Mulnaengmyeon simply are noodles served cold floating in a sea of icy broth with like thinly sliced things floating around the bowl to keep you company.
They are pretty simple to make, but it takes aaaaaages because you have to put some serious time into making the broth. Once you have that you’re rocking and you can cook other stuff like yukgaejang and miyokguk.
There are basically two stages: -
- Preparing the broth (takes like 24 hours)
- Boiling the noodles and serving (mad panic that’s over in minutes)
The Broth
Ingredients
- 1.5lt water
- 500g beef brisket
- an onion
- a carrot
- i dunno maybe some celery or something
- two eggs
Method
You need to do 2 things; boil all the ingredients for a long time at least 2/3 hours; and then chill them in the fridge till the broth is cold.
From experience the longer and slower the boiling is, the longer the thumbs-up montage is when you’re eating the noodles. I set the slow cooker off before i go to bed, put the broth in the fridge when i wake up and I’ve got the broth ready for when I come home.
protip #1: Hard-boiling a couple of eggs at this point is a pretty good idea because then you can stick them in the fridge ready for noodle-o’clock later.
protip #2: Make some ice-cubes with the broth!
The Noodles
Ingredients
- The beef brisket
- An Asian pear
- Pickled Daikon Radish
- Cucumber
- A hard-boiled egg
- 50g-ish naengmyeon or buckwheat noodles
- The Broth!!
- Ice-cubes
- Malt vinegar
- Mustard
Method
Firstly chop the brisket, pear, radish and cucumber into thin professional looking slices, chop the egg in half and set them all aside so you can deal them into the bowl black-jack style later.
Next, boil the noodles on their own for 5/6 minutes in plain water then drain and wash them in cold water until you can comfortably hold them in yours hands.
Roll the noodles into a ball and place them in a large bowl, then pour the broth into the bowl over the noodles and add a couple of ice-cubes.
Finally, add a couple of slices of each of the chopped items to the bowl and add vinegar and mustard to your taste. ta-da!
It should look something like this when you’re done …
