Discover Korean Food #7: Dr. Sook-Ja Yoon's "Japchae" (THE EAST Campaign in Association with The Institute of Traditional Korean Food)

Japchae is a dish mixed of potato starch noodles with various stir-fried vegetables. Japchae is served without fail on holidays and traditional ceremonial days. The name “japchae” (sundried vegetables) came about because it is mixed with various vegetables.

◎ Ingredients & Quantity

* 50 g beef (top round), 10 g (2 sheets) brown oak mushrooms, 3 g Jew’s ear mushrooms

* Seasoning sauce 1 : 9 g (½ tbsp) soy sauce, 2 g (½ tsp) sugar, 2.3 g (½ tsp) minced green onion, 1.4 g (¼ tsp) minced garlic, 1 g (½ tsp) sesame salt, 2 g (½ tsp) sesame oil, 0.1 g ground black pepper 70 g (⅓ ea) cucumber, 0.5 g (⅛ tsp) salt, 30 g Carrot, 0.5 g (⅛ tsp) salt 30 g skinned bellflower roots, 2 g (½ tsp) salt, 150 g (1 head) onion 30 g mung bean sprouts, 400 g (2 cups) water, 1 g (¼ tsp) salt Mung bean sprout seasoning : 0.5 g (⅛ tsp) salt,2 g (½ tsp) sesame oil 60 g (1 ea) egg, 0.5 g (⅛ tsp) salt 60 g potato starch noodles, 400 g (2 cups) boiling water

* Seasoning sauce 2 : 18 g (1 tbsp) soy sauce, 12 g (1 tbsp) sugar, 6.5 g (½ tbsp) sesame oil, 3.5 g (½ tbsp) sesame seeds, 1 g (¼ tsp) salt 26 g (2 tbsp) edible oil


◎ Preparation

1. Clean blood of the beef with cotton cloths, shred it into 6 cm-long, 0.3 cm-wide and thick (45 g), then season them with half of the seasoning sauce 1.

2. Soak the mushrooms in water for about 1 hour, remove stems of brown oak mushrooms and shred it at intervals of 0.3 cm-wide and thick (28 g). Separate Jew’s ear mushrooms by sheet (18 g), season them with remained half of the seasoning sauce 1 respectively.

3. Wash the cucumber by rubbing, cut into 5~6 cm-long and 0.3 cm-thick roundly, shred them into 0.3 cm-wide (23 g). Wash the carrot and skin. Cut and slice them into 5~6 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide and thick (20 g), marinate them with salt for 5 min. respectively, and wipe water with cotton cloths.

4. Cut the bellflower roots into same size of the cucumber (26 g), wash it with salt by fumbling for 1 min. to draw out bitter taste. Skin and wash the onion, and shred it into same size of the cucumber (100 g). Remove the heads and tails of mung bean sprouts (26 g).

5. Panfry egg as yellow/white garnish, cut it into 4 cm-long and 0.3 cm-wide/thick.

◎ Recipe

1. Preheat the frying pan and oil. Stir-fry the beef, brown oak mushrooms and Jew’s ear mushrooms respectively for about 2 min. on medium heat.

2. Preheat the frying pan and oil. Stir-fry the cucumber and carrot respectively for 30 sec. on high heat. Stir-fry the bellflower roots and onion respectively for 2 min. on medium heat.

3. Pour water in the pot, heat it up for 2 min. on high heat. When it boils, scald mung bean sprouts with salt for 2 min., drain water through a strainer (24 g), mix it with mung bean sprout seasoning.

4. Pour water in the pot and heat it up for 2 min. on high heat. When it boils, add potato starch noodles and boil it for 8 min. Take the noodles out and drain water, cut it into 20 cm-long and mix it with seasoning sauce 2.

5. Preheat the frying pan and oil. Stir-fry the noodles for 2 min. on medium heat.

6. Mix the noodles and prepared stuffs together and top with yellow/white garnish.

* To get the better quality and better color, all stuffs for this dish should be fried quickly on high heat.
** Pork, spinach and oyster mushrooms may be used as ingredients for this dish.


About The Beauty of Korean Food: With 100 Best-Loved Recipes
Korean food has been appraised as a genuine, slow, healthy food for its organization with the seasons and regional specialties, harmony of food ingredients and combination of food groups. In spite of high interest in Korean food by global villagers, there haven't been any good books introducing Korean food with internationally comprehensible recipes. As part of the project "Research and Development Project for Standardization of Korean Cuisine" driven by the Korean government, this book is designed to standardize the recipes of the selected 100 Korean foods by using international system of units (SI unit) and to present the pleasure of cooking healthy Korean food easily for everyone around the world. It also gives useful tips, such as service temperature, total cooking time, suggested utensils, nutritional information for one serve, along with specific instructions for preparing ingredients and cooking.

About Dr. Sook-Ja Yoon
As a principal researcher of the Research and Development Project for the Standardization of Korean Cuisine, she has been in the lead to popularize and globalize the Korean food. She has been extending diverse R&D, lectures and writing books, and also acting as a publicity ambassador for the globalization of Korean food at the various overseas exhibitions. She has held the Special Exhibition of Korean Royal Court Cuisine during the APEC Korea in 2005 and promoted the 4th Korean Food Festival in UN Headquarters in 2007, won high praises from ambassadors to UN and overseas journals for the beauty and excellence of Korean food. Major works are: "Korean Food," "Traditional Korean Food," "The Store and Fermentation Food of Korea," "Korean Traditional tteok," "Cookies and Beverages," "Good Morning, Kimchi," "Gyuhapchongseo," "The Beauty of Wedding Food" and so on.