• Capital: Pyongyang
• Population: about 25 million
• Area: 120 540 km²
• Currency: North Korean won

For my North Korean recipe I made Naengmyeon. Naengmyeon is a cold soup with chewy noodels, egg, beef and a lot of side ingredients that can be added to make it taste to your liking.

Naengmyeon

Ingredients:

• 2 servings of naengmyeon noodles
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1/2 asian pear
• Rice vinegar
• 1/2 pound beef brisket
• 1 large korean radish
• 1/2 onion
• 1 inch ginger
• 2 scallions
• 1 teaspoon peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• Gochujang sauce to taste

Directions:

Start by preparing all your ingredients. Cut the large radish in half. With one half, cut strips of radish, about 1 inch wide, 4 inch long and 1/4 inch thick. Cut the other half of the radish in big chunks. Cut the cucumber in half lengthwise and then in thin slices, add salt to the cucumber and mix well. Boil the egg. Clean the scallion, cut the ginger in 3 equal pieces and measure all the other ingredients.

Prepare the radishes first as they will need to soak for a little bit.  Put the radish strips in a bowl and add 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon salt. Stir well to coat all the radishes. Set aside.

Put 3 liters of water in a large pot. Add the meat, half onion, garlic, scallions, ginger, peppercorns, large radish chunks and bring to a boil. Once it starts boiling, reduce the heat to low and let simmer covered for 1 hour. Make sure you scoop out any scum coming to the surface during the first 10 minutes.

After 1 hour, add the soy sauce and cook for an additional 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the meat and set aside to cool. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables. Measure 5 cups of broth and put it in a bowl. Save for the rest for another time.

Put the bowl with 5 cups of broth in the freezer for a couple hours (until the broth is slightly slushy).

Cut the meat in 1/2 inch slices lengthwise. Peel the hardboiled egg and cut it in half.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and prepare an ice bath. Cook the noodles like instructed on the package. Once cook drain the noodles and put them in the ice bath right away. Rinse the noodle with more cold water until they are completely cold.

Divide the noodles in 2 bowls, make a mound with the noodles and top with the pickled radish, cucumber, slices of asian pear meat slices and egg. Pour the broth around the noodles. Serve with some gochujang sauce on the side.

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