Japchae is another Korean classic that comes highly recommended, and you could almost say it’s Korea’s answer to pad Thai in terms of how iconic it’s become. Its origins actually go back to the early 17th century, when a court official named Yi Chung created it for King Gwanghaegun, who loved it so much he promoted the guy to a treasury position on the spot. Funny enough, the original version had no noodles at all, since “japchae” literally translates to “mixed vegetables,” and the sweet potato glass noodles we associate with it today weren’t added until the 1910s or 1920s.
While I do genuinely love this meal, I can’t say I’m a fan of those glass noodles, the texture is just kind of weird to me. I personally prefer making it with rice noodles instead, which gives it a different but still satisfying bite.
(Experiment 247) Japchae
Ingredients
- ~200g potato starch noodles
- 1-2 green onions cut in ~1″ long piece
- 125 g shiitake mushrooms cut in strip
- 1 carrot cut in matchstick
- 2 cups of baby spinach
- optional slices of beef
- 1 bell pepper I use half a red and half a yellow sliced thinly
- 1/2 yellow onion sliced thinly
- 4 tbps soy sauce
- 2 tbps sesame oil
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 minced garlic clove
- 1 tbs sesame seeds
Instructions
- The first thing to prepare is the sauce, combine the sesame oil, sugar and soy sauce, stir until there is no sugar left then add the garlic and sesame seeds and give it a final stir, reserve.
- Next, prepare all the ingredients and try to cut everything the same size so you get even cooking. Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch your spinach for 30 seconds. Remove with a slotted spoon and dump into a bowl with cold water to stop the cooking.
- In the same pot with boiling water put your noodle and cook them for 8 minutes or until soft ( check the cooking instruction on your bag as cooking time vary). Strain and put in a large bowl, add about 1/3 of the sauce and stir. Note that you want a large bowl as we will be dumping more cooked ingredients in it.
- It’s time to cook the vegetables, heat up a pan over medium-high heat, add a little bit of oil and add the onion and soften them for about 2 minutes, toss them in the noodle bowl. Add a little bit more oil if needed and stir fry the mushroom for 30 seconds then add the carrots and peppers. Keep cooking for another 90 seconds and also dump into the noodle bowl. Put the green onion in the pan for about 20 seconds and also toss it in the bowl.
- If you opted for meat, stir fry it and transfer it into the bowl.
- Add the remaining sauce into the noodle bowl and mix
