Tasty Jap Chae

Hello Everybody!

Here is a Korean dish that was requested by one of our dear readers. Although there are several steps in making this dish, it is not difficult…just repetitive. This dish is usually served as a side dish. It is a semi sweet and salty dish that can easily go both with meat or without. We hope you enjoy this classic Korean food. Let’s get started!

What You Need

• carrots
• onion
• green onion
• spinach
• mushroom (any will do, really)
• garlic
• vermicelli noodles
• bulgogi – please refer to our previous posts on how to marinate this
• sugar, salt, dashida, black pepper, sesame oil, vegetable oil

The amounts of vegetables, etc are totally up to you. We used about two packages of noodles and the following amount of vegetables. Serving size was for about 8….if served as a side dish, serve about 16.

What to Do:

Peel and chop the carrots into long rectangular pieces. Chop the mushrooms if they are too big. Chop the onions into bite sized pieces and dice the garlic. Refer to picture:

Next, boil a big pot of water (for noodles). This will take awhile to boil, so just get that ready. Then, add a little vegetable oil to a pan and saute the mushrooms, garlic, and onions. Saute until the onions are semi translucent.

Add the onion mixture into a big mixing bowl. Next, to the same now empty pan, saute carrots and green onions. Do so until the onions are wilted. Add that mixture to the big mixing bowl. Now get a small pot of water and boil it. This is for the spinach later. Just get the water boiling now so that you won’t waste time later.

Next, to the same pan, add in a little bit of vegetable oil and fry up the bulgogi. Add the meat to the mixing bowl as well. After that, to the small pot of boiling water, add in spinach. After about 1 minute, turn off heat and drain the water. Drain the excess water from spinach. Add in 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce and a pinch of salt and pepper. We used a half a bag of spinach for this. Add the spinach to the mixing bowl.

Now to the boiling big pot of water, add in the noodles. Boil for up to a maximum of 5 minutes.  The trick to vermicelli noodles is to boil for only a short amount of time (3-5 minutes). Two packages for us took about 5 minutes. We tasted it to make sure it was not too hard, not too soft. Once the noodles are done, drain the noodles and add it to a separate mixing bowl. Add in about 2 tablespoons of sesame oil and 4 tablespoons of soy sauce. The oil serves to prevent the noodles from clumping together. The soy gives it both the color and flavor.

Add the noodles into the mixing bowl. Now, add in about 4 tablespoons of sugar. I like mine pretty sweet. The onions and bulgogi should add to the sweetness. Add in a good pinch of dashi, generous black pepper, and a pinch of salt. Taste it and adjust (add more soy, sesame oil if it seems too dry) to your liking.

Make sure to mix it very very well!!! ENJOY!!