Spicy Cold Noodles Offer an Antidote to Summer Heat

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/dining/korean-noodles-kimchi-bibim-guksu.html

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With temperatures soaring, I give you three little words of comfort: Korean! Cold! Noodles!

A traditional dish, it’s called bibim guksu — mixed noodles — and it’s packed with kimchi and other kicky condiments that form a sort of sweet-and-sour kimchi dressing. Usually made with cold buckwheat noodles, naengmyeon, or thin wheat flour noodles, somyeon, it’s also good with Vietnamese rice noodles (or so I say, but I’m a heathen).

Could this be the anti-ramen, a trend on the rise? I don’t know, but it’s my new favorite cold pasta, custom-made for summer — refreshingly and unapologetically hot and spicy, and perfect for lunch or dinner.

Like some venerable Italian pasta dishes that are seemingly made from an empty cupboard — Korean staples are used here instead — this cold noodle dish is a breeze to put together despite the long list of ingredients. Many of these are available at an ordinary supermarket, and virtually everything can be bought online, but it’s more fun to go to a Korean grocery, if only to see all the different types of kimchi.

Korean food famously makes frequent use of hot pepper. But the bright red Korean red pepper flakes, gochugaru, are without seeds and are only medium hot, so you can use a lot of them. The fermented red pepper paste gochujang, also used in many dishes, tastes sweet and mellow at first, then fiery.

As for the how of it, you first assemble the sauce, with chopped kimchi, ginger, garlic, sesame and the aforementioned two types of red pepper. I add a little miso for depth. A little brown sugar, some vinegar, some lime juice. There’s no flame involved.

Then, cook your noodles, rinse them and keep them cool. Too easy, almost.

You can add or subtract ingredients to your heart’s content, and the assortment of raw vegetables is entirely adaptable to what’s on hand.

Sometimes it’s nice to make little portions to serve in lettuce leaves. Some Korean cooks make decorative platters of the accompaniments, then serve the noodles and sauce separately. A hard-cooked egg, one with a slightly runny center, goes on top in my version to add richness.

You can absolutely make the sauce well in advance and pop it in the fridge, but wait to combine it with the noodles until just before serving. Cold beer or iced tea are also recommended.

Recipes: Cold Spicy Kimchi Noodles | Weeknight Noodles | More Cold Noodles