Boolnak Jungol - Nakji & Boolgogi - (불낙 전골)

My hubby actually grilled the boolgogi today while I wasn't home and left just enough over for me to make some boolnak jungol.

Needed:

• 2 1/2 cups anchovy/dashima broth
  
• 1 cup marinaded boolgogi
• 1 nakji (octopus)
• onions (about 1/4 cup)
  
• green onions (about 1/4 cup)
  
• bean sprouts (about 1 cup)
  
• cabbage (about 1 cup)
  
• jjol myun (Korean rice noodles)
• 3 TB red pepper paste
• 2 TB red pepper powder
• 1 TB gook ganjang
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 1 TB sesame oil
• 1/2 TB minced garlic
• 1 TB sugar
  
• dash of pepper
• dash of ginger

First pour 2 1/2cups of water into a pot, throw in some anchovies and dashima and bring to a boil for about 15 minutes.



Grab about a fistful of jjol myun noodles and wash it off once. I always buy the Wang brand of nakji and it comes with 2 octopus.



Defrost the octopus by placing it into a bowl of water. After it's defrosted, cut off about an inch off the bottom of each tentacle and discard. Then cut the rest of it up into about 3 inch pieces.




Make sure you remove the ink pouch and throw it away. You remove the ink pouch basically by sticking your scissors underneath a flap and the head and cutting away (sounds gross, huh?) The meat you save is very minimal on the head and most of it ends up in the trash. If I'm feeling particularly lazy, I'll just throw the head away all together.



After it's all cut up, throw a generous amount of salt in there, rub it around and rinse it clean...



Bring a pot of water to a strong boil and throw all the nakji into it for about a minute. The point is to get some of the excess juice and smell out of the nakji. It doesn't have to cook all the way.



Bring the nakji back to the sink and rinse it under cold water. At this point I stored HALF of it in a container for tomorrow night's dinner (I'm going to make nakji bokeum).



Somewhere along the line, get your vegetables and jjol myun ready. This is onion, green onions, cabbage, and bean sprouts.



Using scissors cut up your boolgogi into more manageable pieces and discard all the excess liquid.



Then get your sauce mixture ready and mix it around really well.

• 3 TB red pepper paste
• 2 TB red pepper powder
• 1 TB gook ganjang
• 1 TB soy sauce
• 1 TB sesame oil
• 1/2 TB minced garlic
• 1 TB sugar
  
• dash of pepper
• dash of ginger

Add everything except the nakji into the anchovy broth (I added the nakji together today and it became TOO well done).



Let it boil until the jjol myun is done cooking (about 15 minutes). I ended up with A LOT of liquid because I used 3 cups of broth today, I think 2.5 cups of water should be perfect. It still tasted great though. =)



Finally, plate and SERVE! The MR LOVED this tonight and was sad that there wasn't any leftovers. Oh well.

Note: If you have any leftovers, add some rice and kimchi and make it into fried rice. YUM!