Smoothies, cereal, sushi, and cold noodles. What is common among these foods? They are light, refreshing, don’t require standing in front of hot ovens or burning gas stoves, and all I crave during the hotter months.
I’m very excited to bring you into one of my best friends’ kitchen to learn how to make authentic Korean spicy cold noodles. This is one of my favourite dishes to order at Korean restaurants. The chewy noodles, spicy and sweet sauce, and all the veggie fixin’s makes for a wholesome and satisfying summer meal. Becky says that finely sliced foods taste better too.
Some of the best times with friends are spent in the kitchen. Showing each other how to make our favourite dishes, or trying out a recipe on the internet we’ve been eyeing for months. Last year, we got together and made this delectable Black Forest Cake. Since then, I’ve probably saved another one thousand recipes onto our Pinterest account. I move through that cooking bucket list slower than a sunbathing turtle so cooking hang outs like these are much needed. While we assembled noodle bowls, soothing jazz music played in the background and we caught up on four months of happenings.
In addition to making these spicy cold noodles, we also made two batches of pecan sticky buns. Why two? The first dough recipe we tried felt kind of hard and dry so we thought it was a goner. We followed another recipe and after some kneading in the stand mixer, came out about the same. Both sat in the very hot sun room for an hour to rise, and rise it did do. Two pans of beautiful cinnamon sugar-swirled buns went into the oven. Our afternoon of cooking concluded with a warm, soft, and gooey sticky bun each. Yaaaaaas *praise hands*
Hit up your local Korean mart for some of the ingredients. Don’t worry if you can’t track down the exact brands and products pictured above. Just like how you don’t have to use chocolate from Switzerland to make some Food Network chef’s cookies, you don’t have to use Korean cooking syrup in order to make this tasty sauce. Any type of sweetener will do, I would suggest using a liquid sweetener so that it is easy to mix together. Can’t find frozen buckwheat noodles? Any buckwheat noodles will do, dried or fresh. One item we didn’t have any on hand was apples or Asian pear, but Becky recommends matchstick-cutting some of that for an element of sweetness.
If you want a fantastic afternoon like us, start by making these Korean spicy cold noodles for lunch and slurp away!
Edit 2016-06-17: Some hot pepper pastes are spicier than others, so start off with 1/4 cup and add more as needed. Also see ** in notes section on how to substitute apple cider vinegar in place of apple vinegar.
- SAUCE
- ½ cup Korean hot pepper paste (we used medium spiciness)
- 2 tsp cooking syrup*
- 2 tbsp apple vinegar**
- 2 tsp pure sesame oil
- ASSEMBLY
- 2 servings buckwheat noodles***
- Lettuce
- Cucumber and carrots cut into matchsticks
- Thinly sliced pickled radish
- Toasted white sesame seeds
- 2 hard boiled eggs, halved (optional, omit if vegan)
- Prepare the sauce by mixing all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl until homogeneous. Taste and adjust as you go. The consistency should be slightly thinner than ketchup.
- To cook the noodles, pour boiling water over the noodle patty and give it a mix. Let it sit for a minute or so until it is al dente. Strain the noodles in a colander and rinse under cold water for 2 minutes.
- To assemble, divide the cooked noodles between 2 bowls and top each with lettuce, cucumber, carrot, radish, about 3 tbsp of the sauce, toasted sesame seeds, and hard boiled eggs, if desired. Mix thoroughly before eating.
**Apple vinegar is less acidic than apple cider vinegar, so if using cider vinegar start with 1 tsp and adjust as needed.
***The buckwheat noodles we used are thinner than soba noodles and can be found in the frozen aisle of your local Korean supermarket. Our package labeled it as "frozen oriental style noodle". One noodle patty was enough to serve 2 people.
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