When we dine in asian restaurants, GT and i seem to have a pretty standard repertoire of dishes we order depending on the type of cuisine we’re having. With Chinese food, it’s usually Cantonese roast duck and crispy roast pork in all their glistering glory- utterly sinful i know but totally worth the extra workout or the week’s worth of salads and soup. We tend to go with an array of beautifully plated sashimis and sushis when we have Japanese and find ourselves either horribly disappointed or swooning with delight, with a significantly lighter wallet after which both ways. With Korean however, we never quite knew what to order, always randomly picking at anything that struck our fancy. That is, until we discovered Jap Chae.
This dish, made up of a mixture of vegetables, sliced beef and sweet potato starch vermicelli, was first introduced to us by my little sister at a Korean restaurant we frequent in Melbourne. Our initial skeptic at how tasty a simple noodle dish could be was completely forgotten with our first mouthful. Despite the fact that it was saccharinely sweet and was coated in enough sesame oil to clog up our arteries, it was all our tastebuds knew of japchae and loved.
So when i saw this recipe in a magazine as part of a Korean special spread they were doing, i jumped at the chance to recreate the dish at home.
I have to admit that given how vastly the recipe differed from GT’s Korean friend’s method- she includes corn syrup and puts everything into a rice cooker- i had my reservations about how it would turn out. But well, there was nothing to lose anyway and if the success of the kimchee stew (also from the same magazine) was anything to go by, i had nothing to worry about.
The hardest part of making this dish for me was all the chopping of the vegetables. I’m quite adept at roughly chopping ingredients and actually like it- it makes me feel quite competent but cutting vegetables into strips? Pfft. That required patience and care, both of which i sorely lack, which almost resulted in a few sliced fingers. I was also a little paranoid with the noodles as overcooking it would have resulted in a rather mushy dish. After about five minutes of sitting in boiling water, the noodles were a greyish tinge with just a bit of bite which i think was what i was supposed to be looking for. All that aside, it was just chucking stuff into the pan and frying, more chucking and frying- easy peasy.
The dish turned out amazingly well. Just slightly on the sweet side with a subtle nutty flavour and fragrant from the sesame oil, it was really fresh tasting and tasty. GT preferred it a little sweeter- something that can be fixed with a bit more mirin- but i loved it the way it was. I would even go as far as to say i liked it more than the original version we first fell in loved with.
So i guess it’s time to look for a new Korean ’staple’.
Japchae (Korean Noodles with Beef and Mixed Vegetables) [adapted from Singapore Women's Weekly June '08 issue]
Ingredients
150g beef rump*, thinly sliced
4 large handfuls of sweet potato starch vermicelli**
3 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, cut into strips
1/2 carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips
1/2 green capsicum, seeded and cut into strips
1/2 cup water
8 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water, stems removed, thinly sliced and squeezed dry
1 tbsp mirin***
Marinade
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp spring onion, finely chopped
Half a garlic head, finely chopped
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp Shaoxing cooking wine
- Combine all ingredients for marinade with beef slices in a small bowl, stirring it a little to make sure marinate coats beef well. Cover and put in the fridge for at least half an hour.
- Cook vermicelli in a pot of boiling water till soft, about 4 to 5 minutes. Drain noodles, rinsing well with cold water before tossing in soy sauce and sesame oil. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, snip noodles strands several times and set aside.
- Heat 1 tbsp of vegetable oil in a large frying pan. Add beef with its marinade and stir fry for 5 minutes or till beef slices are cooked. Remove beef from frying pan, snip slices into bite size pieces and set aside.
- Heat remaining tbsp of vegetable oil in the same pan. Add onions and fry till onions are soft and fragrant. Add mushrooms and carrots, mixing well. Add the water in and stir fry till carrots begin to soften. Add mirin and the capsicums and keep frying till capsicums begin to soften as well. Turn heat off and add beef slices and noodles back to the pan, mixing well. Serve hot, cold or in between. Serves 2 with leftovers
*Beef rump was suggested by the butcher. As it contains quite a moderate amount of fat and is pretty tender, it worked pretty well in the stir fry. But i suppose you could use any other cut like flank steak that isn’t too lean
**Also known as dangmyeon, this Korean glass noodles comes in a huge packet and can usually be found in Asian supermarkets
***Add more mirin if you prefer the dish sweeter
