Jenny Lee

Perilla plant. Photo courtesy of Jenny Lee.

Editor: This is the fourth installment of a new series in which Urban Milwaukee will explore five ingredients and how to use them with Milwaukee chefs, growers and caterers.

Jenny Lee pops a perilla leaf in her mouth and chews.

“It has an earthy taste,” she said. “And yes, on the back end, there’s a licorice aftertaste. But combine this leaf with anything—you can put a savory fruit chutney on it or just eat it with rice and gochujang—it’s integral to Korean food.”

The chef arrived with a stack of the tender leaves, wrapped in paper towel and tucked into a Ziploc bag en route to dinner plates at Birch. She had hand-picked them that morning from her own plant—the same one that once belonged to her mother.

“Perilla is grown by all Korean mothers in the backyard,” Lee said. “It’s a symbol of our resilience, to grow a Korean ingredient that we can just pick … as a symbol of our culture. It has so much meaning.”

Lee, founder of Kiuda, hosts pop-up events and cooking classes throughout the Milwaukee area, with a specific focus on Korean flavors and techniques. Kiuda, or ㅋㅣ우ㄷㅏ, means “to take care of,” but can also translate to “nourish.”

“It’s the core of who I am,” Lee said. “I’m always giving away food.”

The kiuda philosophy has long been inherent to Lee, though it wasn’t always her profession. A former journalist covering county government and politics, Lee became interested in cooking through Food Network shows and online blogs.

“I would actually look up recipes to decide what I wanted to cook for the night while I was writing my articles,” she said with a laugh.

Lee eventually launched her own food blog before enrolling at New York City’s French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center). In just nine months, she went from novice to professional chef, heading straight from the classroom to The Mark by Jean-Georges and Colicchio & Sons—Tom Colicchio’s now-defunct restaurant—before returning to the Midwest to join Sanford.

With a baby on the way, Lee remained on the line for five months before switching to prep work. She later joined a local mom’s group and quickly became a standout on the meal-train list. “I started having a reputation among the moms,” she said. “From that, I realized that I wanted to cook for people. I wanted to nourish people.”

Lee now focuses full-time on Kiuda, with past events including a collaboration dinner with Bryce Stevenson of Mijim, a Korean cooking class for area high school students and a series of pop-ups at the former Hot Dish Pantry.

Though her cooking experience spans numerous cultures and cuisines, Lee’s principal focus remains Korean food—following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother. She learned those familial recipes in college, guided by her mother via phone and email.

“I just had to try and try again until it matched what I remembered,” she said.

Here’s a closer look at five of Lee’s essential ingredients for Korean cuisine—and tips for using them at home.

Perilla Leaves

These fragrant greens are actually an herb belonging to the mint family. Commonly used as a wrap for rice and meat, perilla also shines when preserved in soy sauce, sauteed or stuffed and fried, Lee said.

Sesame Oil

Often a bookend in Korean recipes, sesame oil contributes its complex, toasty flavor at both the start, as part of a marinade, and finish, as a final garnish.

“A little bit of sesame oil goes a long way,” Lee said. “But it’s almost like an anchor ingredient that, when you taste [the final dish], you can taste that sesame.”

The oil pairs well with “any vegetable dish,” including many Korean banchan sides, Lee said. It’s also a flavorful addition to dressings—especially mixed with rice vinegar and soy sauce.

Garlic

Ubiquitous in kitchens across the world, garlic plays an essential role in many of Lee’s recipes. “Koreans don’t skimp on the garlic,” she said.

The allium shows up in marinades, sauteed vegetable sides and in sigeumchi-namul, a banchan dish made with blanched spinach, sesame oil and raw garlic.

Gochujang

Lee makes her own gochujang, a sweet-spicy fermented chili paste.

Traditionally made with Korean red pepper flakes, fermented soybean powder, salt and a sweetener such as barley syrup, gochujang is a foundational ingredient in dishes like bibimbap, tteokbokki and sundubu-jjigae (soft tofu stew). At the suggestion of Mijim’s chef Stevenson, Lee sweetened a recent batch with maple syrup instead of barley, making it gluten free.

The fermentation process is relatively straightforward, she said. “You take care of it like a plant, just making sure that it gets sunlight and airflow.”

Soy Sauce

All of the aforementioned ingredients mesh well together—especially with soy sauce as a through line. “We put soy sauce in everything—our marinades, to season vegetables, anytime you make a sauce.”

Some recipes use both salt and soy sauce, though Lee said the sauce in its liquid form works better for certain applications. “It’s easier to spread, right?” she said, adding, “There’s something about soy sauce. It has that fermented aspect that you want in order to add another layer of flavor to your dish.”

Updates on Lee and her work with Kiuda can be found on Instagram and business website.

Photos