Bun Bo Xao with Woojeon
Bun Bo Xao is a Vietnamese beef noodle salad. It's one of our favourite noodle dishes and you will never get tired of it. Pickled radish is optional but a great addition to this dish both for texture and for flavour. You can add the pickled radish to Korean cold noodle dishes such as Mul-naengmyeon and Bibim-naengmyeon as well.
We are introducing the recipe for 2 servings here, but you are making the pickled radish in a larger quantity than used for the 2 servings, considering that you might want to use up one whole radish.
Our Woojeon and Sejak are always a great addition to noodle dishes. Here, we used Woojeon.
Ingredients (2 servings):
Toppings & Noodle
· 3g or 1 heaping tablespoon Woojeon
· 100g Vietnamese rice noodle (vermicelli recommended)
· 1/4 cucumber, cut into strips
· 2 pineapple rings, cut into small pieces
· 1 tablespoon peanuts or walnuts, chopped
Marinated Beef Topping
· 50g ground beef
· 1 tablespoon soy sauce
· 2/3 tablespoon sugar
· 2/3 tablespoon water
· 1/2 tablespoon matsul (Korean cooking wine) or white wine
· 1/2 tablespoon garlic, minced
· black pepper
Pickled Radish Topping
· 1 small Korean or daikon radish
· 1 tablespoon salt
· 3 tablespoons sugar
· 7-8 tablespoons vinegar
· (optional) 1 teaspoon gochugaru (Korean red chili powder)
Note: The size of radishes varies. If you purchased a big radish, simply increase the amount of the ingredients.
Noodle Dressing
· 2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
· 1 tablespoon fish sauce
· 1 tablespoon lemon juice
· 2 teaspoons sugar
· 1 teaspoon garlic, minced
· (optional) 1 tablespoon pineapple juice from canned pineapple
Instructions:
1) Make Woojeon tea. (Please click here to see the steeping instructions.) Strain the tea leaves and set aside. You can drink the tea infusion before or after cooking.
2) Soak the rice noodles in cold water for 30 minutes and they will be soft. This step reduces the cooking time for noodles and more importantly, it gives a better texture to the noodles.
3) Marinate ground beef for 15-20 minutes in a mixture of 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 2/3 tablespoon of sugar, 2/3 tablespoon of water, 1/2 tablespoon of matsul or white wine, 1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic, and a pinch of black pepper. Stir fry in a frying pan or a wok. Cool down.
4) Peel a radish using a vegetable peeler. Cut the radish into 2cm thick discs and laying the discs flat, thinly slice the radish. The thinner, the better. Add 1 tablespoon of salt into the radish and mix well. Leave for 15 minutes. Rinse off with cold running water and squeeze the water out of the radish. In a large bowl, add the radish slices, 3 tablespoons of sugar and 7-8 tablespoons of vinegar, and mix well. Leave for 3-5 minutes. Scoop 3 tablespoons of the juice out of the radish into a small bowl and add 1 teaspoon of gochugaru into the small bowl. Mix well and leave for 5 minutes. Using a sifter, strain the gochugaru and add the red-coloured juice back into the radish. Mix well and refrigerate.
5) Mix all the ingredients for the noodle dressing.
6) Boil water and cook rice noodles. 30 seconds is enough to cook the noodles as they are already soaked and soft. Rinse off with cold running water and strain.
7) In a serving bowl, add cooked rice noodles, marinated beef, pickled radish, pineapple pieces, cucumber and steeped Woojeon leaves. Before serving, add the noodle dressing and chopped peanuts or walnuts.
Enjoy the tasTEA Bun Bo Xao!
Note: The marinated beef is also used in the recipe for Ganjang Bibim Guksu with Sejak. Click here to see the recipe.