Bokkeum-udong (Stir-fried Udon) · Paik Jong-won

Julienne the onion and carrot. Slice the green onion and the jjokpa into thin rounds, keeping them separate.

Cut the cabbage into bite-size pieces about 1 cm thick.

Make the anchovy powder: remove the guts from the smoked anchovies, toast them in a dry pan over medium heat until brittle and fragrant, then blitz them in a blender.

💡 Dry pan — no oil. You are driving off the last moisture so the anchovies shatter in the blender instead of smearing into paste. This powder is what gives the dish the savoury hit of a snack-bar version.

Put the oil and the green onion into the pan together and let them heat up, then add the pork once the oil is hot and fragrant.

💡 Scallion into cold oil, heating together — this is 파기름, scallion oil. Given a slow start the daepa perfumes the whole pan; thrown into already-smoking oil it just scorches.

Fry the pork over medium-high heat until golden and cooked through — about 2–3 minutes.

Add the onion, carrot and cabbage and stir-fry until the onion turns glassy and the cabbage has just wilted but still snaps — about 2–3 minutes.

Mix the jin-ganjang, brown sugar, vinegar and water together in a bowl to make the sauce.

Push the vegetables aside, set the udon block in the middle of the pan, pour the sauce around the rim — not over the noodles — and let it simmer over medium heat.

💡 The noodles are never boiled in a separate pot — they arrive pre-cooked and are steamed loose right here. Sauce around the rim hits hot metal and turns to steam that works under the block; poured straight on top it would just wash the seasoning off and leave the middle cold and stuck.

As the noodles loosen, tease them apart gently with chopsticks or tongs — about 1–2 minutes.

💡 Gently. Udon is soft and pre-cooked; digging at a still-cold block snaps the strands into stubs. Give the steam a few more seconds and they separate on their own.

Once the noodles are fully separated, turn the heat to high and stir-fry hard for 1–2 minutes, tossing, until the sauce has cooked away and the noodles look glossy and start to catch on the pan.

💡 Do not skip this high-heat finish. Everything up to now was steaming, which leaves the noodles wet and pale — this last blast is what gives them the faint scorch and gloss of the version you buy.

Turn it onto a plate, dust generously with the smoked anchovy powder and scatter over the jjokpa.

Serve straight away with a dollop of mayonnaise on the side to dip.