Vegetarian & food

Japchae, sweet potato starch noodles stir fried with vegetables and meat, is one of Korea’s best-loved dishes, and one of the most popular on my website as well.

If anyone asks me to recommend a good potluck dish, I don’t hesitate to answer japchae for the simple reason that pretty much everyone loves it. At any gathering it’s hard to pass up these chewy, sweet, and slightly slippery noodles with colorful stir-fried vegetables and mushrooms, its irresistible sesame flavor, healthy amount of garlic, and light, refreshing taste.

Stir frying each ingredient separately seems like a lot of labor, but each one requires a different cooking time and a bit of care, and keeping the color and freshness of each ingredient intact makes for a stunning final presentation. An easy way to make it even prettier and more nutritious is to use more vegetables and less noodles, although this is hard to recommend because the noodles are delicious by themselves.

Let me know if you make this at a party! Double, triple, quadruple the ingredients and let everyone taste your japchae!

Ingredients (serves 4):

• 4 ounces beef, filet mignon (or pork shoulder), cut into ¼ inch wide and 2½ inch long strips
• 2 large dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 2 to 3 hours, cut into thin strips
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
• 1 large egg
• 4 ounces spinach, washed and drained
• 4 ounces of dangmyeon (sweet potato starch noodles)
• 2 to 3 green onions, cut crosswise into 2 inch long pieces
• 1 medium onion (1 cup), sliced thinly
• 4 to 5 white mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1 medium carrot (¾ cup), cut into matchsticks
• ½ red bell pepper, cut into thin strips (optional)
• ground black pepper
• salt
• vegetable oil

Directions:
Marinate the beef and mushrooms

1. Put the beef and shiitake mushrooms into a bowl and mix with 1 clove of minced garlic, 1 teaspoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil with a wooden spoon or by hand. Cover and keep it in the fridge.

Make the egg garnish (jidan):

1. Crack the egg and separate the egg yolk from the egg white. Remove the white stringy stuff (chalaza) from the yolk. Beat in a pinch of salt with a fork.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil to a heated nonstick pan. Swirl the oil around so it covers the pan, and then wipe off the excess heated oil with a kitchen towel so only a thin layer remains on the pan.
3. To keep the jidan as yellow as possible, turn off the heat and pour the egg yolk mixture into the pan. Tilt it around so the mixture spreads thinly. Let it cook using the remaining heat in the pan for about 1 minute. Flip it over and let it sit on the pan for 1 more minute.
4. Let it cool and slice it into thin strips.

Prepare the noodles and vegetables:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the spinach and blanch for 30 seconds to 1 minute, then take it out with a slotted spoon or strainer. Let the water keep boiling to cook the noodles.
2. Rinse the spinach in cold water to stop it from cooking. Squeeze it with your hands to remove any excess water. Cut it a few times and put it into a bowl. Mix with 1 teaspoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Put it into a large mixing bowl.
3. Put the noodles into the boiling water, cover and cook for 1 minute. Stir them with a wooden spoon so they don’t stick together. Cover and keep cooking for another 7 minutes until the noodles are soft and chewy.
4. Strain and cut them a few times with kitchen scissors. Put the noodles into the large bowl next to the spinach. Add 2 teaspoons sesame oil, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Mix well by hand or a wooden spoon. This process will season the noodles and also keep the noodles from sticking to each other.
5. Heat up a skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil with the onion, the green onion, and a pinch of salt. Stir-fry about 2 minutes until the onion looks a little translucent. Transfer to the noodle bowl.
6. Heat up the skillet again and add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil. Add the white mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Stir-fry for 2 minutes until softened and a little juicy. Transfer to the noodle bowl.
7. Heat up the skillet and add 1 teaspoon vegetable oil. Add the carrot and stir-fry for 20 seconds. Add the red bell pepper strips and stir-fry another 20 seconds. Transfer to the noodle bowl.
8. Heat up the skillet and add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil. Add the beef and mushroom mixture and stir fry for a few minutes until the beef is no longer pink and the mushrooms are softened and shiny. Transfer to the noodle bowl.

