Lots of chopping = Lots of Japchae

Whenever someone hosts a Korean themed food party, it must require a couple of things: a griddle, meat, tons of side dishes, pickled stuff, and of course K-POP videos blasting in the background to annoy the neighbors. For me I love making Japchae because its easy to make in bulk and can help offset the taste of all that oily meat with something healthier, slightly sweeter.

The part that takes the longest to make this dish is really all the prep that goes into cutting each item. Otherwise the actual tossing of ingredients is very fast. I again decided to combine a couple of recipes and started making this dish in the following order:

1. Seasoning Sauce : I made 3 portions of this letting it settle into the noodles each time and tasting until I thought it was flavored enough. Each portion would fit perfectly in this container that was really great for transporting somewhere without spilling all over the place.

3 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 tablespoon of sesame oil

2. Cooking vegetables: Since I needed to make this at someone else’s place, I decided it was easiest to have it all pre-cut so that I can just quickly toss them together when I got there. Portions can be modified depending on how full of other ingredients you want in with your noodles. Cut up the following:

• 2 tbsp of minced garlic
• 1/4 slice of onion sliced thin (stir fry to brown, maybe a minute)
• 1/2 cup of carrots julienned (this part took the longest for me)
• 1 egg beatened, seasoned lightly with salt, cooked, cooled, and chopped into thin slivers (for garnish)

3. Non-cooking vegetables: These items also need to be cut up but would be thrown in at the end (uncooked)

• 1/2 of a red pepper chopped into small squares that will just be tossed in at the end (I purposely wanted the crispy texture of non-cooked fresh peppers)
• 2 tbsp of chopped cilantro (for garnish)
• a handful of scallions cut into hairs (for garnish)

Make sure to cover both the cooking and non-cooking vegetables with a paper towel to absorb some of the moisture and keep it fresh.

4. Spinach (Sigeumchi Namul): I prepared the spinach next using the same recipe as one would make for this particular banchan. I figured this would give the spinach some flavor on its own

• 1 whole bundle of spinach (wash and extract all moisture using a salad spinner
• Blanch the spinach for less than a minute in boiled water and then rinse under cold water. Extract moisture out of this again using the salad spinner.
• Toss in the seasoning sauce (scallions, garlic, sesame oil, salt, soy sauce, sesame seeds) and put in a separate bowl/container to toss with the noodles at the end.

4. Mushrooms: I needed to make this dish vegetarian for some vegetarian friends this time around so I marinaded mushrooms in the same marinade that I would have used for meat.

1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of soju or cooking wine
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of sesame oil
1 pinch salt
1 pinch pepper

Time to cook!

This dish takes maybe only thirty minutes to cook once all the ingredients are prepped and laid out.

1. Pour the first portion of seasoning sauce in a bowl or pan

2. Boil the noodles for about 7 minutes or until al dente and easily chewable. Scoop out the noodles and toss it in the season sauce to start absorbing the flavor. (Some recipes told me to rinse it under cold water but I actually chose to just take it out as is in order to help warm up the veggies that I didn’t end up cooking.).

3. At this point you might want to use scissors to cut the noodles up a little otherwise you may spend some time trying to slurp up a really long noodle and not enough meats on that griddle!

4. In a separate wok stir fry each thing separately for a few minutes and toss in with the noodles once done:

• mushrooms for a few minutes to soften (no oil needed),
• carrots (lightly sauced with a some drops of sesame oil)
• garlic and onions (no oil needed) lightly browned

5. At this point taste the noodles again and add in a second or third portion of the seasoning sauce to taste.

6. Continue to toss and lay above the following

• Scallion & Cilantro
• Eggs
• Red Peppers
• Sesame Seed

Enjoy and don’t forget to take pictures (as I did).