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Japchae

4/17/2020

Japchae is a sweet and savory Korean vermicelli noodle dish made with sweet potato starch. The noodles are usually cooked with an assortment of vegetables and served as a side dish or as an entree. Did you know, in both Korean and Chinese, the term japchae 잡채; 雜菜means mixed vegetables. As a linguaphile, I always find it so interesting to see commonalities between vastly different languages, especially that of Chinese words, phrases and their similar meanings in Korean and Japanese. Like when I found out the word for library in Japanese was toshokan 図書館, which sounds like the Chinese equivalent for tu su guan圖書館, and then in Korean it is also doseogwan 도서관! So cool!! Anyhow, moving on...

This is an easy recipe that everyone in my family enjoys. It's not oily or greasy, and packs lots of healthy veggies. Japchae has a sweet and savory profile, making it palatable for kids and seniors alike. My grandmother who is notoriously picky about all foods other than her own, also enjoys japchae! The sweetness not only comes from the sugar and soy sauce, but also from the natural sweetness of the carrots. Some japchae dishes include protein like sliced beef or chicken, but today's recipe is mainly vegetarian. Feel free to add protein as you like!

This dish is quick to pull together with a little prep for the veggies and boiling the sweet potato noodles (dangmyeon). You can buy this noodle at your local Asian supermarket or Korean market.

I used dried shiitake mushrooms and re-hydrated them, saving the mushroom broth to use when cooking the japchae instead of water. I would much rather use dried shiitakes and re-hydrate them instead of using fresh shiitakes because there is a depth of flavor from the drying process that concentrates the mushroom flavor to a whole different level of umami. Like a dry-aged steak, the flavors of the aged beef are more pronounced and richer when dried than a fresh cut. Also, the mushroom broth that comes out of rehydrating is great for cooking and replacing vegetable stock in recipes.

When I boil the noodles, I also cook the veggies at the same time, starting with the carrots. Then the garlic and mushrooms go in, and lastly the spinach. From there, the noodles are tossed in and the sauce joins the party!

With a sprinkling of sesame seeds and fresh chopped scallions, the dish is complete and ready to eat. Enjoy as a meal by itself, or cook it as a side dish to eat with Korean bbq at home--grill up some meat, serve with fresh lettuce leaves, kimchi, potato salad..the list goes on. I am seriously missing Kbbq right now. 😞

INGREDIENTS:

5 shiitake mushrooms
1/4 large carrot
1/2 medium onion
2 cups spinach leaves
1 bundle japchae sweet potato vermicelli noodles (daengmyeon)
1 cup shiitake mushroom broth
2 tsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp lite soy sauce
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
sesame seeds (garnish, optional)

Protein (optional)

3 boneless, skinless chicken thigh or 1/4 lb flank steak, sliced

DIRECTIONS:

Boil 1 bunch of daengmyeon sweet potato vermicelli noodles in a pot according to package instructions. The noodles are done when it is soft and it is clear all through the center of the noodle. When ready, pour noodles into a strainer and set aside.
Heat a frying pan or wok with 2 tsp olive oil to the pan. Cook onion and carrots until softened. Add garlic, sliced shiitake mushrooms and spinach. Add the 1/2 cup mushroom broth as you cook the vegetables. At this point when the vegetables are cooked through and you want to add beef or chicken to the dish, remove the vegetables and set aside. Add another tsp of oil to the pan and cook sliced beef or chicken until cooked through.
If you are not adding protein, add the noodles, the dark and lite soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil. As you cook and mix the noodles with the veggies, add the the remaining mushroom broth and allow the noodles to absorb. Taste the noodles as you go—once it reaches the desired softness and flavor (add salt and pepper, sugar as needed), it is ready to serve.
Sprinkle on some sesame seeds and chopped green onion and it's done!

We hope you enjoy this Korean staple dish as much as we do!

