Jap-chae

On the recommendation of a friend, I tried my hand at Korean food. There's a Korean mini-mart down the street from my apartment so the starch noodles were easy to procure. (For shiitake mushrooms, I had to go to the hardcore Korean market in K-town).

Jap-chae is a Korean noodle dish which I have never actually had prior to making it, so I cannot comment on how authentic my attempt turned out. That being said, I feel the product of my efforts was not entirely undigestable, so I'm sharing it here. I will definitely be ordering jap-chae next time I go to a Korean restaurant.

I made this based on the Youtube video my friend sent me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2inbxROOCzY. Minor, irrelevant side-note: I found the narrator / chef's dialogue irritating for some reason.


The following ingredients are needed:

• 1 bunch starch noodles (I actually used 2---it was wayyy too much).
• 2 or 3 shiitake mushrooms (dried; soaked for 3 or 4 hours; seriously, don't use too many of these---shiitake mushrooms have an overpowering flavor).
• 200 grams beef (cut into thin strips).
• soy sauce (a lot).
• sesame oil (a fair bit).
• olive oil (2 or 3 tbsps).
  
• 1 bunch spinach (seriously, use the whole bunch---if you've ever cooked spinach before, you'll know that it basically disappears when boiled).
• 2 carrots (chopped into strips).
• 1 medium onion.
• 1 package of regular white mushrooms.
• 3 cloves of garlic.
• 4 or 5 scallions.

Yes, that is a lot of material, and this took a lot of effort. Truth be told, I don't think I'll be cooking it again anytime soon.


First, the noodles need to be boiled for 2 or 3 minutes. It should be soft and a little chewy afterward. When this is done, drain and place in a big mixing bowl and infuse with some soy sauce and sesame oil (to keep it from sticking together).

Next, comes the spinach. Boil the spinach (in the same water), and then drain, cut and mix with the noodles.

Now, the author of the Youtube post essentially recommends cooking each of the remaining vegetables in sequence. But since, with the exception of the beef, they're all cooked the same way for approximately the same amount of time, I mixed them all up and cooked it together in the olive oil (by them, I mean: the carrots, garlic, scallions, white mushrooms, onions). This is then mixed with the spinach and noodles.

Finally, we cook the beef with the shiitake mushrooms, and this is mixed with the rest.


More soy sauce and sesame oil is added, and we are done.

I particularly liked this dish since it has so much vegetables. I haven't been eating enough recently (see previous post), so I made this to compensate. But I think I used too much noodles, which overdid the carbs. Whatever. My diet during the last few weeks of class consisted of pizza, Chinese take-out and Subway sandwiches, so this might still rank as one of the healthier options.

Stir-Fried Beef with Chili, Cumin and Garlic

First off, let me begin by apologizing for the gross lack of updates. If you are / were ever a college student, you'd know that the time after midterms is usually when profs like to pile on projects and assignments, and December is finals. Hence, I haven't done much cooking to begin with, to say nothing about finding time to write about them. But now I'm home, it's Christmas, and I have a few minutes to post a couple of dishes I did find time to cook and photograph (but not write about).

Let's begin with one of my recent favorites: stir-fried beef with chili, cumin and garlic. Now, this dish is suppose to be made with lamb (and the first time I tried, I did). It is based on this recipe from the New York Times: http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com...

Cumin is probably my favorite spice. In my brain, it is widely associated with cumin-crusted lamb kabobs, a street food commonly found in China, and is very fragrant.

Now, as I previously mentioned, the first time I cooked this, I used lamb--which is ideal for this dish. However, for convenience's sake, I tried it with beef (the lamb at my local supermarket blows, and I have to go all the way to Whole Foods to get good lamb). I'm happy to report that I found beef worked really well also.


The ingredients needed are as follows:

• 0.75 lbs beef (chopped into large pieces, approx. 1 cubic inch).
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds (apparently it's important that seeds, not powder, is used. I'll experiment another day).
• 1/2 tbsp chili flakes.
• 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic.
• 1 tbsp soy sauce (I used tamari since it was handy).
• 1 tbsp cooking oil (I use canola).
  

I toasted the cumin until it was fragrant, and mixed it together with the other ingredients (not oil) and let it marinate for a while (I let it sit for 10 minutes---it probably had no impact on the taste). Then, I stir fried it and served it on a bed of rice.


I normally eat a lot of fruit for dessert, which is how I justified eating a meal consisting entirely of grains and protein. But still, I concede it is not healthy, and I'm trying to cut back on the meat.