Christine and the Big Scary Kitchen

You may notice I love a certain punctuation mark that many people avoid like the plague.  Though I can drop a semicolon like it’s hot, my punctuation of choice is the ever so lovely exclamation point!  I know it can grate on the nerves, but personally, I love it.  When I read about passionate people in their art, I get disappointed if they stifle their excitement.  I enjoy candor, casualty, creativity, and alliteration (threw you for a loop there, didn’t I?)!  In person, I get just as excited and silly about things.  I laugh loudly, I pretty much smile until my cheeks hurt, and I dance.  Oh, I dance and I have so many dances… especially revolving food.  So, when I read Steph’s “About” on Momofuku for 2, I could only ask her, “Do you have a noodle dance?”  Just to check if I wasn’t the only one…

And I’m not. So Steph, Shao from Fried Wontons for You, and I decided to throw a little party to bring together other noodle lovers!

This time we played with dangmyeon noodles, made from sweet potato starch, and also referred to as “glass noodles.”  At first they don’t look like much, but they’re slurpy and they wiggle once cooked.  Taste wise, I’ve always found them neutral.  They are perfect to adapt a dance around.

Also, I’m super excited, because this is the first time I’ll be posting a traditional, Korean recipe handed directly to me from my mother!  See, I made the ever so traditional Korean dish: Jap Chae!

I love the Korean language, its simplicity is astounding.  Jap Chae is translated to “a mixture of vegetables,” because Jap Chae origins come from super thin cut veggies and only evolved into the dish I’m sharing later.  It’s a great, light dish packed full of nutrients.  My mother actually serves this at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners since Jap Chae squeezes in a few power veggies like mushrooms, spinach, and carrots in an interesting way.  Now I have a supply of dangmyeon noodles, I’m sure I’ll be using them when I make a “leftover stir fry” (when I grab everything I need to use soon and make gobs of stir fry or fried rice.)

Make sure you check out the other noodle party participants and watch out on twitter and this blog to see when the next noodle party you can participate in!

• Momofuku for 2
• Fried Wontons for You
• Noodle Fever
• Jeroxie
• Yumorama
• Lovely Lanvin (She did it on twitter! Follow here for her steps: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 )

Jap Chae
serves four as a whole meal, more as a multi-course | takes about twenty minutes prep (not including time to curse at your brand new mandoline) and ten minutes to cook.

two bales of glass noodles/dangmyeon
1T of cooking oil
2 tsp of sesame oil (separated)
1 small onion chopped
3 cloves of garlic
3 medium carrots, julienned (I used heirloom carrots that’s why they’re so many colors!)
about 1/2 c of mushrooms (I used two portabello mushrooms, you can also use dried mushrooms, just make sure you rehydrate them)
1/2 lb of fresh spinach
2 glugs of soy sauce
a few pinches of sugar (to taste.)

Bring a pot of water to a boil.  Throw in the noodles and cook for about five minutes.  Drain, rinse with cold water then toss one tsp of sesame oil in the noodles to prevent sticking.  You can cut them into shorter pieces at this point (though I can hear my mom in the background, “Cutting noodles shortens your life!”*) then put to the side.

In a wok or large sautee pan, add cooking oil over high heat, swirl to coat.  Once the oil is very hot, fry onions and carrots for about one minute (not much longer) then add garlic and mushrooms for about thirty seconds.  Add spinach until just wilted then soy sauce, sugar, and noodles.  Fry for about two to three minutes then remove from heat.  You can toss sesame seeds in if you’d like.  At this point, I let it cool and serve it cold, but you can also eat it warm.

* – this is not a death threat from my mother.