Species sheet · The Edible River
Water dropwort
Minari, the fresh herb of Korean streams.
- Blanched and dressed with sesame (minari namul)
- Dropped at the last minute into a spicy fish stew (maeuntang)
- Raw in a salad with a chilli dressing
- In French
- Persil d'eau
- Scientific name
- Oenanthe javanica
- In the water
- An herb of the streams, ditches and paddies of East Asia, grown with its roots in running water. The hollow stems and the leaves are harvested.
- Season & buying
- Harvested from late winter into spring, while the stems are tender; grown under glass the rest of the year.
- Common length
- ~40 cm
- How to identify it
- Hollow, ribbed, pale green stems
Leaves cut like flat-leaf parsley
Small white flowers in umbels in summer
On the plate
Fresh and peppery, somewhere between celery, parsley and carrot.
Avoid: Foraging it yourself: it looks like hemlock water dropwort, a deadly European plant; buy it cultivated.
In Korea they say minari grows wherever there is water: the 2020 film Minari made it the symbol of a family putting down roots.
In Umay recipes
2 Umay recipes call for it.
