About a month ago my mom came to visit for Gianna’s birthday. I’m talking about her a lot lately, can you tell that I miss her? I love, love, love getting to spend time with my mom and Gianna and Caleb do too. One of the side benefits of her visits is that she always stocks our fridge! As always, she left us with a ton of awesome Korean food.

When I was planning my husband’s birthday dinner, I was quickly inspired to make a little Korean feast. I saw thinly sliced beef just begging to be marinated into bulgogi, japchae (clear noodles made from mung bean or sweet potato) noodles, and kimchi, of course It was perfect.

I love how versatile japchae is. You can add any number of veggies and easily make it vegetarian. I picked up a bell pepper at the market and then just used what I had on hand. Sadly, I couldn’t find my dried shitake mushrooms this time! That’s one of my favorite things to add.

The dish itself is pretty simple to put together, but it does take a reasonable chunk of time to prep, mainly involving good ol’ vegetable chopping. If you’ve got little ones underfoot like me, you can prepare in stages. Marinate the meat the night before while the babies slumber, get the vegetables ready during little breaks during the day, and then get it done as fast as you can during baby’s last nap of the day!

Lucky for me, I still have some japchae noodles left over. If only I could figure out where those shitake mushrooms are…

Japchae

These are the ingredients that I happened to use this time, minus the shitake mushrooms. Try experimenting with other vegetables that you think could work. Add more noodles or more vegetables depending on what ratio you like. You can also substitute the meat with extra mushrooms to make this a vegetarian dish. 

olive oil for cooking
1/2 large yellow onion, cut into thin, half moon rings
1 bell pepper, julienned
2 large carrots, julienned
2 celery stalks, julienned
1 bunch spinach or 16oz baby spinach
5 shitake mushrooms
minced garlic
salt
12 oz. Korean glass noodles
1/3 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 pound bulgogi (if making your own, marinate thinly sliced beef in equal parts brown sugar, soy sauce, and coca cola, with minced garlic, ginger and black pepper added in)

Set an oven rack to the highest setting and prepare it to broil. Also, begin heating a large pot of water.

Heat oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions, season with salt, and saute for about 6-7 minutes, until translucent and done. Remove and set aside. Repeat with each individual vegetable and the mushrooms, the timing varies but saute until done. It’s important to cook each vegetable individually because of the varying cooking time. * For the spinach, add minced garlic to oil before adding the spinach.

Mix the soy sauce and brown sugar together in a small bowl, set aside.

On a sheet pan lined with aluminum foil (for easy clean up!), lay out a portion of bulgogi. Be sure to lay out each piece so that parts of the meat aren’t folded over. Put in the oven and cook for 2 minutes, flip the meat over and cook for 1 more minute, or until done. Remove meat as well as the juices and repeat until all the meat is cooked.

When the water is ready, salt it add the noodles. They cook for about 6-7 minutes. When cooked, drain the noodles and return back to pot. Add the cooked vegetables, the cooked bulgogi + juices, and add the soy sauce/brown sugar mixture to taste. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to cut up the noodles and bulgogi to a desired length and size. Mix together using tongs and add a drop of sesame oil at the very end.