Let’s get S P I C Y ! ! !
My friend and the sweetest, kindest angel, James Park, came by to show me how to cook a recipe from his new book, Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes to Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings. It’s a super fun and vibrant cookbook filled with all sorts of recipes that each use chili crisp, including the one we made here: bibim guksu.
Bibim guksu is a Korean dish consisting of cold, spicy noodles. Bibim means “mixed” and guksu means “noodles” in Korean and the entire dish is incredibly simple, using primarily pantry staples, and packed with tons of flavor.
Jamesy has a few recipes for homemade chili crisp in his cookbook, and I suggest you try making all of them, but if that’s not on the cards for you, there are plenty of store-bought varieties that you can try.
Something very cool that he taught me was how to cook the somen noodles. Essentially, you bring water to a boil and add the noodles, then wait for the water to start to boil again, bubbling and rising. Add cold water to stop the boiling, and once they start to boil for a second time, add more cold water. When the noodles come to a boil for the third time, drain and rinse, agitating the noodles to release any starch that may still be on them.
They’re cooked perfectly.
Jamesy’s mom used to make him this dish in the hot summer months, which is great because we also made this in the heat of the summer a couple of weeks ago. I turned off my air conditioning to help with sound and BOY WAS IT HOT in my apartment. Enjoy watching us sweat. A lot.
But back to Jamesy and his mom and bibim guksu!
In Korean, there is a saying, son-mat, which translates to “hand taste.” It refers to the unique favor that comes from the labor and love of the person that made the dish. We mixed the noodles with the sauce using our (very clean!) hands, then hand-fed one another a taste of the noodles before plating, just as Jamesy’s mom used to do for him as a kid. I gotta say, our bibim guksu had great son-mat.
There are so many recipes in Jamesy’s book that all sound SO GOOD, it was truly hard to choose what we were going to make for the video (I also wanted to try his egg salad or kimchi quesadilla or corn cheese ciabatta or fried rice or steamed mussels…all of which I will make eventually! and you should, too, so buy the book and make them all!).
SIDE NOTE: This book was photographed by my wonderfully talented friend, Heami Lee, and I couldn’t be more proud to have both her and Jamesy in my orbit. It’s so fun to know and be friends with such fantastic people.
Anyway, enjoy the video, buy the book, and stay spicy out there.
Bibim Guksu (Spicy Mixed Noodles)
Serves 2
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
2 large eggs
2 to 3 tablespoons chili crisp
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 ½ teaspoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, plus more for drizzling
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3 garlic cloves, minced (about 1 tablespoon)
2 green onions, chopped
3 ½ ounces|100 grams noodles, preferably somen
½ medium yellow onion, sliced
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
1 Persian cucumber, julienned
DIRECTIONS
Add enough water to a large pot to submerge the eggs and bring to a boil; fill a bowl with ice-cold water. Once the water starts to boil, add the eggs and cook for 6 ½ minutes. Transfer the eggs to the prepared ice bath and set aside.
In a large bowl, add the chili crisp, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, and garlic. Reserve about 1 tablespoon of the green parts of the chopped green onions for garnish, add the remaining green onions to the bowl, and whisk everything to combine.
Cook a bundle of noodles according to the package directions. Add the sliced onion to the pot and cook with the noodles for 1 minute. Drain the noodles and onions in a colander and rinse under cold water to eliminate any extra starch. Squeeze the noodles as hard as possible to remove excess moisture before mixing them with the sauce.
Add the cooked noodles to the large bowl of seasonings. Add the sesame seeds. Preferably using hands with gloves on, mix the noodles with everything else.
Peel the reserved soft-boiled eggs. Transfer the mixed, cold noodles to a serving plate. Garnish with the reserved green onions, peeled soft-boiled eggs, and sliced Persian cucumber. Drizzle with about 1 tsp toasted sesame oil right before serving.
Chili Crisp: 50+ Recipes to Satisfy Your Spicy, Crunchy, Garlicky Cravings By James Park ©2023. Published by Chronicle Books
Bibim Guksu with Jamesy!!