Mix and serve:

1. Add 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, ½ teaspoon ground black pepper, and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil to the mixing bowl full of ingredients. Mix all together by hand.
2. Add the egg garnish and 1 tablespoon sesame seeds. Mix it and transfer it to a large plate and serve.

Yanggaeng is one of my favorite Korean snacks. I love the texture of the sweet, soft, smooth, and blended silky beans and I much prefer this over any kind of chocolate. When I was young, and going on a school picnic, my mom used to give me a little money to buy a snack or something to eat. “Buy some of your favorite snack with this money,” she said. Yanggaeng was always one of the things that I bought.

As you see in the video, I added chestnuts. They kind of look like yellow buttons. Think of how delighted you’ll be to dig into the jelly and find a chestnut.

Show off your homemade yanggaeng to your friends and family:
“Would you be interested in tasting my Yanggaeng?”
“What’s Yanggaeng?”
“Oh, Yanggaeng is …” : )

Enjoy the recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 cup azuki beans
• water
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 pkg of gelatin (7 grams: 2 teaspoons plus ¼ teaspoon gelatin powder)
• canned chestnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Rinse the beans in a strainer under running water. Strain and put them into a heavy pot. Add 6 cups water and boil for 30 minutes over medium high heat
2. Remove from the heat and let sit for another 30 minutes so that the hot water in the pot can cook the beans.
3. Bring to a boil again, over medium heat, and cook for 1 hour. The beans will soften enough so that they can be easily mashed.
4. Remove from the heat and mash the beans with a wooden spoon in the pot.
5. Add 2-3 cups cold water to the beans and strain them over a bowl. Press them down with a wooden spoon and mash them in the strainer, so the beans go through and the skins are left behind.
6. Squeeze the skins and remove.
7. Put the strainer, lined with cotton cloth, over the pot. Pour the bean and water mixture through the cotton cloth and let it sit for a few minutes to sieve.
8. A few minutes later, lift out the cotton cloth and squeeze it tightly so the water goes out and the beans looks like a pressed ball.
9. Put the bean ball into the pot and add sugar, salt, and vanilla. Heat the pot over medium high heat.
10. Stir the bean paste with the wooden spoon for about 3-5 minutes until the sugar dissolves thoroughly.
11. Put the gelatin powder into a small bowl and add ¼ cup cold water. Mix well with a spoon. Add ½ cup hot water and mix well to dissolve the gelatin nicely.
12. Add the gelatin solution to the bean paste in the pot. Stir well. Pour it into cookie molds, paper baking mini loaf pans, or small cups. I used 4 2 inch x 4 inch x 1½ inch high paper baking loaf pans in this recipe.
13. Let it cool down at room temperature for 30 minutes. Plant 3 chestnuts in each pan and refrigerate at least 3 hours until the jelly is solid.
14. Serve as a dessert or snack.

Many people have asked me what kind of Korean appetizers I would recommend. Serving appetizers is not common in Korean traditional cuisine and Korean mothers likely say to their children: “don’t eat any sweets or snacks before dinner! If you eat them, your stomach will get full before eating your main meal.”

But you will see Korean restaurants serve side dishes after taking orders from their customers. While waiting for the main dish to be served, customers eat the side dishes.

When I lived in Korea, avocados were a totally unfamiliar imported fruit usually sold in the basement of huge department stores. I remember they were tremendously expensive. I think the fruit is more and more familiar to Koreans these days.

I usually eat an avocado by itself with a spoon after cutting it in half and putting some soy sauce in the hole where the pit sat.  I sometimes use avocados in California rolls or tuna gimbap. And the ginkgo nut skewers are so easy that I don’t even need to explain them here. Check the video!

Avocados and ginkgo nuts are very healthy fruits, and you’re going to love these appetizers.

Ingredients for avocado appetizers:
1 medium size avocado, 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup water, 1-2 ts soybean paste, 1 clove of garlic, egg, salt, and vegetable oil.

Ingredients for ginkgo nut skewers:
Vegetable oil, ginkgo nuts, skewers, salt.

