Korean recipes:
Oi naengguk (cold cucumber soup side dish)
Oi naengguk is another simple but popular Korean side dish, perfect for summer. I have made so many different kinds of naengguk (cold soup) using different vegetables, but this is my most favorite recipe. The seasoning in this recipe could be changed a little according to your taste, more sugar if you like it sweeter, or more chili peppers if you like it spicier.
Oi naengguk (오이 냉국)
Ingredients: Cucumber, garlic, green chili pepper, red hot chili pepper, green onion , 1½ tbs vinegar, 1 ts salt, 1 ts fish sauce, 1 ts sugar, 1½ cup of cold water (purified or boiled and cooled down), and 6 ice cubes.
- Get a bowl ready, one that can hold more than 2 cups. One that is made of glass looks the best.
- Put about 1¼ cups of cucumber, cut into thin strips (julienne style), into the bowl.
- Mince one clove of garlic, chop up half a green onion, and cut up 1 or 2 ts worth of green chili pepper (depending on how hot you like it). Add them to the cucumber strips in the bowl.
- Add 1 ts of salt, 1 ts of fish sauce, 1 ½ tbs of vinegar, 1 ts of sugar to the bowl and mix it well with a spoon.
- Pour 1½ cup of cold water (purified or boiled and cooled down) to the bowl and mix it.
- Add 6 ice cubes.
- Cut some red hot chili pepper to garnish and sprinkle on the top of the soup.
- Serve it with rice.
You can also make naengguk with miyuk (sea plant), or egg plant, instead of cucumber. Or you can make it with mi yuk (sea plant) together with cucumber, too. You can try some different combinations to see what you like the best.
My best friend’s mother–in-law had major surgery that caused her to stay at the hospital for months. When she got out of the hospital, my friend asked, “Mom, what do you feel like eating now that you can eat any food that you want? I would like to make your favorite food, something you couldn’t eat for months!”
The mother-in-law said, “I don’t have any food that I feel like at the moment except for oi naengguk”. My friend expected her mother–in-law to say that she wanted some expensive gourmet food, but all she wanted was simple “oi naengguk”!
After meeting my friend on the day, what do you think I did when I came back home? Haha, I made a huge bowl of oi naengguk and enjoyed it, thinking about the mother-in-law. Whenever I eat oi naengguk, it reminds me of my friend’s mother-in-law.
Yes, we don’t always have to have expensive luxurious gourmet food, sometimes very humble food makes our lives happy.
Thats soo true!
August 5th, 2008 at 4:17 amAs long as it is made with fresh, good quality ingredients and proper cooking methods, it is gourmet food to me! And most of all, made with love!!!
August 10th, 2008 at 12:12 pmI made this in a bad mood today - and now I’m in a good mood! Unfortunately, I was in a pinch. I had to substitute the hot red pepper with red pepper flakes and the green pepper with a couple of chopped green olives. It ended up tasting like olives ^_^ Not bad, overall~~ At least it looked okay!
…and no one can tell now that I’ve ate it all *ha!ha!*
I promise I’ll try this with eggplant some time.
August 20th, 2008 at 11:13 pmEn,
August 20th, 2008 at 11:39 pmAs long as you emptied it all, who would care! : ) But next time you should try to follow the recipe exactly.
You will see the difference.
I will definitely get the right peppers next time. Thanks for the recipe, Maangchi!
August 21st, 2008 at 3:38 pmI just made some and ate it.. I used following this recipe. I left over cucember from a salad I made that I didn’t use. I feel like I have energy from eating it lol My only thing s I forgot to put salt. But it was good! had some thai chili peppers so I used those in the soup too.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pmhaha, you got some engergy! : )
August 21st, 2008 at 10:36 pmWow, will try this next time :D Sounds like a low-cal dish, haha. Maangchi, could you recommend me some low-cal dishes I could cook during a diet? I just got interested in Korean cooking, but I really need to lose some weight -_- 제발요~
August 24th, 2008 at 4:38 amCloud,
August 24th, 2008 at 7:32 amYou remind me of one of my blog readers. She said she has changed her diet to Korean food since she found my cooking videos on the internet and lost 75 pounds! I didn’t ask her weight though. : ) Anyway, you asked me to recommend healthy and low cal dish. Why don’t you make seaplant soup (miyuk guk in Korean ) My mother loves the soup. She makes it at least twice a week!
