My Korean Kitchen » Noodles

Spicy, Sweet and Vinegary Noodles (Bibim Guksu)

sue — Tue, 29 May 2007 09:47:40 +0000

This bibim guksu is something I am very much enjoying making and eating lately. I made this 5 times last week already. Yes! it is that tasty and morish. I just can’t get sick of it. Besides, it doesn’t require any complicated preparation or cooking.

Its main taste comes from the sauce, which has a slightly spicy, sweet and sour taste, and the fragrance from the sesame oil is another pleasant experience.

Bibim guksu is a popular Korean summer dish, because the spicy and sour taste rejuvenates your lost appetite in drowsy hot humid summer days. For me, looking at this picture is good enough for now. How about you?

Ingredients for 2 people (Ready in 10-15 minutes)

Noodles

180 g organic soba noodles

Toppings

2 medium lettuce leaves, thin sliced
1/4 a leaf red cabbage, thin sliced
1/2 a small cucumber, julienned
1/3 a small carrot, julienned
A few snow pea sprouts
2 tbsp thumb nail size Kimchi

Sauce (mix these in a bowl)

2 tbsp gochujang
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp Korean sesame oil
1 tbsp roasted sesame seeds

Method

Boil the noodles in boiling water for about 3 minutes.
Sieve the noodles and run the cold water thoroughly over the noodles to cool them down.
Place the noodles in a bowl and add the toppings and sauce.
Mix them well and dig in.

Cook’s Note

You can alter the toppings as you wish, like adding boiled egg or white radish pickle etc. Also if you want more spicy taste, you may add some Korean chili powder or minced garlic in the sauce and more vinegar for a sour taste. However, before you add anything into the original sauce, make sure you taste it first to ensure it tastes good.

The noodles I used for this recipe

HAKUBAKU organic soba (ingredients : wheat flour 69%, buckwheat flour 29%, salt 2 %, water), Price – about AU $2.30, available at Woolworth or Coles
The noodles are conveniently divided into 3 portions with white paper straps.

Instant Cup Noodles “King Lid” (Wang Ddukkeong)

sue — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:24:29 +0000

Made by Yakult Korea (110 g, 490 kcal, Sticker Price 850 won)

It’s been nearly 17 years since these King lid (왕뚜껑) cup noodles came out to the world. King lid! What a name! I guess its container is a lot wider than the other ones. What about the taste? As 17 years of history tells, it is pretty good. I think these were the most tasty cup noodles I have ever had so far. Though I remind you, I don’t eat cup noodles very often nor have I tried every cup noodles in Korea yet. I guess I was pretty hungry so it might have helped too.

How to cook (I am sure you know already but for clarification)

Open the lid and half of the paper lid. Add the powdered sauce and dried veggies and meat packet.
Pour boiling (100℃) water up to the inside line of the container.
Put the lid on.
Wait about 3 minutes. Stir it well with chopsticks.
Dig in.

Yet I prefer slightly undercooked noodles. So I would wait only for 1-2 minutes.

As a Korean, I would describe them as refreshing. That may not work as a description to many of you, but that’s how they make me feel.

Some westerners seem to think that instant noodles are for uni students, yet that is not so in Korea. There is a certain time you crave cup noodles, like a rainy day or when you see someone eating on the TV. Cup noodles are also a very popular snack at Internet cafes, so called PC bangs (but they are usually very smoky, dark, and noisy places unlike a western style one).

What are your favourite cup noodles? And do you have your own secret way to enhance the taste?

Spicy Noodles with Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Ramyun in Korean)

Instant Cold Noodles in Broth (Mul Naengmyun)

sue — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:08:47 +0000

When I bought a cold instant noodles pack, Michael said I was crazy. His point was, who would want to have freezing cold noodles in the middle of winter? I picked it up as a back up just in case I couldn’t find buckwheat noodles for New years eve, but since I had found buckwheat noodles I didn’t need to use this packet. However as the expiry date was getting closer, I had to use it up somehow. There, that’s my excuse for cooking these in Winter.

My defense theory (for cooking these in winter) was “the smell of garlic takes away the smell of onions.” Along the same theory, there is also a Korean saying “Rule the heat with the heat and rule the cold with the cold.” Michael insisted that it is a crazy idea. So I decided to eat these noodles when Michael wasn’t around. I had my sister over for a couple of weeks now, so I decided to have the noodles with them. It didn’t make me colder than I expected (I was having noodles on a really well heated floor, so called ondol)

Though, maybe Michael was right. I would have appreciated them more if it was a hot summer day.

This is a picture of the instant packet I used. (It does look really nice, doesn’t it? Although my meal doesn’t look nearly as good as this, but as least mine is very encouraging for you to give it a try )

Made by CJ

Price : 3,720 won (US $ 3.90) at Homeplus

Inside of the packet (for 2 people) – It includes two packs of noodles, two packs of broth, and two packs of mustard sauce

Cooking for 2 people

Slightly freeze the broth in its packet. (It takes about 3-4 hours)
Boil the noodles in boiling water (7 cups) for 1 minute.
Drain the water and rinse the noodles in cold water a couple of times.
Put the noodles in a bowl, add the broth. You can add boiled egg, cucumber, pickled radish, pear, steamed pork etc, as a topping if you want. I only had egg and cucumber available, so I just added those two.
Enjoy! (You can add the mustard sauce if you want)

The noodles’ taste depends 90% on the broth, and the broth was nearly as good as some restaurants in Korea (Apparently not many restaurants make the broth themselves, they buy it from the food suppliers). In my opinion, as long as you can make some effort for the toppings (more than I did), it will taste as good as you can get them from a restaurant.

