Handcut Noodles or Kalgulsu is a Korean comfort food. It has a light but rich and flavorful broth paired with homemade chewy and bouncy noodles.
Kalguksu is one of my favorite dishes. In Namdaemun Market, there is a hidden alley dedicated to ahjummas selling this noodle soup. It is one of the places I will always drop by when I go to Korea mainly because they have years worth of boiling seafood broth and they have perfected the art of making βknife-cutβ noodles. Check out my vlog about it!
Anyway, not everyone may get the chance to visit that place, but it doesnβt mean you canβt make this at home. In this blog post, I will be sharing my Kalguksu recipe in the simplest way I make it. I will take a lot of steps, but it is for sure worth it.
How to Make Knife-Cut Noodles?
For this recipe, we will be making the noodles first. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, oil, and water. Mix it in a circular motion with a chopstick until a crumbly dough forms.
Afterward, place it on the countertop and start kneading. Continue doing so until it comes together. Once the dough is smooth, wrap it with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes. During this time, the dough will fully hydrate and come together. This can be made in advance and kept in the fridge until before you are going to cook it!
After refrigerating, on a flat surface, start rolling the dough until itβs about 1/3 of an inch. Keep flouring the surface so you can roll it and fold it easier.
Once desired thinness is reached, fold the dough into four, flouring in between, and start slicing the noodles about 1/2 an inch per strand. Fluff the noodles while sprinkling flour so it doesnβt stick to each other.
Set aside noodles until ready to use, but make sure to cover them with a towel so it does not dry up!
This can be a long process to make. If there is an Asian market near you, you can easily buy fresh noodles so you donβt have to make this from scratch.
Kalguksu Seafood Broth
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Kalgusu is hands down one of the best Korean soups there is. It is made with dried seafood that was simmered to make it flavorful. The soup is then filled with vegetables, shrimp, and clam which makes it more hearty to drink. In Korean, this is called Haemul Kalguksu.
To make it, boil dried herring, dried anchovy, dried shrimp, dried pollack, and dried kelp. These items are filled with salt and umami. When you boil them, the flavor comes out, and it will make the broth super delicious.
TIPS:
- Remove the head and gut of the anchovy because it is bitter.
- 10 minutes in, remove the dried kelp from the boiling broth.
- As soup boils, scum will come up, make sure to remove them too.
- If you want to make it easier, use a dashi pack instead of the dried seafood to make the broth.
- You can also make chicken kalguksu with chicken bones for the broth. In the same way, you can make it vegan by using kelp, mushroom, and radish to make the broth.
Strain the broth to discard the items. Season the broth with garlic, soy sauce for soup, fish sauce, salt and pepper, and hondashi. Taste and adjust the soup accordingly. Letβs get to cooking the noodles!
How to Make Kalguksu?
Once you like the taste of the soup, add in the vegetables and the seafood to cook. These will make the soup tastier!
The last stretch of making Kalguksu is to first boil the noodles in a separate pot just like pasta. While you can cook the noodles in your soup, I prefer this method because there is too much excess scratch in the noodles. Adding that directly to the soup will make it super thick and I donβt like that. This noodle soup should be light and clear!
To assemble, place cooked noodles in a bowl and then add soup, vegetables, and seafood. Garnish with sesame seeds and scallions!
Serving Kalguksu
The best and only pair to this is Fresh Kimchi and Radish Kimchi, nothing more! One slurp of the noodles, then soup, then kimchi, perfect! If you make Kimchi, it makes me think of Kalguksu and vice-versa. Itβs so addictive!
For the spicy counterpart of this seafood noodle soup, check out jjampong! Either way, these dishes are perfect for cold days or when you just need a comforting dish when youβre sick.
Other Korean noodle dishes you might like:
- Black Bean Noodles
- Korean Spicy Cold Noodles
- Korean Glass Noodles
- Acorn Noodle Soup
- Kimchi-Radish Cold Noodle
- Korean Hand Torn Noodle Soup
- Korean Cold Soybean Noodle Soup
Make sure to leave a rating, a comment, or tag me on Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok when you chop them up! Yeobosayo!
Handcut Noodles (Kalguksu)
Ingredients
Dough
- 250 grams Flour
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1 tbsp Oil
- 100 grams Water
Vegetables & Seafood
- 50 grams Onion Julienned
- 25 grams Carrots Julienned
- 50 grams Zucchini Moon-shape sizes
- 75 grams Potato Cut into matchsticks
- 1 pc Korean Chili Pepper Sliced
- 8 pcs Shrimp
- 10 pcs Baby Clam
Soup
- 5 Cups Water
- 1 pc Dried Herring Fish
- 5 pc Dried Anchovies Remove head and guts
- 10 pcs Dried Shrimp
- 2 inch Dried Pollack
- 4 pcs Dried Kelp
- 1 tbsp Garlic Minced
- 1 1/2 tbsp Soup Soy Sauce
- 1 tbsp Fish Sauce
- Salt and Pepper To taste
- Hondashi Optional, To taste
Garnish
- 1 stalk Scallion Chopped
- 1 pc Seaweed Paper Cut into matchsticks
- Sesame Seed
Instructions
Knife-cut Noodles
- Combine flour, salt, oil, and water in a mixing bowl and roughly mix with chopsticks.
- Once crumbly dough forms, transfer to a flat surface and start kneading with your hand.
- Once smooth, roll it into a ball, wrap it with saran wrap, and place it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, remove the dough from the wrap and place it on a flat surface. Flatten the dough and roll until 1/3 of an inch thick. Sprinkle flour as you roll.
- Fold the dough in half about 2 times. Sprinkle flour as you fold.
- Slice noodles about 1/3 of an inch thick to create noodle strands.
- Fluff the noodles and sprinkle flour to separate strands. Cover with a towel and set aside.
Kalguksu Seafood Broth
- In a pot, boil herring, anchovies, shrimp, pollock, and kelp on high heat for 30 minutes. Take out the kelp after 10-15 minutes and bring heat to medium.
- In the process, remove any floating scum from the soup.
- After boiling, strain the soup to remove items and put clear broth back in the pot to boil.
- Season the soup with garlic, soy sauce, fish sauce, hondashi, and salt & pepper. Taste and adjust accordingly.
Final Assembly
- Chop up the vegetables and prepare your seafood.
- Once seafood broth is tasty, add in the vegetables and seafood to cook.
- In a separate pot, boil the knife-cut noodles for 2 minutes. Drain and wash with cold water. Place on a bowl for serving.
- Add the broth, veggies, and seafood into the bowl, and garnish with scallions, seaweed paper, and sesame seeds.
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.