Oodles of noodles
This colourful dish is one of my favourite Korean noodle dishes, warming, refreshing and filling at the same time!
Korean cuisine has many brothy dishes, and the many that I love have a peculiar quality in that drinking them always makes me feel warm and refreshed at the same time. I can’t say exactly what it is, but these meals always leave me feeling cleansed and content, and as a result are a great meal to have if you’ve been out for a night on the town the day before.
This particular dish goes by the name of “mool gooksu” (water noodles), and is very simply thin wheat noodles in this restorative broth with a variety of elements placed on top and mixed in just before consuming. The additional ingredients can vary and you certainly don’t have to include anything you don’t like, so this element also makes this a wonderfully versatile dish that can easily be altered to suit a family of fussy eaters. The only down side (though I don’t see it as much of a problem) is that there’s a little bit of work required, so if you’re wanting to sit down to a meal in 15 minutes then this isn’t the one you should choose.
This is a dish that has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. The stock for this is quite a simple one made with just kombu/dashima, dried shiitake mushrooms, onion and dried anchovies, yet the initial creation makes quite a strong smell that fills the kitchen with it’s warmth. Though no one memory rides on this dish, there have been many lunches and dinners where I’ve inhaled the smell of the cooking broth and listened to the sizzle of the frying pan as my ma prepared each component of this dish. Every time this is served, I can’t wait to sit down to this bowl with all it’s colours, all the vegetables cut into thin strips by my ma, neat enough to rival any mandolin slicer.
Though this dish is rarely seen in the hot summer months, the mercury has been dropping lately as we progress further into the cooler seasons, and soon, when it’s cold and miserable and raining outside, I know that I’ll smell this dish being cooked. And, when I sit down to share it with my family, for those moments the world will seem like a warmer, more comforting place.
Mool Gooksu (Korean mixed noodles in anchovy broth)
Ingredients (to serve 4)
About 10 dried ‘soup anchovies‘
2-3 large pieces of dashima/kombu
6 dried shiitake mushrooms
4L water
1 large pk thin wheat soba noodles
2 medium onions
1 medium carrot
1 medium zucchini
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 sheets of toasted nori/gim
Oil, for frying
200g beef mince/thinly sliced beef tenderloin (must be sliced almost paper thin!)
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp grated ginger
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp sesame oil
1. Mix together the soy sauce, caster sugar, ginger, garlic and sesame oil, then massage the mixture into the beef. Set aside for now. Soak 4 of the shiitake mushrooms in boiling water and also set aside.
2. Heat the anchovies in the microwave for about 15 seconds and quarter one of the onions, then throw them both into a hot pot along with 2 shiitake mushrooms and the dashima/kombu. Do not add any oil and fry them together for a few seconds before adding the water. Bring this to a rolling boil, then reduce the heat and leave to simmer for about 20-30 minutes, till the soup is well flavoured and taken on a very faint milky tint. Remove the anchovies, mushrooms and dashima.
3. Finely slice the onion, julienne the carrot and the zucchini. Put the zucchini in a bowl, add the salt and toss through to evenly coat and set aside for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, fry the carrot and the onion seperately in a little oil, till they have softened a bit, then set aside.
4. Squeeze some of the liquid out of the salted zucchini, then fry them till softened and also set aside. Pour the beaten eggs into the frying pan and fry till golden on both sides. Remove this ‘egg sheet’ and finely slice into little strips the same size as your carrot strips. Cut up the nori sheets into pieces the same size and set aside.
5. Remove the soaked shiitake mushrooms from the water, squeeze out any excess water and finely slice them to roughly the same width as the carrot and egg strips. Fry up the marinated beef and set aside for now.
6. Boil the noodles, drain them and then put into each of the bowls. Ladle some broth over the top of the noodles, then arrange some carrot, zucchini, mushroom, beef, onion and egg around the bowl, and some strips of toasted nori in the centre.
7. Serve, and enjoy with some kimchi on the side 
Definitely not the quickest dish, but the tastiness is certainly worth the effort! Next time you know you’re in for a spot of cold weather and want a nice, tasty and filling noodle soup, give this one a try!
Technorati Tags: korean cuisine, korean, noodles, soup, broth, asian, recipe
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Ellie Aww shucks, thanks Tanna This is definitely one of my favourite comfort foods, and I hope that despite the fiddliness of the recipe, this post will inspire others to give it a try
Anh I have saved your recipe for use later! This soup noodles look fantastic! Love your presentation, too.
gattina Ellie, if I come to Australia, I will call you 
… and please show me all the heavenly korean food! What I had before nothing remotely similar to your beautiful mool gooksu, I’m deprived!
Cris Ellie, thank you for introducing us to these korean dishes, you describe everything so gracefully. It looks beautiful and healthy. No wonder people there have such a nice figure.
Callipygia Ellie (at long last! I have not been able to post replies- my computer is wonky). Thanks for showing us step by step your mool gooksu. Growing up, all the brothy soups were my comfort food too- and I don’t think I appreciated how time consuming and beautiful the dishes are.
Ellie Ahn - Hehe, cheers 
I hope you like this soup as much as I do!
ToasterOnFire - Aww, thank you
Gattina - If you ever come to Australia, I would insist that you come and stay with me! I will show you all our Korean foods, but only if you can teach me how to cook some of your delicious dishes too 
Cris - LOL, well, not all of them, as my family are not exactly your typical petite Asians 
but healthy dishes such as these do help a bit
Callipygia - Eek! I hope your computer is behaving itself now! I know how you feel, I never really appreciated the time and effort that went into these wonderful dishes that my mother made for the family until I started taking an interest in Korean cooking
truffle oh what a wonderful recipe! I can’t wait to try this!
Where would you recommend for lower-medium priced Korean food?
Ellie I don’t know which is more beautiful to describe this dish: your photos or your words! The photos sweep me into the aroma of the dish and your words wrap me in the warmth of the memories of all the times you’ve enjoyed this. Really lovely.