Bibim-mandu (비빔만두, Spicy Mixed Dumplings)

Bibim-mandu is not a plate of dumplings drowned in red sauce. The dumplings stay crisp, the vegetables stay cold, and the dressing touches them just enough to make the cabbage wake up. This is Daegu market food: flat mandu, 납작만두 (thin dumplings), fried until the edges blister, then eaten with shredded vegetables that have the bright, sweet-tart bite of bibim-guksu without the noodles.

The dish asks for order, not difficulty. Cut the vegetables first and keep them cold. Mix the sauce by measure, then let it sit so the gochugaru softens. Fry the mandu last. If you reverse that, the dumplings wait and turn limp while your cabbage throws water into the bowl.

My teacher would have called this humble, then made you cut the cabbage again. She was right. A street plate still deserves a record. Notebook 61 says 300 grams cabbage to 3 tablespoons gochujang, because more sauce turns a bright plate into red paste. 손맛 (hand-taste) is real. I measure it anyway, so it can be handed on.