Challenge 3- rice/noodles

For this challenge I used the cookbook -Korean Home Cooking by Soon Young Chung

Japchae is a Korean dish made from cellophane noodles (called dangmyeon), stir fried in sesame oil with various vegetables (typically thinly-sliced carrots, onion, spinach, and mushrooms), sometimes served with beef, and flavoured with soy sauce, and sweetened with sugar. It is usually served garnished with sesame seeds and slivers of chili. It may be served either hot or cold.

This dish is served at Korean parties and special occasions, with seasonal vegetables added. Japchae is most commonly served as a side dish, though it may be a main dish. The name, japchae, comprises the two hanja words; jap meaning "mixed and stirred") and chae (meaning "vegetables"). Therefore, japchae literally means "a mixture of vegetables."

An interesting bit of history with this dish.
Japchae was first made in the early 17th century, when the Joseon Dynasty was reigning in the Korean peninsula. When King Gwanghaegun hosted a big party at his palace, one of his lieges, Yi Chung, created this dish to please the king’s palate. The king liked this dish so much that he rewarded his liege by promoting him to the position of hojo panseo (equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury). At the time, japchae was made with vegetables and mushrooms, such as sliced cucumber, shredded daikon, and pyogo (shiitake) mushroom. Although dangmyeon (cellophane noodles made from sweet potato starch) was only added in the 20th century, dangmyeon is now an integral and primary ingredient of this variety of japchae.

Japchae

Serves 6

Preparation time 2hrs

Cooking time 15mins

Ingredients

4 dried chinese mushrooms, soaked for 30mins in several changes of water

125g beef tenderloin or scotch fillet, cut into thin strips about 4cm long

Vegetable or sunflower oil for frying

125g spinach, blanched in hot water and excess water squeezed out

125g carrot, peeled cut into thin 4cm long strips

1 egg separated

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 brown onion

60g sweet potato starched noodles

1 teaspoon pine nuts for garnish

Pan toasted sesame seeds

Beef and mushroom marinade

2 tablespoons light soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

4 teaspoons finely chopped shallots

2 teaspoons crushed garlic

2 teaspoons sesame oil

For spinach marinade

2 teaspoon finely chopped shallots

1 teaspoon of crushed garlic

2 teaspoon of sesame oil

2 teaspoon of toasted sesame seeds

Freshly ground pepper to taste

For noodle seasoning

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

Method

Squeeze excess water from mushrooms then remove and discard stems. Cut into thin slices.

To make the beef and mushroom marinade, combine beef and mushroom marinade ingredients in a bowl.

Add beef and mushroom slices and marinate for about 20minutes.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan. Add beef and mushroom slices and stir fry until well cooked, 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan set aside on paper towels.

Wash spinach, remove and discard roots, reserving leaves and stems. (If spinach stems are too long, cut them into 2 sections) Immerse reserved spinach briefly in rapidly boiling salted water. Quickly remove from water and drain. Squeeze out excess water.

To prepare and use spinach marinade. In a bowl combine spinach marinade ingredients add spinach and set aside.

Clean frying pan. Soak 2 paper towels in a small amount of oil and use them to wipe frying pan. Heat frying pan and stir-fry carrot, in another frying pan, fry egg white and yolk and slice thinly to make egg gidan (thinly fried egg used for garnish). Remove from pan and cut into thin slices. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil, add noodles and cook until soft about 5 minutes. Remove from water and rinse in several changes of cold water until water is clear. Drain noodles and cut into 10cm lengths to make them easier to eat.

To make noodle seasoning. In a bowl combine noodle seasoning.

Add noodles to seasoning and mix well to coat. Add beef and mushrooms, spinach, carrots and onions and mix well. Serve sprinkled with pine nuts and ground sesame seeds and topped with egg gidan.

Wollumsum with the family

As part of Jaeminkins 100 day birthday with the extended family, I thought it would be a great idea to introduce my hubby's family to wollumsum.

Wollumsum is a koreanised version of the Vietnamese summer roll. The word wollum means Vietnam and sum means wrap/roll. While the outer wrapper of rice paper remains the same, the filling as well as the dipping sauce are quite different.

It also differs as you build and eat each roll as you go rather than making a bunch of rolls ahead of time and then eating them. I think that this makes the eating process heaps more fun and gives everyone the chance to add vegetables they like and mix it up to find the best combinations as well.

Besides tasting awesome, the best thing about wollumsam is that it's super versatile and you can change it up with the filling of vegetables you like, the mood you are in and with the people you are with. I've been in wollumsum eating competitions where we try different combinations and keep count as to how many we've eaten. Two friends come to mind as I remember the majority of us were out of contention as we were stuffed but these guys kept going and amazing us.

For me the basics and must haves are the rice paper wrapper, rice noodles, meat (I usually use a roast chicken, thinly sliced beef poached and prawns), bean sprouts, mushroom, lettuce, avocado, mint leaves, coriander and lots of sauce with a few bits of chilly. In the picture above, you can see that I love a variety of vegetables. There is an assortment of vegetables that include mushroom, bean sprouts, pineapple, tomato, avocado, carrot, cucumber, red and green capsicum, tofu, broccoli, egg, crab sticks, alfalfa sprouts, apple, lettuce, coriander mint leaves, onion, snowpeas and prawn. This is a pretty big spread of vegetables, is there any other vegetables I'm missing?