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Dan Dan Noodles

4/16/2020

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I'm so excited to share my Dan Dan Noodle recipe with you today! This particular recipe features my handmade noodles recipe, but you can always use a dried or fresh noodle from the Asian market. Dan Dan noodles is a soupless, spicy, tangy Sichuan noodle dish with a nut-based sauce, usually either peanut or sesame. It is a popular street food, and is enjoyed with ground pork and veggies.

You can easily substitute the meat with a protein of your choosing too. For my recipe, I use ground pork mixed with sweet preserved Chinese radish, Chinese broccoli and some Korean kimchi. The radish is optional, but the sweetness, slight tang and crispness of the preserved radishes add a great variety of texture to the dish and complements the pork nicely. I absolutely love this sauce--the nuttiness of the peanut and sesame paste mixed with savory soy sauce, the slight acidity from black vinegar and the a heat kick from the chili flakes, chili oil and my favorite, the prickly ash oil--all mixed together, coats the noodles in a blanket of exciting flavors that dance in your mouth. Prickly ash oil is made from hua jiao pepper, a Sichuan peppercorn that mala Chinese dishes attribute their "numbing" qualities from.

I found this dish stay at home friendly because the sauce can be made from pantry items that you can stock up on and use for any Chinese/Asian dish, and the handmade noodles only involve 3 ingredients: flour, water and salt. Even if you don't have the specific veggie and ground pork, you can always pair the noodles with whatever you have on hand. Quarantine cooking really is like an episode of Chopped in the kitchen, make something out of what you got chefs!

To learn how to make the handmade noodles, visit my handmade noodle post here.

After mixing the sauce, I place a dollop of it in the bottom of my serving bowl, add noodles and then add the toppings. Lastly, I garnish with sesame seeds and drizzle more chili oil and prickly ash oil on top! Honestly, it doesn't matter how you layer your ingredients, since you'll be mixing it all up to eat anyhow. To each their own!

INGREDIENTS:

Toppings

1/2 pound ground pork
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp lite soy sauce
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp ground ginger
1 tbsp shaoxing wine or rice wine
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp corn starch
Chinese sweet preserved radish, minced (optional)

Other toppings

Chinese broccoli or bok choy
Kimchi (optional)

Dan dan noodle sauce

2 tbsp peanut butter or 2 tbsp sesame paste
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1.5 tbsp lite soy sauce
1 tbsp shaoxing wine or rice wine
1 tbsp black vinegar, rice vinegar or white vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1/4-1/2 cup water
1 tsp white pepper
1 tbsp spicy Chinese chili bean paste or just Chinese bean paste if you don't do spicy.
1 tbsp crushed red pepper
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp prickly ash oil
2 teaspoon sriracha sauce

Handmade noodles (2-3 servings) or store bought noodles of your preference

DIRECTIONS:
Sauce

In a mixing bowl, mix all the sauce ingredients together with a whisk. Add the water little by little until you reach the consistency of pancake batter. Taste as you go, and once it's perfect, add about 3-4 tbsp of the sauce to the bottom of your serving bowl. If you can't do spicy, omit the spicy bean paste, chili flakes, sriracha sauce, chili oil and prickly ash oil.

Toppings

Marinate the pork with the dark and lite soy sauces, oyster sauce, rice wine, white pepper, ground ginger, cornstarch and sugar together. Mince the pickled radish and add to the pork mixture. (This ingredient is optional) Marinate for at least 10 minutes.
After marinating, stir fry the ground pork until cooked through.
Add salt to a pot of boiling water and boil the Chinese broccoli or bok choy until desired doneness. Remove and set aside.

Put it all together

Prior to serving, flash boil the noodles again to get them warm, or if you prefer your dan dan noodles as a cold noodle dish, leave as is.
Place the noodles on top of the sauce in your bowl, then put the pork and vegetables on top. If you like spicy, you can also drizzle some chili oil and prickly ash oil!

This is a great dish to assemble and enjoy, and I love that it can be prepared relatively quickly (unless you are making the handmade noodles, which takes a little more waiting time). For me, I always have soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine and assorted spices in stock since they are staples in our home, which makes this dish that much easier to make. Plus they are versatile and used in many other Asian dishes, so it's a win win for us! We hope you enjoy this noodle dish!

