This recipe was made many years ago, when I didn’t know Korean cuisine. I wanted to cook something in Asian style, so I looked through a few books on this topic. After a few attempts, just such a dish came out to me. At home, I call this dish Chinese vegetables, but this is very similar to the Korean JAPCHAE (sweet potato noodles with vegetables). We usually ate such prepared vegetables with rice, but recently I serve them with rice noodles or glass noodles. It is prepared faster than rice, and is equally tasty. Unfortunately, most of the time is spent on cutting vegetables, but it is also a way for lazy people – you can buy ready-made vegetables for Asian dishes. The dish is less crunchy, but it’s good too.
The original recipe for Korean Japchae can be found here:
https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/japchae
Ingredients: for 2 hungry people
-1 pack of rice noodles, glass noodles or sweet potato noodles (about 100g)
-3/4 cup of celery (can also be replaced with white root celery)
-1 cup of sliced carrot
-1 cup of sliced red pepper (you can also use a different color)
-4 wood ear mushrooms
-1½ cups of sliced onion
-1 cup of white cabbage cut into strips
-2 cloves of garlic
-1 teaspoon of grated ginger
– about 5 tablespoons of soy sauce
– about 2 teaspoons of curry powder
-1/2 hot chili pepper (for fans of spicy dishes)
-1 teaspoon of sugar or other sweetening substance (rice syrup, maple syrup, etc.)
-2-3 tablespoons of frying oil
1.Soak the mushrooms in hot water for about 20 minutes (the mushrooms will grow larger). After this time, cook the mushrooms for another 15 minutes. Keep water after cooking. After cooling, chop the mushrooms into small strips.
2.Slice the onion. Cut the carrots, celery, peppers and cabbage into strips.
3.Prepare the noodle according to the instructions on the packaging. When it gets soft, cut it with a knife into smaller pieces, drain.
4. Heat the oil in a large pot (or pan) and fry onions, grated garlic and ginger for 3 minutes. Add carrots and peppers, stir everything and fry for 3 minutes (if you use root celery then add it together with the carrot). Then add the celery and cabbage, fry another 3 minutes.
5.When all vegetables are lightly fried, add chopped mushrooms, about ½ cup mushroom water (after boiling mushrooms), soy sauce, sugar, curry and a hot pepper. Stir everything and fry for 3-5 minutes until the vegetables are slightly softened. I like when the vegetables are crunchy, so I don’t fry everything for too long. Finally, add the noodles, stir and simmer for 2 more minutes.