I have had many years of wollumsam making and eating under my belt so I’ll share with you how I make it as well as any tips I’ve learnt over the years.

First thing is to wash and cut the vegetables into 5cm lengths and julienne into thin uniform pieces.

Meanwhile cook the thin strips of beef in a pot of water and remove after it is cooked through.

Replace water and cook rice noodles until tender, about 8-10 minutes. Drain, cool and set aside.

For the sauce, I use 2 small red chili peppers sliced including the seeds for that extra chilly hit, 2 tsp of pineapple juice or orange juice (or a pinch of sugar if not using juice), 6 tbsp of fish sauce and a tsp of cold water.

Once you have all the bits and bobs ready, set out on your dining table with some rice paper wrappers as well as plates and lots of napkins for everyone. Also set up a saucepan with some water on a portable gas cooker and heat until just below a simmer or have a bowl with boiled water.

You can make it in whatever fashion you wish. But the way I go about is placing the softened rice paper on the plate, add noodles in the centre with leaving about a centimetre on each side, lots of vegetables (probably one of everything on offer, pour over lots of sauce to let it soak up in the noodles and then attempting to roll the paper and tucking it all in. Let's say my rice paper rolls have been a source of much amusement to my friends and family as they quite gi-normous and they always explode.

Some tips for you in regards to wollumsum

• Don't pre-soak the rice paper wrappers or else they won't stick very well
• Dip the rice paper wrappers for less than a minute if using boiling hot water or else they will turn into a large gluppy mess.
• Check the rice paper wrappers when you buy them and get the one with the least holes and not chipped
• Don’t fill up your roll with too much stuff. I should take my own advice but each to their own, I like them to explode everywhere
• Don't touch the cut up chillies or you may end up with burning lips, or eyes and I can tell you it HURTS.

Another tradition for the 100 day celebrations is the rainbow rice cake (mujigae ddeok). You see why its called rainbow due to the array of colour when you slice through it. This rice cake is made on special occasions like a baby’s 100 day or 1 year old birthday, or a wedding. If you check out Maangchi's website (http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/mujigae-ddeok), making this rice cake takes a lot of effort and time even though there are only a few ingredients. It is rather plain tasting with a hint of sweetness but was a favourite of mine whilst growing up.

We ordered the the rainbow rice cake from Strathfield also known as Koreatown. Let me tell you a funny story though, my mum decided to have a taste test before everyone arrived. Now you would of thought that she would of taken a small portion from the corner but she decided to take a piece from smack bang in the middle. Hmm so for photo opportunities it looked rather odd and then she tried to hide it by cutting up a corner piece and shoving it in to hide that it was missing a piece. Let's say it just made it worse. What do you think, here are the before and after shots.

My sister also bought a sengcreme cake which is a sponge cake with cream and fresh fruit. This is my favourite cake of all time as the sponge is so light and fluffy, I love cream and the fresh fruit incorporated into the cake.

My hubby's dad brought over some sweets from Ablas. Ablas if you don't know is this amazing sweet shop in Granville. I think it has the best baklava in all of Sydney. Check it the weblink below (http://www.ablaspastries.com.au/sweets.htm). The picture shows the sweets with date fillings, soo good.

Jaeminkins was given a hanbok - Korean costume by his uncle in Korea so we dressed him up and took lots of photos. He was rather well behaved and a source of much amusement as his pants were way too long (Harry highpants) and his hat kept falling into his eyes. The things parents put their children through, hey=) I can already hear the tutting.

Thanks for reading and enjoy peeps! 

100 days, Happy New Year

New Year's Day marked Jaeminkin's 100th day milestone. In Korea, on the 100th day after a child's birth, a small feast is prepared to celebrate the child's having survived this difficult period because of the high infant mortality rates in the past.

So we celebrated by dressing up in Korean costume and posing for a few photographs. Mum and dad found it hilarious that Jaemin was too small fit into his outfit sent from my uncle in Korea. It was a task to have everyone's eyes open, smiling, looking at the camera when the timer went off. Just reminded me of my wedding group shots and everyone was either doing something odd, think I'll need to photoshop everyone to get the perfect picture=)

As it was a hot day we donned our swimmers and went for a dip in the pool. I asked Mum to take a few photos on my camera and as she took to the task and aimed the camera at us, we heard the halfway click to hear that it was in focus but to Mum it meant that it took a photo? Once I corrected this, I assumed that she could take a few nice shots but when I downloaded the shots, it was interesting to find that we were barely in the picture at all. I've included one example, I couldn't add the other shots as it was either my head chopped off and perhaps an arm of James. Technology and parents hey!

We then spent most of the time eating mixed cold noodles (bibim nangmyun), rice cakes (dok) and shortbread cookies.  A great day to welcome in the new year with the family.