My mom is the best Korean food cook I know. She’s completely self-taught and such a natural. I know “mom/dad cooking” is a very personal thing to a lot people and I love that! I mean I’m definitely someone who credits my excitement for food and cooking to my parents, who were (lovingly) shoving things like fish heads, tiny fermented shrimp and spicy hot pot down my throat from a very early age.
This recipe is one of those dishes that my mom will tweak here and there depending what she has in the pantry and it’s one of my absolute favorites and great to eat year round. I do want to give a bit of warning because this dish is spicy. It’s the kind of spicy that doesn’t hit you right away, but then 5 minutes later you feel your face burning up and you’re wiping the sweat off the top of your nose. You can definitely lessen the “spicy” by adding a small amount of honey to the mixture. The cucumbers and egg also serve as a “mouth cooler”. Oh and guess what?? This recipe is GLUTEN-FREE (if you use tamari instead of soy sauce). Take away the egg and boom. It’s VEGAN too!:) Enjoy!
xx Jenny
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Bibim Nengmyun (Buckwheat Noodles Tossed with a Hot Pepper Sauce)
INGREDIENTS
- 8 ounces Korean-style buckwheat noodles
yangnyum sauce
- ¼ cup gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste)
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons low sodium soy sauce or tamari (premium soy sauce)
- 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
garnish
- 1 to 2 hard boiled eggs, halved
- ¼ small hothouse cucumber, julienned
INSTRUCTIONS
- Place the ingredients for the sauce in a small mixing bowl and whisk together until fully combined.
- Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil. Once the water has come to a boil, drop the noodles in and stir.
- Boil the noodles until they soften, about 3 minutes.
- Drain into a strainer rinse under cold water until the noodles become cold to the touch.
- Place the noodles in a large mixing bowl and toss together with the hot pepper sauce (yangnyum) until all the noodles are well coated.
- Divide the noodles into individual bowls and top each with a small pile of cucumber strips, ½ a hard boiled egg and a sprinkle of sesame seeds.
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This is so good, and SO spicy. Next time, I’ll add a little honey. :)
So late on commenting :D but maybe you see this still.
Thank you for posting this!
I have no idea why has it been so hard to find a good bibim naengmyeon recipe but this was really good! I only made 1/3 recipe, just for myself and I feel like I need to adjust some of the ingredients to suit that, was a bit too spicy and not enough sweet tang as I’d like.
I absolutely adore mul naengmyeon but that seems to have so many ingredients and steps that I have never bothered to do it at home. This is the best option after that <3
Oh I’m so glad to hear you like this recipe! Recipes i grew up with are always the most stressful for me to post! Lol. Also glad you made tweaks to suit your palate! :)
I want to buy your book anyhow…but now I really want to buy it just because you have Korean recipes in it! I actually LIVE in Korea (and – hushed voice – um, don’t actually like nengmyong…) but I’m so thrilled that there are chefs out there getting the tastes and names of Korean food out there right along with the Western classics….and becoming as popular as the Japanese equivalents! People should know ‘gochujang’ as a condiment right alongside ‘wasabi’, and ‘kalbi’ should be as familiar as ‘tofu’ (um, sorry, ‘tubu’…).
It always annoys me to visit my relatives back overseas in Toronto and see the many Korean restaurants that have to advertise themselves as ‘JAPANESE and Korean’ or just say ‘Asian Food’ with the hangul discreetly underneath, because us ignorant waegukin don’t know what eating Korean is… Let’s get the words and the flavours out there – Korean, with its earthy, natural, local, healthy ingredients and its great tastes, is poised to become the next global ‘food fashion’!
I love this! I just had some bibim guksu the other day… and it was amazing! I can’t wait to try nengmyeon. I definitely need it.