Christina Makes Buckwheat Noodles

And I think it represents longevity.

So you don't want to cut the noodles before you eat them

because you don't want to cut your life short.

But as a kid I wasn't strong enough.

My teeth were not strong enough to cut through the noodles

as I was eating them.

So I just had a couple [laughing] of times

where I would feel like I would be eating the noodles,

and I'd have half swallowed them,

but half of them were still, I was still eating half of them

and then I was just like...

But my parents wouldn't let me cut the noodles

because it was bad luck.

Now that I'm an adult,

I've realized we're all gonna die anyway.

[carefree classical music]

Today we're making cold buckwheat noodles

with kimchi and eggs.

This is a riff on a Korean dish

and it's by one of my favorite chefs Edward Lee

who developed this recipe for us a few years ago.

It's like the perfect summer dish.

It's like cold noodles, they're dressed

in a saucy mixture of kimchi

and some vinegar and sugar.

And then you eat it all piled with hard boiled eggs

and cucumbers, and the most important thing

is you finish it off with crushed ice.

So that as the ice melts, it becomes this soupy,

brothy, briny liquid that's left at the bottom

of your bowl when you're done eating.

You just have half of a cucumber.

[Man] What cucumber are you using?

What type of cucumber am I using?

Just, you know, a nice one!

And this is a little long.

So I think I'm gonna cut this in half again.

And the idea is to just turn these into little strips.

So I'm just gonna take a little strip off of each end

to make a little flat side.

And then stand that up.

And then I'm just gonna create little planks.

And you want them to be pretty thin because

you want them to sort of mimic the width of the noodles.

So once you have your planks.

I'm just going to stack them.

So yeah, just like a few at a time.

These get a little slippery, so just be careful.

These, I've decided are just for eating.

[Man] Can I take one?

Oh my God, of course.

And then these we'll just kind of put into a bowl for later.

These will go on top of our noodles.

I'm also gonna do some scallions

that are also going to go on top.

So four scallions.

I think I'm just gonna separate these

where the greens start.

And then I think I'm gonna thinly

slice the whites into rounds.

And you can use the whole thing.

I feel like the dark green tops of the scallions

don't really get a lot of love in a lot of recipes

but they're kind of my favorite part.

They're just more mild and feel more

like you're eating a vegetable.

I'm just gonna take off the tops.

I think it's kinda nice when they vaguely

have the longish shape, so I'm just gonna go at a bias.

Doesn't have to be perfect. What is a bias?

A bias is when you go on the diagonal,

something like this.

And then the last thing we need to do is nori.

This kind...

I'll show you, this is basically

the seaweed that is used to make sushi rolls.

And this has been dried and roasted.

So the one thing that you wanna make sure of with nori

is that you don't want to get it wet.

Because you want to preserve this, you can hear it.

[rustling, cracking]

So I just fold it up.

I actually take a pair of scissors to make thin strips.

The only time I personally would do this with a knife

anymore is if I were,

like if I just really, really cared for some reason

about how they look.

That's it, that's every garnish ready to go

except for the kimchi which we can chop later.

We could chop now.

Number one,

I was gonna bring in my own because I got really excited

and I was telling Tommy, I have half a gallon

of it sitting in my house.

Which I brought with me on the subway, it's over there.

Brad eats 'em.

There's actually a separate kimchi that you can find

at Korean markets that's only meant

for being turned into soups and stuff.

And that is

the extra stinky

funky stuff which is sort of what this has become.

So this is Mother-In-Law's.

Which, as I was saying before is the brand that we like.

It's the one where, if I'm buying it, and I'm not making it,

I'm getting this one.

Lovely Rhoda tried to open the jar and prep it for us.

[laughing] It legitimately exploded.

She was out of my sight and she was all of a sudden

[yelling] skyrocketed out.

The lid was up to here and it was just like [whining]

the cabbage was just like-- Yeah it's common

with the jar itself.

[popping] But for it to pfft? Yeah.

OK, 'cause I've seen it fizz up before.

Oh no, poo poom, all the way out.

And how it came and held, because pressure builds up

and it expands with the gas. [upbeat music]

Even in within the cabbage leaves,

so there's more volume even under pressure, in a way.

Technically I guess there's not more, I don't know!

You should be careful. I've seen this happen.

Got some kimchi, right out of the gate,

right on your jumper. [laughing]

Well you know, the hazards of the trade, what can I say?

Everywhere but the apron. I know.

[beeping]

If there's one thing you take away from this,

it is that when you're at the end of the jar,

and you have all this liquid at the bottom,

do not throw it out.

It's just pickle juice almost, in a way.

Where it just adds a bunch of vinegary, spicy jolt to,

I mean really anything. Put it in your bloody Mary.

Oh yeah, have you done that?

It's a great idea. It's delicious.

Right, drain kimchi.

And depending on the kind that you buy,

these are whole cabbage leaves.

So we just wanna chop these down to size.

You just want it to be so that you're not picking up

one of these and trying to put these in your mouth.

And at home I actually have a separate cutting board

that I use only for kimchi.

All right, bench scraper.

So these are buckwheat, wheat, and sweet potato starch.

