A while ago I made this post https://www.reddit.com/r/KoreanFood/s/g1obI8NacJ asking what this family recipe is. I found out it’s guksu, and a few of you wanted the recipe. So here it is!
However, this looks a little different than what we made growing up. This is from a family recipe book someone made in the 90s or 2000s. So maybe they adapted it to how they made it in America or my family has two different versions, idk. This is honestly the first time I’ve seen this cookbook, my dad always had it on a scrap piece of paper which is what we always used.
We use rice noodles, not vermicelli. And we had ribboned eggs, green onion, and sesame seeds on top Everything else seems right. But I also think we sautéed the garlic and onion in sesame oil first.
fyi, “Nanar” is my great-great grandmother, who’s the one who raised her kids in Korea because my gg-grandpa was a missionary there. I’ve found out that they lived there in the 1920s, maybe starting in the late 1910s, it’s hard to say.
by erinn25
2 Comments
Okay, I was just asking my dad about this and do you know what he said! His great-grandma and great-aunt brought back stuff from Korea and had it in their house when my dad and his sister were kids. Hanbok, fans, onggi, a whole bunch of stuff. So when they were growing up they would go to their house and dress up in hanbok and listen to their stories and all that sort of thing. And the room they had it in was themed in traditional Korean decor (I think that’s what my dad was saying but he can’t remember any details). I guess when they died, that stuff was divided up between the grandchildren, because I’ve never seen any of that. But apparently my grandma has some of it but never thought to share it with us 😠 lol. I just thought that was neat!!
I love that this has been passed down through your family from generation-to-generation. What a beautiful tradition.
The flavor profile here is common in many different Korean dishes. You could replace the ground beef with flank steak and turn this into tteok guk: [https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tteokguk](https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tteokguk)
You might also enjoy galbi tang: [https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/galbitang](https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/galbitang)