Jajangmyeon

Wheat noodles under a black bean sauce whose paste is fried in oil for a full five minutes before anything else happens.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons chunjang, black bean paste
• 5 tablespoons oil
• 400 g pork belly, in 1 cm dice
• 3 large onions, diced
• 1 courgette, diced
• 1 potato, diced small
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 400 ml water or stock
• 2 tablespoons potato starch mixed with 4 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 600 g fresh thick wheat noodles
• cucumber matchsticks and pickled radish, to serve

Method

1. THE BLACK BEAN PASTE IS FRIED IN OIL FOR A FULL FIVE MINUTES FIRST, on its own, before anything else goes in the pan. Chunjang out of the tub is harshly bitter and faintly raw; five minutes in a generous amount of oil over a medium heat turns it glossy, sweeter and deeply savoury. Stirred into the dish unfried -- which is what happens if you treat it like any other paste -- the bitterness stays, and no amount of sugar covers it. This is the whole difficulty of the dish and it is five minutes long.
2. IT NEEDS MORE OIL THAN LOOKS REASONABLE. Five tablespoons for six of paste. The oil is the medium that carries it through the sauce, and a dry fry scorches it instead, which is bitter in a different and worse way.
3. AND IT IS FRIED SEPARATELY AND THEN ADDED, or in a cleared space in the pan. Frying it among the onions means the onions burn before the paste is ready.
4. THE ONIONS ARE THE BULK AND THEY GO IN SWEET. Three large ones, cooked until soft and translucent -- they, not the sugar, are where the sweetness that balances the paste comes from.
5. THE SAUCE IS THICKENED WITH STARCH AT THE END, to the point where it coats the noodles rather than running off them. Added too early it catches on the base of the pan.
6. THE NOODLES ARE COOKED AT THE LAST MOMENT AND RINSED. Hot fresh noodles carry surface starch that makes the sauce slide; a quick rinse in hot water and a shake dry fixes it.
7. Pork fried in 1 tablespoon of the oil over a medium-high heat 5 minutes until the fat runs.
8. The onions, courgette and potato added with the sugar and cooked 8 minutes until the onion is soft.
9. The vegetables and pork pushed to one side, or tipped out onto a plate.
10. THE REMAINING 4 TABLESPOONS OF OIL into the pan with the chunjang, and FRIED 5 MINUTES over a medium heat, stirred constantly, until glossy and fragrant.
11. Everything combined, the water added, and simmered 10 minutes.
12. The starch slurry stirred in and cooked 1 minute until the sauce coats a spoon thickly. The sesame oil off the heat.
13. Noodles boiled until just tender, drained and rinsed briefly in hot water.
14. Divided between bowls, the sauce ladled over the middle, and the cucumber laid on top with pickled radish alongside. Mixed hard at the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes