Allie had been a good good friend of mine. Having stayed in Vancouver for a few years, she will be returning to Korea at end of this year. Before leaving, she invited Helen and I to her house for a authentic Korean homemade dinner. She showed us how to make Japchae, a very popular Korean noodle dish. The recipe is at the bottom of this blog entry.
Allie also served some black rice which her husband brought all the way from Korea during his last visit. I have never see or heard of black rice until now. It tastes the same as the normal rice, looks different (of course) but have a rougher texture. It is known to have high nutritional value.
Allie also made a Seaweed Tofu Beef Soup. Allie told us that this is very popular among Korean ladies. It did not occur to me to ask her then why it is popular among ladies only. Any Korean reader here knows why?
She also prepared an Apple, Tomato, Romaine and Chicken Salad. She used Balsamic Vinegar as dressing. The chicken used is roasted chicken. I like this, more because of the apples used in it.
Lastly Allie prepared some “Thousand Year Eggs”. This is not Korean but Chinese.
I love the Japchae the most. It is kind of similar to the Chinese Dry Glass Noodle except that it uses a sweet sauce. Korean dishes commonly uses corn syrup and sesame seed oil which gives that sweetness in the dishes. There is quite a bit of steps in making this but it is worth the work. Try it out.
Despite her busy schedule preparing for the move home, she found the time to share this meal with us. I am going to miss having her around the neighborhood.
Here is the recipe for making Japchae.
Ingredients
- Potato noodle, boiled for about 6 minutes and rinse in running cold water
- Rice cake, boiled and rinsed in running cold water
- Green, Red and Yellow sweet peppers, thinly sliced
- Shiitake mushroom, thinly sliced
- Beef, thinly sliced
- Spinach, blanched
- Seasonings include soy sauce, sesame oil, cooking syrup and brown sugar
Please click on the link below for the instructions.
Instructions
 Fry the peppers and mushroom with some oil. Remove from pan and set aside. |
 Blanched the spinach and toss with some sesame oil and set aside. Fry some beef slices which had been marinated the bulgogi style and set aside. |
 Fry the potato noodle and rice cake with some sesame oil. They had been pre-boiled. |
 Make a sauce using soy sauce, cooking syrup, sesame oil and brown sugar. No exact measurement and Allie just eyeballed them. |
 Add the sauce into the noodles. |
 Return the beef, spinach and peppers and toss to mix well.
This noodle is slightly on the sweet side. The rice cake is very chewy. |
Allie, thank you for sharing your cooking with us.
Suanne,
I was told, the seaweed soup can help to cleanse woman’s body systems especially after birth or “you know what” each month. A friend of mine had to drink the soup everyday after she delivered her baby.
It is also good for skin. I guess for women, anything that is good for their skin, they’ll eat it.
I love jap chae, mostly because of the glass noodles. Have been planning to make it for a while now.
Hi! I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your blog. Some of the food doesn’t look too good to me… but I really enjoy looking at the pics and seeing all the different food. I’m wanting to expand my tastes and try some new things. Keep up the great work! ~Keri
Does it seem that I am only ever saying “Damn that looks delicious!”?
Sorry but it’s true!
Happy New Years!!
Chris
My Blog
I would like to do that soup. Looks easy and good.
I’ve also heard that seaweed is good for the skin.
– Chubbypanda
Thanks for the Japchae recipe. I love the noodle and had wanted to trying cooking it.
What is the cooking syrup? Where can I get it?
Thanks again.
Hi Tintin,
The cooking syrup is a traditional corn syrup which you can get from Korean grocery store. You may substitute with brown sugar if you cant find it.
Koreans generally use grain syrup as one of their sweeteners in addition to sugar, honey, etc. So it cannot be solely attributed to corn syrup or sesame oil. Plus, some ingredients offer a natural sweetness on their own. Rice cakes are not usually used in japchae, so I think that was your friend’s personal touch to the dish.