Hello everyone! Here is something else I've been wanting to share as well. The things I cook! Ha ha!
I love cooking. I find it therapeutic. I find great satisfaction in eating something I put a lot of effort in making, and I love seeing people's faces enjoy my food. I turn on my music to a blast, and I go chopping and stirring what not, and voila! Something to enjoy appears on my dining table.
Since I've been to South Korea several times already, I have come to like their foods, and I became curious as to how to prepare and cook them. I started with kimchi, which I will also post later on, then dishes that have kimchi in them, and this time, I tried my hand in cooking japchae.
Here's how I did it and hope you'll try making it one of these days too!
I used:
1/4 kilo of beef, cut into strips
1 pack of sweet potato noodles (500g)
2 pcs of onion leeks, cut into 2 inch strips
4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked and cut into strips as well
3 small carrots, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
2 egg yolks, cut into thin strips
fresh shiitake mushrooms, cut into thin strips
2 handfuls of spinach
2 cloves of garlic, minced finely
1 big white onion, cut into thin slices
salt and black pepper
This is the finished product. It was yummy, if I may say so myself. :-)
This is the beef. I sliced it in strips, and I mixed with with the sliced dried shiitake mushrooms.
The mushrooms have to be soaked for at least 2 hours or until it is soft enough to be cut into thin slices. I just cut the stalks and then sliced it thinly. After slicing it, I mixed it with the beef, added a tablespoon of soy sauce, a dollop of sesame oil, a clove of crushed garlic, and a teaspoon of brown sugar to marinade it.
This is the sweet potato noodles. You can buy this at any Korean store, or at the grocery store of major malls like SM. This pack is half a kilo and is already a lot! Bring a pot of water to a boil, and after blanching the spinach, you can cook the noodles for at least 7 minutes or until the noodles are soft. If you can't find this kind of noodles, you can use the cellophane noodles, also known as vermicelli instead.
Once the noodles are cooked, drain, wash with cold water, drain, and add soy sauce, maybe around 2 tablespoons, and a dollop of sesame oil. Mix it together so the noodles will not stick together. Cut the noodles several times as well as they are quite long. Set aside the noodles for later.
Here are the vegetables that I put, and as you can see, they are all sliced thinly for faster cooking, and of course, so that they look good when mixed together. Put a pot of water to boil, and when it does, blanch the spinach for 30-45 seconds. Scoop them out, wash in cold water, squeeze the extra water out, put it in a big mixing bowl, and add a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil. Set aside.
This is the cooked yolk of two eggs. I separated the egg whites from them and heat a frying pan, added a bit of oil, and once hot, turned off the heat. I wiped off the extra oil, and poured the egg in. The heat of the pan should cook the egg. Flip it, and once fully cooked, take it out, cool it and slice it thinly.
I did the same for the egg whites. If you don't feel like separating the yolk from the whites, that is perfectly fine. Separating them just makes the egg yolk more yellow.
Now we start really cooking. Put a little oil in a frying pan and add the white onions and the onion leeks and cook until the white parts of the onion leeks are withered and soft. Add a pinch of salt while cooking it, and put it in the mixing bowl as well.
Next, add oil to the pan again, and this time stir fry the fresh shiitake mushrooms. You can also use any other type of mushroom you like. Add a pinch of salt, make sure the fire is not too high so as not to burn what you're cooking. Once done, add it in the mixing bowl.
Next to go in the pan are the carrots, and after a minute or so, you can add the bell pepper. Add a pinch of salt as always, and cook until the veggies are soft. Transfer them to the mixing bowl.
And last but not least, let us not forget the beef. Stir fry the meat with the mushrooms until the beef is no longer pink and the mushrooms properly cooked.
Once done, add to the mixing bowl together with the rest of the ingredients. Doesn't it look beautiful? Add the noodles in, and on top of it, add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, a tablespoon of sesame oil, a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a clove garlic minced finely. Add some freshly ground black pepper and start mixing all the ingredients gently. Adjust the taste. If you think it still needs sugar, add some more, so with the soy sauce. The trick is not to add too much so that you can fix it if it needs fixing. :-)
And there you have it! Japchae! You might ask, why bother to cook all the vegetables separately when you're gonna mix them all in the end? The answer is that they all have different cooking times. Simple as that. Well then, I enjoyed cooking, and I definitely enjoyed eating. Happy cooking to you too!
Note: If you are a vegetarian, skip the beef altogether and just use more mushrooms. Pork can also be used for those who don't like beef. You can also add toasted sesame seeds for an added crunch.
Stay tuned for more recipes! For more recipes, go to this page.
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