REGIONAL FOODS

A Beginners Guide to Korean Noodles

Find the right noodle for you.
By ZACH BROOKS

You wouldnt be able to tell it these days, but Korean noodle dishes were once expensive, served sparingly at
special-occasion feasts. While theyre still not necessarily a dominant part of Korean cuisinewhich generally
goes far deeper on rice- and rice-cake dishestheyre also not only for special occasions anymore.

Now, in a place like Koreatown in Los Angeles, a bowl of knife-cut noodles in soup is as cheap as lunch at
McDonalds. Trying to catalog all the di/erent Korean noodle dishes would be an impossible endeavorthere are
countless regional variations, not to mention endless versions of a single dish based on the ingredients or the
type of noodle. Did you want mul naengmyeon, bibim naengmyeon, milmyeon, or bibim milmyeon? That would
depend on whether youre in the mood for buckwheat or wheat noodles, in broth or sweet-spicy sauce. And thats
just the tip of the iceberg poking out of your bowl of cold noodles. So heres a starter kit for the noodle novice,
with many thanks to noodle experts David Chang, Michael Stokes of Insa in Brooklyn, and Esther Choi of
Mokbar, a Korean noodle bar in Manhattan.

HOT NOODLES
Kalguksu

This classic home-style noodle soup literally means knife

(kal)-cut noodles (guksu), cut about the width of linguini.
Chang says: I like this because its real lazy-man cooking:
instead of cooking the pasta in a separate pot, you cook it
right in the stock. Traditionally, the dish was eaten
only in summer, when barley and wheat are harvested. But
now you can nd kalguksu any time of year, served in
broth made from anchovies and shellsh, clams, or
chicken. Flavored versions can incorporate kimchi, bean
powders, mugwort, or perilla into the noodle dough.
Replace the noodles with dough akes (often lightened
with potato starch, per Stokes), and youve got sujebi.

Janchi Guksu

Back in the day, all noodle dishes were reserved for special
occasions; these days, its specically janchi guksu that
pops up at most weddings and other celebrations (the word
janchi means banquet or feast). This soup features thin
wheat-our somyeon noodles in a light anchovy broth. It
will often come topped with shredded egg, beef, and
zucchini, plus yangnyeom, a sauce made from sesame oil,
Korean soy sauce, chili powder, garlic, and scallions.

Jjajangmyeon

Thanks to the Chinese diaspora, every country in the world

seems to have its own popular semi-Chinese dish (see:
General Tsos chicken), and Korea is no exception. The
dening dish of Korean Chinese food is jjajangmyeon:
thick, hand-pulled wheat noodles in black-bean sauce,
which Chang compares to black rag : beef or pork used
sparingly, with chopped vegetables that get sautedits
basically Italian. Jjajangmyeon arrived in Korea via the
Port of Incheon in the late 1800sthe entry point for most
Chinese people into Korea, and the home of Koreas largest
and oldest Chinatownas zha jian mein and were adapted
for the Korean palate by immigrants from Shandong. The
dish didnt become super popular until after the Korean
War, however, when onions were added into the mix.

Jjampong

After jjajangmyeon, this spicy noodle soupmade of

vegetables and shellsh in a seafood brothis the second
most popular Korean-Chinese noodle dish. (Stokes notes
that this dish is also a popular Japanese-Chinese noodle
dish in Nagasaki, where it is called champon.) Mostly
restaurants will use the same hand-pulled wheat noodles
youll nd in their jjajangmyeon, but occasionally youll
see those replaced with Korean-style udon noodles.

Ramyeun

When it comes to doctoring instant ramen, your college

roommate has got nothing on the country of Korea, which
eats eighty bags per person of the stu/ annually (more per
capita than any other country in the world). Introduced in
the 1960s, the instant noodles are sold and eaten
immediately in not only convenience stores and cafs, but
restaurants too, where toppings like meat and raw egg are
added to the bubbling soup. Youll also nd the noodles
used in rabokki, a variation of the sweet-and-spicy rice-
cake dish known as dukbokki. Chang notes: There are so
many new dishesthose Korean mutant dishesthat
almost always have instant ramen in them; youre starting
to see the option of adding instant ramen more and more.
At this point, if I get budae jjigae, army stew with hot dogs
and Spam, it almost doesnt feel right if it doesnt have
instant ramen in it.

