Japchae

Sweet potato starch noodles dressed in soy and sesame while still hot, with every vegetable cooked separately and folded in cold.

Vegan. Vegetarian only if you leave out the optional beef.

Ingredients

For the noodles

• 250 g sweet potato starch noodles
• 4 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil

The vegetables, cooked separately

• 200 g spinach
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 carrot, in matchsticks
• 150 g shiitake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 red pepper, in strips
• 200 g beef sirloin, in strips, optional
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• oil, salt, toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. THE NOODLES ARE DRESSED IN THE SESAME AND SOY WHILE THEY ARE STILL HOT. Straight from the water, drained, and into the dressing in the pan. Hot starch noodles drink it; cold ones have set and the dressing sits on the outside, so the dish tastes of soy on the surface and of nothing in the middle. It also stops them gluing into a single mass, which they will do within two minutes of draining.
2. THEY ARE CUT WITH SCISSORS AFTER DRESSING. Sweet potato noodles come absurdly long and are impossible to eat whole. Two or three cuts through the pan with kitchen scissors.
3. EVERY VEGETABLE IS COOKED SEPARATELY AND FOLDED IN COOLED, which is the same discipline as the bibimbap on this site and for the same reason -- each one wants a different time and a different seasoning, and together they steam into one texture. Spinach blanched and squeezed; onion, carrot, pepper and mushroom fried fast, one after another, in the same pan.
4. AND THE NOODLES MUST NOT BE OVERCOOKED. Six minutes at a rolling boil and no more, then tasted: they should be springy and slightly resistant. Past that they turn slippery and break up when folded, and there is no recovering the texture.
5. IT IS SERVED AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, which is worth saying because it looks like a stir-fry. Warm or cold is fine; piping hot it is greasy.
6. Spinach blanched 30 seconds, refreshed, SQUEEZED DRY, and tossed with a little sesame oil and salt.
7. Each other vegetable fried separately over a high heat with a drop of oil and a pinch of salt -- onion 2 minutes, carrot 2, pepper 2, mushrooms 4 with the garlic. Each tipped onto a plate to cool.
8. Beef, if using, fried last with a splash of soy.
9. Noodles boiled 6 MINUTES at a rolling boil, tasted, and drained.
10. The soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil warmed in the empty pan, and the HOT drained noodles tipped straight in and tossed until they have taken all of it up and gone glossy dark.
11. Cut 2 or 3 times with scissors.
12. Taken off the heat and left to cool to warm.
13. All the vegetables and the beef folded through with the hands, which separates the noodles better than a spoon.
14. Tasted and adjusted with a little more soy or sesame oil. Sesame seeds over, and served warm or at room temperature.

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