Cold Buckwheat NoodlesMul Naengmyeon

Naengmyeon has a reputation as a summer dish, but in Pyongyang-style restaurants across Seoul it's eaten year-round, sometimes in winter, sometimes right after galbi. My father always ordered it at the end of a big meal — he said cold buckwheat noodles settled the stomach after eating too much grilled beef.

The broth is the whole point. Chilled, lightly sweet, tangy from vinegar, with that specific buckwheat flavor from the noodles. The recipe is direct about temperature: the broth must be ice-cold. Not cool. Ice-cold. Some people add a ladle of half-frozen broth or ice cubes directly in the bowl.

I made naengmyeon for the first time abroad in an apartment in Melbourne during an Australian summer — about thirty-eight degrees outside, which felt appropriate. I put the beef broth in the freezer to chill while I cooked the noodles. The critical step is the rinse: after boiling for thirty to sixty seconds, you drain the noodles and run cold water over them until they're completely chilled. Then drain well. They should feel almost cold to the touch before they go in the bowl.

An Irish friend named Ciarán came over for lunch that day. He was skeptical about a cold noodle soup — he kept asking if I had an alternative in case he didn't like it. He liked it. He said the broth was cleaner than any soup he'd had, which is probably the best description of naengmyeon I've heard.

The mustard on the side is optional by the recipe but recommended by tradition. You swirl a small amount into the broth tableside for a sharp herbal kick. The scissors the restaurant brings to cut the noodles are also traditional — the buckwheat noodles are long and elastic and unwieldy if you don't cut them.

Make the broth extra cold. That's the whole secret.