotton cloth. Trim and wash the fragrant seasoning. Put the beef and water in the pot and boil it on high heat for 9 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer it for 30 minutes Add the fragrant seasoning and simmer it for 20 minutes more. Strain it through cotton cloths, season with salt and cool it down.

2. Add salt and water to the wheat flour and knead. Wrap it with cotton cloths and let it sit for 30 minutes

3. Clean blood of minced beef with cotton cloth. Soak the brown oak mushrooms in water for 1 hour, remove the stems. Wipe excess water with cotton cloth and shred it into 0.2 cm-thick and wide, season them respectively.

4. Clean the pumpkin and cut it 4 cm-long. Peel the skin off into 0.2 cm-thick round and shred it into 0.2cm-wide. Marinate with salt for 10 min, wipe water with cotton cloths. Remove the tails of mung bean sprouts and wash. Remove tops of the pine nuts and wipe the nuts with dry cotton cloth.

5. Panfry the egg for yellow/white garnish (thin sheet and then cut it into strips). Panfry the watercress after thick coating with wheat flour liquid and beaten egg. Cut them into 2 cm of diamond pattern.

6. Blend vinegar soy sauce.

7. Preheat the frying pan and oil. Stir-fry the beef and mushrooms for 3 minutes on medium heat.

8. Pour water in the pot and boil it on high heat for 5 minutes When it boils, add the mung bean sprouts and salt, scald it for about 2 minutes Drain water. Chop them 0.5 cm-long. Preheat the frying pan and oil, stir-fry pumpkin for 10 sec. on high heat, maintaining green color, cool it down.

9. Combine the mixture of beef, mushrooms, mung bean sprouts and pumpkin to make the filling. Press and roll the kneaded dough with wooden roller to be 0.2 cm thickness, cut it into 7 cm square for dumpling skin. Stuff the dumpling skin with 13~15 g of fillings in the middle, put two pine nuts on it. Pinch four corners together to form square shape.

10. Pour water in the steaming pot, heat it up for 9 minutes on high heat. When it gives off steam, layer damp cotton cloth on the bottom of the pot, place the square dumplings on the damp cloths and steam them for 5 minutes on high heat.

11. Place the square dumplings on a dish and pour the broth, top with fried egg strips and watercress. Serve it with vinegar soy sauce.


(Adapted from The Taste of Korea)