Japchae the welcoming dish in Korea
Who doesn’t like Japchae? Especially when you are Korean? Japchae is everyone’s favorite food in Korea. It is sometimes served as a side dish at cheap restaurants. But mostly, Japchae is a fancy side dish that Koreans eat on special occasions like New Year’s Day, Chuseok, or birthdays. It is one of the first foods that foreigners think of when they think of Korean food such as bibimbap or Bulgogi because it has a salty and sweet taste with the chewy texture of glass noodles and the harmony of vegetables, meat, and seasoning. Here is ultimate guide the Japchae.
Japchae has no set ingredients. You can make it colorful, but it doesn’t matter if you use just one vegetable. It is variable depending on personal taste, so it is the flexible dish. That’s why there are various names for Japchae—for example, Mushroom Japchae, Burdock Japchae, Leek Japchae, Pepper Japchae, etc. However, I would like to introduce you to the most standard form of Japchae in this article.
What are the key ingredients of Japchae?
Japchae is a kind of noodle dish in which glass noodles (in Korean Dang-myun) are the main ingredient. It is a dish in which carrots, onions, meat, wood ear mushrooms, spinach, etc. are stir-fried in oil and then boiled glass noodles stir-fried with soy sauce. In the end, add sesame oil and mix to complete.
The glass noodles used in Japchae are noodles made from sweet potato starch and turn transparent after cooking. It is a commonly used ingredient in Asian regions such as China, Thailand, and Japan. This noodle is very dried, to be hard as a stone before being cooked. That’s why boiling them soft chewy is the most important basis for cooking Japchae. I personally found out the most perfect noodle boiling time while cooking them. I will introduce you to the recipe at the end of this article.
And the colors of the vegetables are gorgeous. However, the harmony of nutrition is as good as the harmony of color. The completed Japchae before serving looks pretty beautiful. The colors mainly contain red, yellow, green, white, and black.
For the red ingredients, carrots and red paprika are used, for yellow, yellow paprika or thinly pan-fried egg yolk used, and for green, spinach, chives, pumpkin, cucumber, etc. are used. For the white color, you can use onions, bean sprouts, and thinly pan-fried egg whites. And You can use dried mushrooms or meat marinated in soy sauce for black color.
Japchae is difficult to make because the vegetables must be sliced thinly and long enough to be grasped with chopsticks. In addition, the sliced vegetables should be stir-fried separately for each ingredient. Then, add boiled glass noodles, stir-fried vegetables, meat, and mushrooms, and mix with soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil seasoning.
Lastly, sprinkle with savory sesame seeds to finish. The process of preparing vegetables is food that requires a lot of sincerity. So, even in Korea, it is a dish made for special occasions such as birthday parties and holidays when the whole family gathers.
It was one of the most popular menus among foreigners in seasons 1 and 2 of Yoon’s Restaurant, which aired for several years. If you introduce how to make Japchae comfortably, Koreans are very interested. The method of making Japchae, which is made by putting all the ingredients in one pan at once, was very popular at one time.
Recipe of Japchae (The most standard way)
Ingredients (For 2-3 people)
Glass noodles : 100g
Carrot 1/2
Yellow Paprika 1/2
Onion 1/2
Spinach 120g
Meet (Beef, pork or chicken – Anykind possible) 120g
Seasoning
Meat seasoning: 2T soy sauce, 1T sugar, 1T minced garlic, a little bit of pepper
Noodle seasoning: The ratio is soy sauce: sugar 2:1
Based on 100g of noodles, 6T soy sauce, 3T sugar
Mix the seasoning and dissolve the sugar.
Sesame oil, Sesame
How to make
- Cut the meat into thin and long pieces, season it, and let it sit for about 30 minutes. (5 mm thickness, 4-5 cm long)
- Thinly slice the Carrots, onions and yellow paprika and cut them into long pieces.
- Blanch the spinach in boiling water and rinse in cold water. Squeeze out the water with both hands, add a pinch of salt, and loosen the spinach.
- Season each ingredient with a little salt and pepper.
- After heating the frying pan, add 1T of oil and stir-fry the Carrot, yellow paprika, onion and meet (Stir-fry the meat last) separately.
- Boil the water for noodles. When the water boils, add the glass noodles and boil for 11 minutes.
- When the glass noodles are cooked, taste them and if the texture is firm, boil them for another 1–2 minutes.
- Drain the water and slightly rinse in cold water. (If there is a lot of water remained in the glass noodles, the seasoning will not permeate, so please do not soak the noodles in water for a long time.)
- When noodle is hot, cool it down until the steam disappears. Mix the seasoning with the noodles. Please be aware. After the noodle cools down, it is very sticky and sticks to your hands. Only after mixing the seasoning, your hand will be safe.
- Add all the stir-fried ingredients to the noodles and mix them evenly. Then the last touch. Please add 3T of sesame oil and 3T of sesame seeds and mix well one more time.
