A Practical Guide to Korean Food and Korean Fusion Food

Yesterday I had a recipe request from Mika about instant noodles. She was wondering what kind of ingredients I add when I make instant noodles. I usually don’t add much vegetables or meat, because I don’t want to bother with heavy preparation. However, I had some green bean sprouts left over after making Kimchi mandu (good timing isn’t it?), so I decided to make this meal straight away.

Ingredients for 1 person

• 1 pack of Korean instant noodles
• 1 chili
• 1/2 stalk of spring onion
• 1 fistful of green bean sprouts
• Water 550 ml

Prep

1. Rinse the green bean sprouts. Discard the bad beans.
2. Take the seeds out from the chili, then diagonally cut the chili and spring onion.

Cooking

1. Put the water into a pot, add the green bean sprouts.
2. Boil it. (Put the lid on)
3. When it starts to boil, add the powder sauce, dried vegetables, and noodles.
4. Boil it for about 2-3 minutes more. (I prefer slightly under cooked noodles.)
5. Add the chili and spring onion 30 seconds before you serve them.
6. Serve them in a bowl (Kimchi is a option, though it is a must item for Koreans.)

Tips

1. While you are boiling noodles, pick up the noodles with chopsticks several times and stir them. (When the noodle meets the air while it is cooking, it gets more chewy which is better.)
2. Don’t boil it too much, and eat it soon after making it, otherwise the noodles become sodden.

I have used yellow bean sprouts in instant noodles before (though I can’t remember the taste), it was the first time using green bean sprouts in instant noodles. I think it gave a very fresh taste to the soup so it felt like a really healthy meal. I really loved it. However, it may be a bit spicy for you.

How to cope when the spice hits you

• Drink some milk. (gargling enhances the chance to recover faster.)
• Have some mashed potatoes.

Related Posts

Instant Udong Noodles

Korean Black Bean Paste Noodles (Jajangmyun in Korean)

Shellfish and Chewy Noodle Soup (Bajirak Kalguksu in Korean)

I finally made Jajangmyun with my own recipe. It was my first try and it turned out well. Maybe it was a bit too sweet. Anyway, if you are thinking about making this meal for a date, reconsider the menu even if you are good at using chopsticks.

There are also various recipes to cook other types of Jajangmyun, and I am going to try them all some other time. I am very excited about that. Are you?

Ingredients for 2 people

(Expected preparation time – 15 minutes, Cooking time – 20 to 25 minutes)

• Noodles for 2 people (I used the left over from when I made Kalguksu)
• Pork 100g (At the supermarket, the pork packet says “for curry or jajang” in Korean. It is cut in cubes already.)

-Pork Marinating Sauce-

• Refined rice wine – 1 tsp
• Salt 2 sprinkles
• Pepper 2 sprinkles
• Ginger 2 sprinkles

• 1 onion
• 1 medium size potato
• 1/4 a zucchini
• 1/4 a carrot
• 3 leaves from 1/3 size cabbage (1 leaf from one cabbage)
• Black bean paste (Chunjang in Korean) – 3 tbsp
• Olive oil – 2 tbsp
• Sugar – 2 tbsp (You can reduce it, it was a bit too sweet.)
• Cooking syrup – 1 tbsp
• Refined rice wine – 2 tbsp
• Water 2 cups
• Starch water (Mix of starch 2 tbsp +water 2 tbsp)

Preparations

1. Rinse the pork in cold water.
2. Add the pork marinating sauce onto the pork. Mix them well.
3. Cut the onion, potato, zucchini and carrot into small cubes.
4. Cut the cabbage into medium size pieces.

Cooking (You will need a wok, a frying pan and a pot.)

1. Pre heat the wok.

2. Add some oil and the pork and stir fry it.

3. Add the carrots and potatoes, stir it.

4. Add the zucchinis, onions, and cabbages, stir it.

5. Pre heat the frying pan and add the olive oil and black bean paste.

6. Stir no.5 on medium heat for 1 minute.

7. Scoop out the black bean paste without the oil. Add it to the wok.

8. Mix the vegetables with the black bean paste.

9. Add the cooking syrup, sugar, and rice wine into the wok. Stir it.

10. Add the water and boil it.

11. Add the starch water into the wok. Stir it. (It is the final stage of making sauce.)

12. Boil the water in a pot.

13. Add the noodles when it starts to boil.

14. Boil them for about 3 minutes. (You can start doing this at stage 10)

15. Rinse them in cold water.

16. Put them into a bowl.

17. Add the jajang sauce on top of the noodles.

18. You can serve it itself or decorate it with some cucumber slice, egg or green beans. In my case I used some radish sprouts and the egg.

19. Mix the sauce and the noodles well with chopsticks.

20. Dig in. (It is ideal to have them with yellow pickled radish. Apparently it helps digestion. Also dig it up quickly before the noodles get swollen.)

You can serve the dish with some rice, like the picture below if you want. Its name would be “Jajangbap” then. (Bap means cooked rice.)

You can learn more about Jajangmyun from Wikipedia

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Instant Black Bean Paste Noodles

Instant Udong Noodles

Shellfish and Chewy Noodle Soup (Bajirak Kalguksu in Korean)

Sweet and Sour Chicken