Avocado appetizer:

1. Skin avocados and slice them into several pieces.
2. Make batter by mixing 1/3 cup of water, 1/3 cup of flour, 1 clove of chopped garlic, and 1 ts of soy bean paste.
3. Crack an egg into a bowl and add a pinch of salt. Mix it up.
4. Heat up the pan with some vegetable oil.
5. Dip sliced avocado into the batter and then coat them with the egg mixture. Put them on the pan and cook until both sides look light golden brown.
6. Transfer cooked avocado to a serving plate and serve.

Ginkgo nut skewers:

1. Heat up pan over medium heat and put in 1 tbs of vegetable oil.
2. Add a handful of ginkgo nuts and 2 ts of salt to the pan.
3. Stir them with a wooden spoon until the inner skins of ginkgo nuts are broken.
4. Wrap the cooked ginkgo nuts in a paper towel and rub it the top to remove the inner skins.
5. Skewer gingko nuts and serve them.

Baek-kimchi literally translates as “white kimchi” in English, because it’s not made with hot pepper flakes, which makes it whitish. It’s not spicy at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s bland! As you see in the video, it’s made with precious ingredients like chestnuts, jujubes, pine nuts, and a whole range of vegetables. It has a lot of fresh flavors, is incredibly refreshing, and is beautiful to look at!

This is a vegetarian recipe because unlike some other kimchi recipes I didn’t use fish sauce. But one variation would be to replace the 1 teaspoon of salt with 1 to 2 teaspoons of salted fermented shrimp.

It’s a great kimchi to make for special occasions.
“Oh, check this out, everybody! I made white kimchi!”
They will be impressed!

This is a good recipe for anyone who can’t take spicy food, and also for spicy food lovers who are looking for a change of pace. I usually love freshly made kimchi, but when it comes to baek-kimchi, I always wait until it ferments before I start eating it, which usually takes 1 to 3 days. It becomes a little fizzy, sweet, sour, and nutty – it’s a totally unique taste!

So many of my readers have requested this recipe over years. One of them, Kerry in Minnesota, requested it in 2009 and said:

“Despite being Korean, my stomach can’t handle spicy foods, but I would love to make kimchi. I don’t know if just cutting the amount of hot pepper flakes would make a much milder kimchi, but I would like to try making the white kind, which I hear isn’t spicy at all. Do you have any good white kimchi recipes, Maangchi-ssi?”

She added “ssi” at the end of my name to show me respect, Korean style!

Ok Kerry, here’s the recipe! Thanks for waiting!

Ingredients:

• 1 large napa cabbage (3 pounds’ worth)
• ⅓ cup, 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt
• ½ pound Korean radish (or daikon) cut into matchsticks
• ¼ cup carrot, cut into matchsticks
• ¾ cup buchu (Asian chives), cut into 1 inch pieces
• 3 jujubes, seeded, cut into thin strips
• 2 fresh chestnuts, peeled and cut into thin strips
• 2 tablespoons pine nuts
• ½ of red bell pepper (1/3 cup’s worth), cored, seeded, and cut into thin strips
• 1 medium Korean pear (2 cups’s worth), peeled and cored
• 4 garlic cloves
• ½ cup onion
• 1 teaspoon ginger

Directions:

Salt the cabbage:

1. Cut the cabbage in half, then cut a slit through the core 2 inches above the stem, so the leaves are loosened but still attached.
2. Rinse the halves under running water, or soak them in a basin for a few seconds until all the leaves are wet.
3. Put the halves in a large basin and sprinkle 1/3 cup of salt evenly between the leaves. Let them sit for  1½ to 2 hours, turning them over every 20 minutes.
4. Rinse the cabbage under cold running water a couple of times to get rid of any dirt or salt. Split each half under the running water, to divide the cabbage into quarters. Cut out the remainder of the core. Drain and set aside.

Make the vegetable fillings:

1. Combine radish, carrot, jujubes, chives, chestnuts, and red bell pepper in a bowl. Set aside.

Make seasoning mix for brine:

1. Blend pear, garlic, onion, and ginger in a food processor until creamy. Set aside.

Make brine:

1. Mix 4 cups of water and 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons of salt in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Stir it well until the salt is thoroughly dissolved.
2. Put the blended seasoning mix into a cotton pouch, or wrap it a couple times in cheesecloth, and put it into the bowl of brine. Press it down with a spoon so the delicious blended flavors seep through. Squeeze it a bit and stir the brine for a while. Remove the pouch.