Total Points for winter : 3.1 (5 is the highest)

Taste – 4/5 (if I had more toppings, I would give 4.5/5)
Affordable price – 4.3/5 (compared to eating it at a restaurant where one dish is usually US $5.30)
Appropriateness for winter – 1/5 (Just writing about this post, makes me shiver. )

Spicy Noodles with Green Bean Sprouts (Sukju Ramyun in Korean)

Instant Udong Noodles

Instant Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean)

Sugar High, Stir Fried Rice Cake and Noodles (Rabokki in Korean)

sue — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 04:11:57 +0000

I got shocked as soon as I stared at my face in front of the bathroom mirror in the morning. There were lots of traces of the battle between my skin and hormones, and it seemed like the hormones won in the battle called “Sugar high”. I had lots of pimples here and there, because I had consumed too much sugar yesterday. My sister said my face looks like it was bitten by swarms of mosquitoes all night.

Yes, when you having some sweets, you really enjoy the moment. You feel good, become active, cheerful, then a bit violent, cranky, moody, then peace comes finally, and the next day, the glory of pimples.

Rabokki (stir fried rice cake and noodle) is what I had for lunch yesterday. Rabokki is combining words for ddeokbokki and ramyun (instant noodles). It is quite simple to make if you know how to make ddeokbbokki. All you need to do is, add some instant noodles and extra water into ddeokbbokki. Voila~!

I simply used the same ingredients from my ddeokbokki recipe, just increase the amount of them for 4 people.

Ingredients for 4 people

(Expected preparation time – 5 minutes, cooking time – 7 minutes)

-For main ingredients

1 instant noodle pack.
Fresh rice cakes 300g (about 30 pieces) – If you use pre packaged rice cakes, soak them in cold water for 20 minutes before you use them.
Fish cake 4 sheets – 240g
1 onion
4 leaves of cabbage
1 stalk of spring onion (optional)
8 instant dumplings (optional)
1½ cups of water

-For sauce (Mix them well in a bowl.)

Gochujang – 4 tbsp
Dark brown sugar – 4 tbsp ; If you don’t want to be attacked by sugar high pimples, I recommend you to reduce the amount of sugar. maybe reduce it down to 2 to 3 tbsp
Minced garlic -1 tsp
Chili powder (Gochutgaru in Korean) – 1 tsp

Preparation

Thin slice the onion and diagonally slice the spring onion.
Rinse the fish cakes in hot water. (To clean the oil coating from its surface)
Cut the fish cakes and cabbage into medium size pieces.

Cooking (I cooked them on a portable burner, it is the restaurant style of eating)

Pour the water into the pot. Start to boil it.
Add the sauce and stir it well.
Add all the other ingredients. (reduce the heat to medium to low)
Stir them well.
You can start eating them when one of the ingredients is cooked.

Although, it was over sweet, it was really delicious. All of us who ate this meal got high later, but it was worth it for short moment.

Related Posts

What Rice Cake, for Cooking, Looks Like

Stir Fried Rice cake with Gochujang Sauce (Ddeokbokki in Korean)

Royal Rice Cake (Gungjung Ddeokbbokki in Korean)

Buckwheat Noodles (Memil Guksu in Korean)

sue — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 10:24:34 +0000

It is the end of the year already. Time flies. One of the best things that has happened in my life this year is starting this blog and making some good friends with people from all over the world. Are you getting ready to welcome the coming year?

I wouldn’t usually eat these Buckwheat noodles in the middle of winter (Most Koreans eat these in summer), but it is Japanese culture to eat these noodles at dinner with family at the end of the year, which is today. (It has a meaning of wishing long and happy life, and the noodles are called toshikoshi-soba.) I wanted to bring back memories from my short adventure in Japan years ago, so I decided to make this noodle.

Ingredients for 4 people (for 2 people, reduce all the ingredients in half)

Buckwheat Noodles 600 g

Dashi

1 ½ cups of water
1/2 cup of liquid sauce from dried shaved bonito
1 cup of refined rice wine

A picture of the liquid sauce from dried shaved bonito.

Side additions

2 sheets of laver (Thinly shred them with scissors)
4 stalks of small green onion (Cut them into small pieces)
Grated white radish – 4 tbsp (Squeeze the water out from the radish)
Wasabi water (mix of wasabi 1 tsp + cold water 1/2 tsp)

Cooking (you will need 2 pots)

Boil the dashi for about 3 minutes, cool it down first then slightly freeze its surface.
Boil the buckwheat noodles in boiled water for 4 minutes and rinse them in cold water.
Serve the noodles on a plate with the dashi and side additions (I added some radish sprouts and laver as a topping but you don’t have to do the same.)

How to eat

Put the amount of the side additions you want into the dashi bowl and dip the noodles into the bowl and dig in. Enjoy!

Caution

It can make you really cold afterwards, so for people who live where it isn’t well insulated, I recommend not to eat them. Michael added that it is a very slurpy dish to eat so don’t eat them on a first date.

This is a picture from a near by park where I live and it is for celebrating New year. It was freezing cold, but I wanted to share the picture of the last day of the lights. (It is a bit blurry though I couldn’t keep taking pictures, because of the freezing cold weather.)

I hope you have wonderful, happy and healthy New year.

Happy New Year! 새해 복 많이 받으세요. (Korean)
明けましておめでとうございます(Japanese) 新年快樂 (Chinese)

Shellfish and Chewy Noodle Soup (Bajirak Kalguksu in Korean)