Korean Noodle Soup

So this is my attempt at making everyday korean food. I think the soup is called "janchi guksu", but I'm going to be referring to it as Korean noodle soup. I decided to make this because the broth is light and there's a good mix of carbs, vegetables, and protein. The broth is lighter than I would like it so if I make this again, I would add some kimchi juice or more flavorings, but then I don't think it would be called janchi guksu anymore. I'm used to my food being hearty and often heavily spiced that I feel I sometimes don't appreciate lighter foods as much as everyone else does.

I encourage you to try this if you have a chance. There's just something about warm noodle soup that makes my day and maybe it could make yours =D

The recipe I used can be food at Eating and Living. It's a Korean-American mom's food blog and it's pretty amazing. I love many of her recipes. I followed the original recipe as closely as I could.

I'm told the broth is a very standard Korean broth.

Ingredients of the broth:

10-12 medium to large dried anchovies

2 3" dried kelp

1/2 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 1/2 of scallion (white part)

Water to fill your pot =)

Add all the ingredients into the pot and bring the pot to a bowl. Once it's boiling, reduce the heat to medium and let the broth boil for 10 minutes, uncovered. After the 10 minutes, remove the anchovies and kelp and add soy sauce and salt and pepper to taste. Let the pot boil for another 15 minutes, again over medium heat. At this point, you can remove all of the vegetables from the broth. Keep the broth warm over low heat while everything else is cooking.

I'm pretty sure you can add any toppings you want. Here I cut up 1 large carrot and 1 large zucchini into matchstick sizes.

Sautee the carrots for approximate 3 minutes over high heat. Add salt and pepper to taste. Once done, set aside the carrots and sauté the zucchini for 2-3 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste. (Note: for the zucchini, the original recipe called for sprinkling it with some salt and squeezing out the excess water after 5 minutes before sautéing it. I did this previously and it does have a better result than just sautéing the zucchini so if you have time, I suggest doing that.)

As additional toppings, I lightly sauteed some kimchi, to bring out its flavor, to add to the soup. I also scrambled some eggs and then sliced it into thin pieces because I had no beef on hand. If you do have beef, slice the beef into thin pieces and marinate in a bowl with 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil, 1/2 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic and some black pepper. The beef doesn't need to marinate for long. Once you finish cutting the vegetables, the beef is ready to be sauteed. This is a great addition to the soup and I highly recommend adding it if you have time.

Cook whatever noodles you like for the soup. The original recipe called for somyeon noodles, but I often use buckwheat soba noodles. I'm not sure what noodles I used in the picture below. As always, with Asian noodles, you want to wash it well in cold water to stop the cooking and to wash out the starch. Not doing this might leave you with very sticky noodles. I separate mine into portions before leaving it to drain so that I can easily serve it once everything is ready.

Time to plate the food! Place the noodles in a serving bowl. Add a little bit of each topping, zucchini, carrots, egg, and kimchi. Add broth and serve! You can add some chopped scallions for a more professional finish.

As always, let me know if you have any questions and if you do make it, please let me know how it turned out!! Enjoy.