Make kimchi:

1. Spread the vegetable fillings between each leaf of the cabbage. Fold the stuffed cabbage quarters over and put them into a container, glass jar, or Korean earthenware pot.
2. Pour the brine over the kimchi so it’s submerged.

   

3. Cover and let sit at room temperature until it starts fermenting, which should be between 1½ to 3 days depending on how warm your room is. A warmer room will ferment faster. Just keep an eye on the kimchi and taste it now and then: when the brine turns sour, it’s fermenting.
4. Move it to the fridge, which will slow down the fermentation process. It will keep for about 1 month. Serve cold.

Ingredients:
red bean paste, sweet rice flour, boiling water, sugar, pine nuts, cinnamon powder.

Directions:

1. In a pot, place 1 cup of washed red beans and 4 cups of water and heat it over high heat for 10 minutes.
2. Lower the heat to low medium and simmer for 50 minutes.
3. Check if the beans are cooked fully. Remove extra water from the beans and crush them with a wooden spoon or use your food processor to grind it.
4. Add 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 ts of salt, 1 ts of cinnamon powder into the red bean paste and set it aside.

1. Put the red bean paste in a pot.
2. Pour some water (about 4- 5 cups) and 1 cup of sugar (depends on your taste) and boil it.
3. Mix one cup of sweet rice powder, a pinch of salt and 1 tbs of sugar in a bowl.
4. Add 1/2 cup-1 cup of hot water in “3” and mix it with a spoon first and fold it by hand to make dough. (The amount of hot water varies depending on the dryness of sweet rice powder you use, so first use 1/2 cup of hot water to make your dough and put more hot water while kneading the dough)
5. Make small rice balls with the dough about 0.5 cm diameter.
6. When the red bean soup boils, add the rice balls and cook it.
7. Keep stirring the soup and it will get thicker.
8. Ladle the soup into a bowl and add a few pine nuts on top and sprinkle some cinnamon powder and serve it.

The Korean danhobak is a kind of winter squash, known by its Japanese name kabocha in English. In Korean, dan means “sweet,” and hobak means “pumpkin,” and bap means “rice,” so you could translate this dish as “sweet pumpkin rice.” A danhobak is very sweet and fluffy when cooked, so I often steam it and eat it by itself. The texture is very similar to sweet potato.

There are 2 ways to prepare danhobakbap. The first way is to mix rice with chunks of kabocha in a pot, and serve with a seasoning sauce called yangnyeomjang. The second way is to scoop out the insides of the kabocha, fill it with rice and other ingredients, and cook it.

I’m introducing the second version to you today because Halloween is coming soon, so I think you might be interested in making this beautiful and delicious danhobakbap with the kabocha pumpkin intact. If you take danhobakbap to your party, it will be popular because your friends will be excited to open the lid to see the colorful delicious looking rice inside!

Ingredients:
Kabocha (1½ kilograms, or about 3 pounds), sweet rice, black sweet rice, salt, jujubes, pine nuts, raisins, canned chestnuts, soy sauce, vinegar, green onion, green peas, and red chili pepper.

Directions:
Let’s make the rice first!

1. Place 1 cup of sweet rice and 2 tbs of black sweet rice in a small pot.
2. Add some water to the rice and scrub it by hand a couple of times. Rinse, and then drain the water. Repeat until the rice is clean and the drained water is mostly clear.
3. Add 1 cup of water and a pinch of salt to the rice and close the lid. Set aside to soak for at least 30 minutes.
   
4. After soaking, bring to a boil over medium high heat for about 5-6 minutes.
5. Open the lid and simmer over low heat with the lid closed for 10 minutes.
6. Add 1/3 cup of green peas to the hot rice and mix it up. Set aside.

