Ganjang Bibim Guksu with Sejak

by Soo Park

One of our favourite summer noodle dishes is Ganjang Bibim Guksu. "Ganjang" means "soy sauce", "bibim" refers to "mix(ing)", and "guksu" means "noodles". It is very easy to make!

The sauce recipe for this noodle dish is from the world-famous YouTuber, Korea Grandma Park Makrye and you can see the video of her recipe here.

We are introducing Ganjang Bibim Guksu that you can enjoy together with Sejak and marinated beef toppings. Do you just "drink" tea? You can also "eat" the tea leaves!

Ingredients (2 servings):

Vegetable Toppings & Noodle

· 6g or 2 heaping tablespoons Sejak

· 1/3 carrot, cut into strips

· 1/3 zucchini, cut into half moons or strips

· (optional) 1/8 onion, cut into strips

· 2 servings somyeon (Korean thin wheat flour noodles)

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

Noodle Sauce (from "Korea Grandma")

· 3 tablespoons soy sauce

· 2-3 tablespoons sugar

· 1 tablespoon garlic, minced

· 2/3 tablespoon vinegar

· 1 tablespoon sesame seeds

· 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Instructions:

1) Make Sejak tea (click here to see the steeping instructions). Strain the tea leaves and set aside. You can enjoy the tea infusion before cooking or together with this noodle dish.

2) 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, and stir fry in a frying pan or a wok. Cool down.

3) Boil water with 1 teaspoon of salt in a pot over high heat. When water is boiling, add somyeon (noodles). From time to time, you need to add cold water so that it doesn't boil over.

4) When the noodles are cooked about 90%, add carrot and zucchini in the pot and cook together with noodles. (Optional: Instead of cooking vegetables in boiling water, you can also stir fry them with a little bit of oil).

5) When the noodles and vegetables are cooked, drain and rinse with running cold water to cool down.

6) Mix the ingredients for the noodle sauce.

7) In a large bowl, mix noodles, vegetable and beef toppings as well as steeped leaves of Sejak together with the noodle sauce. (Or you can mix only noodles and the sauce, and place toppings on top of the noodles, as shown in the photo above).

8) Serve on a plate or in a bowl.

Enjoy the tasTEA noodles!