‹ The Noodle 100 › Make it at home

The Noodle 100 · make it at home

Mul naengmyeon: cold buckwheat noodles in icy beef broth

3 hr (plus chilling) · 4

Pyongyang-style naengmyeon is quiet and cold: chewy buckwheat noodles in a chilled beef and radish-water broth. Seoul's naengmyeon houses keep it plain on purpose.

Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, mise en place, what you already have and a shopping list.

The real one

You need

• For the broth: 600 g (1 1/4 lb) beef brisket, 1/2 onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1 piece ginger, 2 liters (2 quarts) water
• To season: 1 tbsp soup soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar, salt
• 500 ml (2 cups) dongchimi (radish water kimchi) liquid, or 2 tbsp more vinegar and sugar to taste
• 400 g (14 oz) naengmyeon buckwheat noodles
• To top: thin slices of the brisket, 1 Asian pear and 1/2 cucumber cut into matchsticks, sliced pickled radish, 2 hard-boiled eggs halved
• At the table: Korean mustard and vinegar

How to make it

1. Broth (2 hr): Simmer the brisket with onion, garlic and ginger in the water 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Lift out the beef and chill. Strain the broth, chill it overnight, then lift off every bit of fat.
2. Season (5 min): Mix the cold broth with the dongchimi liquid, soup soy, vinegar and sugar; add salt until bright. Put it in the freezer 1 hour until slushy at the edges.
3. Noodles (5 min): Boil the noodles 3 to 4 minutes, then rinse hard in ice water, rubbing, until cold and chewy. Twist into nests.
4. Build: Put a nest in each chilled bowl, pour over the icy broth, and top with beef, pear, cucumber, radish and half an egg. Cut the noodles with scissors at the table and add mustard and vinegar to taste.

Tips

• Bibim naengmyeon: skip the broth and toss the noodles with gochujang, sugar, vinegar and sesame oil.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any shop's recipe.