Prepare the kabocha:

1. Cut off the top to make the lid just like a jack o’ lantern.
2. Scoop out the insides and set aside.
   
3. Remove the pits from 8 dried jujubes. Measure 2 tbs raisins, 2 tbs pine nuts with the tips removed, and ½ cup canned chestnuts, and set aside.
4. Place the jujubes on the bottom of the kabocha and add the cooked rice, the raisins, and the pine nuts, in that order.
5. Add more rice on top to fill it out.
6. Open a can of chestnuts and place them over top of the rice.
   
7. Put the lid back on the danhobak and steam or boil for 30-40 minutes until it’s cooked thoroughly. Wrap it in cheesecloth beforehand so you can easily take it out when it’s ready.
8. Make sauce by mixing 3 tbs soy sauce, 2 ts vinegar, 1 tbs chopped green onion, and 1 ts red chili pepper in a bowl.

How to serve:

1. Open the lid of the kabocha and cut it into 4 pieces with a knife.
2. Transfer each piece to a plate and serve with the sauce.

Enjoy the recipe!

Koreans often make baekseolgi-tteok to celebrate a baby’s 3 week birthday (saei rye in Korean) or any child’s birthday, but it’s most often traditionally prepared to celebrate a baby’s 100 day birthday (baek il in Korean). The white cake represents purity and perfection and is attained by using fluffy steamed white rice flour and a few other ingredients: sugar, salt, and water.

Everybody at the party gives the baby good wishes on his or her 100 day birthday. They might say: “I hope you grow up to be always healthy, pure, and happy!”

This rice cake was meant to be shared with many people because it’s believed that the more people who share it, the longer life the baby will have.

If you’ve already made my mujigae-tteok (rainbow rice cake), I think making baekseolgi-tteok may be too simple for you. I added some dried fruits and sliced almonds to this rice cake to make it more tasty and colorful, but if you want to make it in the traditional Korean style, leave them out.

Let me know if you make this for your lovely family members, friends, babies, your parents, or even your co-workers! Impress me and my other readers.

A note about short grain rice flour: the flour you buy at your local store or the flour you make may have more or less moisture in it than the rice flour I use in this recipe. This is because of many different things like how long it’s been in the freezer in the store, or the atmospheric conditions where you live. You may need to add more or less water, depending on how dry or wet your short grain rice flour is.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups and 1 TBS rice flour (made from short grain rice)
• 1 ts salt
• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup sugar
• dried colorful fruits and nuts if desired : raisins, golden raisins, papaya or apricot (sliced), cranberries, and almonds (sliced or chopped)

Cooking utensils:
Steamer, sifter, 8 inch (20 cm) cake ring

Directions:

1. Thaw out the package of frozen rice flour and put it into a large bowl.
2. Add water and salt. Mix it all up and press out any wet lumps by rubbing the lumps gently between your palms. Repeat until all the lumps are broken and the rice flour is uniformly wet.
3. Sift the rice flour twice, then add sugar and sift once more.
   
4. Add 10 cups of water to the bottom of a steamer and bring to a boil.
5. When the water boils, place a wet cloth or cheese cloth over the rack and put the cake ring on top. Put the sifted rice flour into the ring and flatten it out so the mixture sits level.
   *tip: a business card works well for this
6. Add colorful dried fruits and nuts on top, if you want them. The traditional Korean style doesn’t use them, but you can add them if you like.
   
7. Cover the cake with the cloth and steam over high heat for 30 minutes.
8. Turn off the heat and open the lid. Uncover the cake and carefully lift it out using the sides of the cloth. Place it on a plate or cakeboard.
9. Wait a few minutes for it to cool down before gently pulling the cloth out and removing the cake ring from the cake.
10. Serve with tea, coffee, or milk.
    

Freeze any leftover rice cake: if you freeze it when it’s still fresh and fluffy, it will still be chewy and fluffy when it’s thawed out. Cut the rice cake into individual servings and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Put the pieces into a plastic bag and keep that  in the freezer. Thaw it out at room temperature before serving, or reheat it in a steamer or microwave oven.

If you can’t find frozen rice flour in a Korean grocery store, you can make rice flour it at home:

1. Rinse and drain some short grain rice a couple of times and soak overnight (10-12 hours).
2. Drain the water and grind the rice very finely. Use it right away, or immediately store in the freezer.