Name: Golbaengi-muchim (Spicy Whelk Salad with Somyeon)
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 3 servings
Cuisine: Korean
Ingredients: 400 g canned whelks; 1 cucumber; 0.5 onion; 0.3 carrot; 10 perilla leaves; 0.5 stalk spring onion; 2 green chillies; 1 tsp salt; 3 tbsp gochujang; 2 tbsp gochugaru; 3 tbsp vinegar; 1 tbsp sugar; 1 tbsp oligosaccharide syrup; 1 tbsp soy sauce; 1 tbsp minced garlic; 1 tbsp sesame oil; 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds; 200 g somyeon; 1 tsp sesame oil

Ingredients

3servings

Salad (serves 2–3)
canned whelks · drained weight; discard the brine and drain thoroughly in a sieve400 g
cucumber · sliced on the diagonal, salted and squeezed dry1
onion · thinly sliced, soaked 5 minutes in cold water and drained0.5
carrot · finely julienned0.3
perilla leaves · roughly cut, added last10
spring onion · white part shredded and rinsed in cold water0.5 stalk
green chillies · sliced diagonally, to set the heat2
salt · for salting the cucumber1 tsp
Dressing
gochujang3 tbsp
gochugaru · fine grind, for the colour2 tbsp
vinegar · goes in last3 tbsp
sugar1 tbsp
oligosaccharide syrup · or corn syrup; it gives the dressing body1 tbsp
soy sauce1 tbsp
minced garlic1 tbsp
sesame oil1 tbsp
toasted sesame seeds1 tbsp
Noodles
somyeon · thin wheat noodles200 g
sesame oil · tossed through the cooked noodles so they do not stick1 tsp

Steps

Slice the cucumber on the diagonal, toss with a teaspoon of salt and leave 20 minutes. Pour off the water and squeeze it dry by hand. Skip this and there will be liquid pooling on the plate ten minutes after you toss it.
⏲ 20 min
Soak the sliced onion in cold water for 5 minutes and drain; rinse the shredded spring onion white in cold water too. It takes the harshness out and lets the dressing come forward.
⏲ 5 min
Discard the canning brine, rinse the whelks briefly once and drain them completely in a sieve — better still, press them dry with kitchen paper. Halve the large ones lengthways so the dressing reaches inside the coil, and pull off the dark tip.
Make the dressing: mix the gochujang, gochugaru, sugar, syrup, soy sauce and garlic into a thick paste first, and add the vinegar last. Vinegar in early swells the gochugaru, which dulls the colour and slackens the dressing.
Taste the dressing. You want heat first, then sourness, with the sweetness holding the two together. Get the seasoning right here — once the vegetables are in, water keeps coming out and the flavour keeps thinning.
Cook the somyeon as the packet says (usually 3-4 minutes) and rinse it three times in cold water to wash off the surface starch, or it goes slack. Shake it dry, toss with a teaspoon of sesame oil and coil it into bite-sized nests.
⏲ 4 min
Put the whelks, cucumber, onion, carrot, spring onion and chillies in a big bowl, add only about 70% of the dressing and fold from the bottom 10 to 15 times. Rubbing it hard pulls more water out of the vegetables. Add the rest to taste.
Add the perilla leaves at the very end and fold two or three times only. Added earlier they wilt and lose their scent.
Plate the salad with the noodle nests beside it, not mixed in — mixed, the noodles drink all the dressing, the salad loses its sauce and the noodles go slack. Spoon a tablespoon of the reserved dressing over the noodles separately. Eat it straight after tossing.

Variations

With squid or conch: blanched squid or conch mixed half and half stretches it and varies the texture. Cool it completely and drain it before it goes in.
With water dropwort: blanched minari instead of cucumber, common in spring, and the aroma comes much further forward.
Cabbage base: finely shredded cabbage, salted, when there is no cucumber. It gives up less water than cucumber and is easier to handle.
Other noodles: jjolmyeon or medium wheat noodles work, but thicker noodles drink more dressing, so put a little extra on them.

More detail and the reasons why (2)

Fresh whelks: boil live whelks 5 minutes in salted water and pick them out of the shells. Much firmer and cleaner-tasting than canned, but the guts and the salivary glands near the head have to be removed (in some whelk species the glands carry a toxin, tetramine) and the water is harder to manage.
Milder: drop the gochujang to 1 tbsp and raise the gochugaru to 3 tbsp — the colour holds and only the heat comes down. Leaving the gochujang and just adding sugar makes it cloying rather than milder.

Tips

Vinegar goes in last. Gochugaru that soaks up vinegar swells, which dulls the colour and wrecks the body of the dressing. Build the thick paste first and finish with the vinegar.
Perilla last, two or three folds. Earlier and it wilts and the scent goes. Same reason kongnamul-muchim takes its sesame oil at the end: whatever carries the aroma goes in last.
Toss with your hands. Easier to control than tongs, and since the aim is not to rub hard, hands win.

More detail and the reasons why (7)

Water is the whole dish. Once liquid out of the whelks, cucumber and onion has thinned the dressing, adding more gochujang does not bring it back. Salt and squeeze the cucumber, drain the whelks completely, and toss at the last moment.
Salting the cucumber is osmosis done in advance. You are making the salt pull water out of the cells in a bowl rather than on the plate (salt and seasoning). It is the same phenomenon that makes poke get dressed at the last second, handled the opposite way round: poke avoids the time, this dish spends it up front.
Finish the seasoning at the dressing stage. Aim for heat, then sourness, then sweetness holding both. After tossing, water keeps coming out and it keeps thinning, so adding gochujang then is damage control (balancing flavour).
Noodles on the side. Mixed in, somyeon absorbs all the dressing: the salad loses its sauce and the noodles go slack. Restaurants putting the noodles beside it are not being generous, they are being structural.
Rinse the somyeon three times in cold water to wash the surface starch off, or it sticks and sags (cooking noodles). Same handling as bibim-guksu, and the same gochujang-and-vinegar family of dressing — the difference is that there the noodles are the point and get mixed, here they are the companion and stay separate.
Leftovers make their own liquid. If you know you will keep some, dress only half and hold the rest of the sauce back. If it has already gone watery, pour the liquid off and stir a little more dressing through.
The canned version is the original. There is no need to read this dish as a compromise: it settled into its current form as drinking food after canned whelks became widely available, and the old bars use cans too. Here the can is not a substitute, it is the ingredient.

The basics behind this dish

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