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Handmade Noodles

4/16/2020

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As a self-proclaimed noodle lover, handmade noodles are my absolute favorite! Premade noodles, instant noodles and pasta are great, but handmade noodles and handmade pasta are simply on a different level, especially in texture.

There are a couple handmade noodle shops in NJ and NYC's Chinatown that we like to go to, but sometimes if going out and having someone else make it for you isn't an option, then you gotta go homemade. And if you're like me, I get cravings for handmade noodles like an itch in the brain that needs to be attended to, right away. With this easy recipe, delicious handmade noodles are never out of reach.

I haven't yet ventured into the world of pasta making, but making Chinese noodles is super easy and only requires 2 ingredients, 3 if you want to add salt! Sometimes if I already know what sauce I am cooking the noodles with, I omit the salt because the sauce will coat and flavor the noodles just fine without the extra sodium. Plus, there are no extra additives or preservatives in these fresh homemade noodles—premade noodles that you buy at the market tend to have other ingredients in them to prolong their shelf life, so the homemade noodles are, in a way, "healthier"...

For the fresh noodles, you can either use All Purpose Flour, or you can try using Beksul Potato Starch for Dough Flakes, which I used and was extremely happy with because the texture of the noodles was so nice and chewy! I've used all purpose flour before too, so both work well. This potato starch is a Korean brand of flour that is usually used for making "dough flakes", which is a kind of hand torn noodle used in stews like Sujebi. These fresh noodles can be stored for about 1-2 days. Honestly never lasts more than a meal for us though cause we slurp that shit right up. 😃

INGREDIENTS (2-3 servings):

2 and 2/3 cups All Purpose flour or Beksul Potato Starch for Dough Flakes
1 cup and 3 tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt (optional)

PREPARING THE DOUGH:

In a mixing bowl add the flour and slowly add water while mixing. If you have a stand mixer, this will help a lot and just mix on low for about 15 minutes, or until it forms a nice smooth ball of dough. If you are kneading by hand, mix the water and once it comes together in a ball, flour a clean surface and knead until smooth.
Once smooth, put it in a bowl and cover with cling wrap or a cloth to prevent the dough from drying out. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes, but the longer you wait, the easier the dough will be to work with.

KNIFE CUT NOODLES

After the dough is rested, take the dough out onto a floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out until about 1/16 inches thick. Add flour and fold in a "S" fashion, adding flour in between each layer. This is important because if you do not add enough flour in between, the dough will stick together when you cut it, and you'll need to reroll the dough and layer it again.

Cut dough into desired thickness for noodles. Then "fluff" the noodles so that it forms stands and does not stick together.
Prepare a pot of boiling water. Salt the water as desired, although not necessary if you have a robust sauce.
Boil the fresh noodles for 2-3 minutes or until it reaches desired texture. Be careful not to overboil the noodles.

HAND PULLED NOODLES

If you don't want to cut the noodles, then you can opt to handpull them too! Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces and roll into balls. On a floured surface, use the rolling pin to flatten them into 4 round sheets, about 0.2 inches thick. Then cover again with cling wrap and rest for another hour.
After the hour, take out 1 sheet and cut it into about 4-5 strips, depending on how thick you want the noodles. Pull the strip of dough with your hands as 1 long noodle (it's okay if it breaks) and drop it in the boiling water as you go. Boil for 2 minutes or until it reaches your desired texture. The thinner the noodle, the faster it cooks, so be sure not to overboil otherwise it may turn to mush!

Important: Remove the noodles with a strainer and run through cold water, use your hand or chopsticks to swish it around and thoroughly clean the noodles of any remaining starch to prevent it from feeling gooey or sticky. Once the noodles are rid of excess starch, it will feel "bouncy"! Drain and set aside for serving.

You can either enjoy the noodles cold or you can add the noodles to a stir fry noodle dish, broth dish, or quickly heat the noodles in hot water prior to serving with sauce. We hope you enjoy!

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