Basically when these cook, and I think a lot of the times

when people first try these noodles, they're like

Whoa, those are not cooked, why are they chewy?

That's intentional, you're doing it right.

And the closest thing I can think of

to the texture of the cooked noodle

is a Twizzler Pull 'n' Peel.

Like a mouthful of those.

Often in the summer, Korean people eat naengmyeon

which is both the name of the noodle,

but also the dish pictured on here.

And we're going to measure out 12 ounces.

Yes. Yes. OK.

Oh here it is, by the way.

So these are the soup packets.

And you would just dissolve these in water

the same way that you would with ramen soup.

But we're not using these today

so we're just gonna put that to the side, snack pile.

Wow my snack bar's getting really good, cucumbers, nori,

dehydrated beef broth. [laughing]

we're cooking these last.

We're cooking these after everything else

has been finished because these

are going to start getting a little bit soggy and gummy

if you let them sit for too long.

So I sorta want to just get them in the boiling water

and out quickly and then toss everything

sort of a la minute.

So we have boiling water that I should note is not salted.

What? [laughing]

We always say heavily salted water.

Arguably the most important part of this entire recipe

is seasoning your pasta water.

Don't tell anyone. What?

Well Molly's not here.

Typically with a lot of Asian noodles,

you just don't really salt the noodles.

I don't think that there's any harm in

salting these but this is just the way

that I've always done it.

And these are gonna cook for about three to five minutes.

Then the second they're done cooking,

we're going to completely drain them.

There's no saving of pasta water or anything like that.

So we're just gonna get rid of all the water.

This is why I like Asian noodles over pasta,

just in general, 'cause it's more straightforward.

I've just had so many moments where I've just

finished draining it and been like No!

Because it was like,

later on in the recipe it would be like

And go back to that two cups of pasta water

that you saved, and I was like No dude.

Pasta's extra. It's extra.

Asian people aren't telling you to do that.

Where did everybody go?

No one's here today. Everyone was here today.

No. I just saw everyone.

OK well don't go anywhere.

The only real thing I'm looking for is that

there's no hard part left in the noodle.

These are definitely cooked.

I'm gonna take them off the heat.

To the sink.

Completely drain them.

OK at this point, this is probably the most important thing

in this whole process is I want to immediately

run them under cold water.

You basically just wanna give them a nice vigorous massage.

And what this is doing is helping to rub off

any excess starch that's left on the noodles.

You just want it enough that the water

that's coming through the other end looks pretty clear.

And then I'm just gonna make sure

they're really well drained.

These, I feel like, you can almost think about as like

a noodle dressed in a kimchi vinegarette.

To do that we're just gonna take a little bit

of rice wine vinegar.

This is unseasoned.

And toasted sesame oil is going right in there as well.

And that'll give it grounding.

And the sugar is really important here.

It actually, I would say is the most important ingredient

in this whole dish because

it just counters the earthiness of the buckwheat

in the noodles, the nuttiness of the sesame oil

and then it also gives the kimchi

something to counteract with.

It just creates balance.

That's basically it.

The only things that are going to go into this

are my chopped kimchi,

and our very important

juice from the jar.

And all that's just gonna go right in there.

Do a little bit of that. [laughing]

And then the noodles are just gonna go right in.

The beauty is that you can just do this all by hand

and it really does not take a whole lot more than this.

[slurping]

Did I get kimchi on my face? [laughing]

And I would actually say that could use

a little bit of salt.

I think I'm also just gonna go

with a little bit more sugar as well.

[sniffing] Smells like sugar.

[laughing] Smells like sugar.

So I'm just gonna eyeball that.

And maybe just a tiny pinch of salt.

And we're ready to plate.

This is just gonna be the last thing

that we put on this dish.

It essentially acts as both a cooling mechanism

for the dish so that it stays cold the whole way through.

But also as the ice starts to melt,

it mixes with all the seasonings, that kimchi juice,

all that stuff that's seasoning the noodles,

and becomes this watered down really delicious broth

that you just slurp down at the end.

I'm just gonna grab...

A big pile of that, making sure to just get

a lot of the kimchi in there.

So in addition to the garnishes that we've prepped before,

we also have some hard-boiled eggs.

These went for about eight minutes.

Maybe we'll do five of these.

And then we're just gonna take some of our cucumber

that we cut up, just goes right on top.

Scallions.

Nori.

And toasted sesame seeds.

Last thing we're gonna do is put a big scoop of ice

just all over the top.

And that's really it!

I'm very excited. You're very excited.

I know, I am too. Very hungry.

I know! Well that one's for you.

You can have the beauty. OK!

Hi Amiel. Hi Chaey.

I needed your support so much.

I'm so happy. I'm feeling very delicate

right now, I can't deal with

the strong opinions of the Rapo.

But these are buckwheat sweet potato noodles

dressed with kimchi and rice vinegar.

[laughing]

They're dressed in kimchi.

Mm. Oh shit!

I forgot to ice this! Mm!

[Christina] Drop it!

Mm.

Ooh, yeah.

These are like beach noodles.

These are beach noodles. Ooh!

You could take them to the beach!

You could take them to the beach!

Noodles on the beach, nobody's doing that.

Mm hmm!

I mean somebody's doing it but...