Maangchi,
This reminds me of my moms cooking, there’s a thai salad called ” Som tum taeng” using cucumbers it’s the same way to make “oi neanggkok” but you shred the cucumbers and don’t add water or ice cubes.
August 30th, 2008 at 1:12 pmJennifer,
August 30th, 2008 at 1:18 pmoh, interesting! yeah, we always see similar food between different cultures. Thanks!
Hi, thanks for the recipe, but can i use a white vinegar or just an apple vinegar?
October 25th, 2008 at 8:52 pmAllo allo Myla!
October 25th, 2008 at 8:54 pmYou can use either white vinegar or apple vinegar. I love the flavor of apple vinegar.
thank you very and god bless u ;)
October 25th, 2008 at 9:30 pmHi Maangchi! I love your website!!
I’m just wondering if you knew the recipe for making a side dish that I see a lot in Korean restaurants. The side dish is cucumbers and it’s sweet and also has red spicy sauce. I think it’s with vinegar and sugar. I keep trying to find the recipe online but I only find the recipe for KIMCHI CUCUMBER, which is NOT the same.
Also, I love the fishcake that they often serve with the above mentioned side dish. Do you have any recipes for those? Thank you!!! keep up the great work!
November 9th, 2008 at 3:59 pmtha,
oh, the cucumber side dish you had is very easy to make.
Slice English cucumber thinly and sprinkle some salt. Remove water from the salted cucumber 10 minutes later and squeeze it slightly. In a bowl, put some minced garlic, hot pepper paste and powder, vinegar, sugar and mix it. Then add the sliced cucumber to the bowl and mix it. Sprinkle some sesame seeds and sesame oil.
My cucumber side dish doesn’t use vinegar. I will post the recipe someday later.
The recipe for fish cake side dish will be posted later, too.
Thanks a lot!
November 9th, 2008 at 5:27 pmWow Maangchi, thanks so much for the quick reply. I can’t wait till you post your versions of those recipes!!!
November 9th, 2008 at 9:51 pmHi Maangchi! I love to see your cooking videos. You make korean cooking very easy for me^^, At first, I thought preparing korean dish is quite difficult but it’s not. Thanks to you^^,
November 21st, 2008 at 8:58 pmbdw, I wonder how would I prepare the eggplant for naengguk. Do I have to boil the eggplant and add it to naengguk or it’s just fresh eggplant?
Again, congratulations for a job well done Maangchi!^^,
sweetmilky,
November 21st, 2008 at 11:42 pmYes, you should steam it.
Just wanted to say thank you for the excellent recipes!!!
I know it’s winter now, but it was a sunny warm day today, and I was doing some gardening. I made this soup, because I needed something refreshing and spicy to pick me up! I added extra red chilly flakes, and it was good!!!
Keep up the good work Maangchi! Kisses from sunny Athens/Greece!
November 26th, 2008 at 6:27 amanny from Athens,
adding extra chilly flakes sounds good! : )
November 26th, 2008 at 7:43 amHi Maangchi I just wanted to let you know that I tried this recipe for the first time today and it was delicious the recipe calls for two servings but I found myself eating the whole thing hehe. The flavour reminded me of vietnamese cuisine. I love all your recipes and your videos. Korean food has always been fascinating to me and thanks to your help I can now cook korean right at home for my family! Thanks Maangchi :)
December 11th, 2008 at 2:18 amThis recipe is a masterpiece, and I can understand the woman! Thanks a lot for sharing. This is Quick, Easy and OH SO GOOD! I combined it with warm sake to create an interesting temperature difference.
December 13th, 2008 at 4:38 pmTracy,
haha, nice! Actually you can put some cooked noodles and eat it as cold noodles.
Pasi,
December 13th, 2008 at 8:09 pmThank you for your nice comment.