COLD NOODLES
Naengmyeon

Nothing says summertime like a big icy bowl of mul

naengmyeon, noodles in cold beef broth with shredded
cucumbers, sliced Asian pear, mild kimchi, boiled egg, and
slices of beef. Naengmyeon almost always means
buckwheat noodles, but the color and chewinessbased on
the other ours the buckwheat is cut with and the amount
of buckwheat in the our mixwill vary from region to
region. Like the inverse of kalguksu, naengmyeon originally
started o/ as a winter dish to coincide with the buckwheat-
harvesting season; when noodles became less of a special
occasion, it morphed into the hot-weather dish it is today.
Classic naengmyeon, according to Chang, needs to be super
cold and refreshing: Its almost better if its like a
slushie.

Take away the broth, and you have bibim naengmyeon, in which the noodles are tossed in a sweet-and-spicy
gochujang dressing and often topped with beef or marinated raw sh. Classic naengmyeon but with wheat
noodles is milmyeon. Wheat noodles and no broth? Thats bibim milmyeon .

A warning from Chang: My dad does not respect anyone who has his noodles cut. They always ask you if you
want to cut it with scissors. And thats a big no-no in my dads worldits basically like youre a pussy, like
Really? Its like using a fork and knife for a hot dog. Thats how he looks at it, like What is your fucking
problem? And you dont use a spoon to drink the broth. You always bring the bowl to your mouth. Spoons are an
amateur move.

Bibimguksu

This dish is made of thin Japanese-style somyeon noodles

twisted into a bun-like twirl, then topped with shredded
vegetables, meat, boiled egg, and a sweet-spicy sauce
sometimes thinned out with naengmyeon broth. Bibim
means mixed, which is exactly what you are supposed to
do with the noodles and toppings. Think bibimbap, but
with noodles instead of rice. Make it with soba and serve it
on a platter with toppings like shredded carrots, red
cabbage, sprouts, bell peppers, and boiled egg, and you
have jaengban guksu.

Jjolmyeon

Sometimes accidents can make for the best food creations,

as evidenced by this cold noodle dish invented in the
seventies, when a noodle factory in Incheon made a batch
of wheat noodles that were both too big and too chewy, like
a thick spaghetti. They are usually tossed in a spicy sauce
and topped with shredded cucumbers and bean sprouts.
According to Stokes, The sauce is similar to whats used
for bibimguksu; both jjolmyeon and bibimguksu generally
have more vegetables than naengmyeon.

Kongguksu

Theres nothing out there quite like kongguksu, a dish of

knife-cut noodles made from a combination of wheat our
and soybean powder in a thick, milky-looking broth made
from fresh soybeans and sesame. Occasionally, youll nd
versions made from darker arrowroot or kudzu noodles
(chik guksu). Theres also a variation called jatguksu, where
the broth is made from pine-nut milk instead of soy milk.

Dongchimi Guksu
Dongchimi Guksu

Many versions of naengmyeon feature beef broth

brightened with a bit of dongchimi water, the leftover
liquid from fresh white-radish kimchi. If youre a fan of
that, you might want to try seeking out dongchimi guksu,
a simple soup of noodles (sometimes wheat, sometimes
buckwheatStokes uses somyeon noodles) in a broth
made entirely from that mildly sweet, tangy liquid.

NOODLES THAT
TRANSCEND
TEMPERATURE
Jap Chae

Jap chae, a dish of dangmyeon (glass noodles made from

sweet-potato starch) tossed with vegetables, soy sauce,
sesame oil, and sugar, might be the most widely known
Korean noodle dish in the United States. According to
Choi, its one of the few noodle dishes that does well at all
temperatures: she grew up eating it at room temperature,
which is how youll nd it most often, served in small
portions as banchan. Its also commonly served cold, or
made fresh to order and served hot as part of a celebratory
feast. A precursor to the dishthe name of which
translates to mixed vegetablesis said to have been
invented in the seventeenth century for King
Gwanghaegun. Noodles were added to the mix in 1912,
when Pyongyang got its rst dangmyeon factory. A
variation called tangpyeongchae substitutes noodles made
of mung-bean jelly.

DAVID CHANG, GUIDES, KOREA, KOREAN FOOD, NOODLES