For anyone new to Korean food or if you are cooking for the uninitiated, this is a pretty good dish to start with.It is a sweet, noodle dish which requires only a few vegetables and often comes with beef, although this can be removed to cater for veggies. It is essentially a side dish but can also be fried up with rice to create a light meal in itself called Chapchae Bap. The noodles are Korean Vermicelli which is a strong, stretchy transparent noodle - I've never seen anything similar to them.
If there is one thing I've learnt about chapchae, it is that, like bulgogi, you can NEVER cook enough of the stuff. Whatever you don't eat the day you make it will always make a nice lunch the next day. If you don't want a complete chapchae fest however, just half my quantities. Also a word on ingredients......the ones I list are suggestions, you can add other vegetables or ommit the ones you don't like.
Ingredients
about 200g of Korean Vermicelli
If you have bought the Ottogi one in the medium yellow packet you are looking at about just over half of this (see bottom of this page for picture).
230g of beef
3-4 table spoons of soysauce
2-3 table spoons of sesame oil
some vegetable oil for cooking
1 heaped table spoon of sugar
3 tea spoons of salt
pinch of black pepper
1 cup of cooked spinach
To achieve this you will need to cook at least 7 big handfuls of fresh spinach in boiling water for about 1 minute
1 large carrot cut into very thin match sticks
7 thin green onions cut into one inch long pieces
or the equivalent depending on the size of green onion you have
1 shallot (small onion) chopped finely
4 shitake/pyogo mushrooms
7 neutari or oyster mushrooms
4 white button mushrooms
mushrooms - use what ever you can get your hands on! If you can find some other varieties as well or instead such as mogi (jew's ear) and songi (pine mushroom) then go for it.
Directions
- Cut the beef into thin strips - if you can use beef that is part frozen this will assist.
- Add the sesame oil to the pan and heat gently on a very low setting. Add the beef and cook gently for a few minutes until it looks cooked on the outside but is not over done. Add the sugar, soy sauce, salt and black pepper and let the mixture cook on a low heat for about 4 minutes. When it is done, put it to one side, or transfer it into a bowl if you need to use the pan again.
- Cook the noodles in boiling water for the length of time shown on the packet - about 6 minutes should do it, but keep checking. Add a little soy sauce and sesame oil to the water to give colour, flavour and stop the noodles from sticking together. They can be a bit of a pain to get in the pan because they are quite rigid. What you can do is soak them in some warm water for a while and then cut them into smaller strands. Even when cooked the noodle will be strong. Drain the cooked noodle in a sieve and rinse in cold water. Get your hands in and make sure that as much of the water as possible comes off the noodles. This can then sit to one side until you are ready to combine the ingredients.
- Soak the mushrooms in warm water for 10 minutes. If you are using songi mushrooms you need to boil them for a few minutes.
- While the mushrooms are soaking, fry together the carrots, green onions and shallots in a little vegetable oil on a low heat for about 7 minutes or until they are soft. You don't want them to brown though...if that happens they will have a slightly burnt flavour...not the end of the world but irritating nonetheless. You probably won't have this problem if you are cooking on gas as you'll have maximum control..unlike my shoddy electric cooker ring.
- Transfer the fried vegetables to a bowl and then cut the mushrooms into strips and fry them in a bit of sesame oil on a low heat for about 8-10 minutes or until they look cooked and soft. Again, don't brown them.
- Mix all the ingredients together except the sesame oil which you should add last as otherwise it will prevent the noodles soaking up the flavour. Heat the chapchae through before serving. You can eat this cold too so don't freak out if its cooled down by the time it hits the table. You will find that the lengths of noodle are ridiculously long and so you can use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut into the mixture and chop it up a bit.
Chapchae= very happy dinner guests
Korean Vermicelli
