I love it when Eun Jeong cooks. When we first started dating, she told me that she couldn’t cook. I later figured out it was a ruse to make me cook for her more often. She makes some great Korean food.
This little recipe for Janchi Guksu 잔치 국수 is simple and honest food. I’ll present this as a traditional recipe rather than use my usual stream-of-consciousness journal style. Eun Jeong served it in four separate parts: noodles, dashi stock, condiments, and yangnyeomjang 양념장 sauce
INGREDIENTS
Noodles
Guksu noodles (thin wheat noodles)
Water (duh!)
Green onion, chopped
Dashi Stock
1 pot Dashi
1 Onion, sliced
1/2 Zucchini, sliced
Condiments
Kimchi, chopped
Cucumber, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
2 Eggs, scrambled like an omelette, rolled, and sliced into thin strips
Muchim
YangYeomJang Sauce
1 tsp. Sesame seeds, toasted in a dry pan
2 cloves Garlic, chopped
1 Green onion, chopped
1 tsp. Gochugaru (Korean red pepper powder)*
2 tbsp. Soy sauce
Salt to taste
1. Make the YangYeomJang sauce by crushing the sesame seeds in a mortar. Add and crush the garlic, green onion, and gochugaru. Gradually mix in the soy sauce until there is a hearty paste. Season with salt, if needed. Sprinkle more sesame seeds on top.
2. Boil the dashi with the sliced onion and zucchini for two minutes.
3. Prepare the condiments in separate dishes or in one big dish.
4. Boil the guksu noodles lightly. They don’t need as much time as Italian style pasta. Put them in individual bowls and garnish with green onion.
5. Serve the noodles, dashi, condiments, and YangYeomJang separately. The diners build their own soups from these ingredients to their liking.
*Cayenne pepper may work as a substitution for gochugaru. Maybe.
