Japchae Recipe: Korean Glass Noodles for Holidays and Parties

Full transcript

Annyeong! It's Yul from KVIBE IDOLS. Today we're making the dish you'll see at every Korean birthday, wedding, and holiday table. Japchae!

Here's a surprise. The first japchae had no noodles at all. It was created in the early 1600s for King Gwanghaegun. The name means mixed vegetables. The king loved it so much that, the story goes, the official who made it got promoted! Glass noodles were only added in the twentieth century.

Let's cook. Boil about two hundred grams of sweet potato glass noodles, called dangmyeon, for six minutes, then rinse and cut them a little shorter with scissors.

Now cook the vegetables separately, quickly, so they stay colorful. Spinach, onion, carrot, bell pepper, and mushrooms. Fry some thin strips of beef with soy sauce and garlic.

The sauce is simple: four spoons of soy sauce, two spoons of sugar, two spoons of sesame oil, and minced garlic. Mix everything together in a big bowl with your hands, or with chopsticks. Finish with sesame seeds.

Yul's tip! Japchae is delicious warm, but also cold the next day, so it's perfect for lunch boxes and parties. And if you're invited to a Korean home for a holiday, there's a ninety-nine percent chance japchae will be there. Now you can say: I know its royal story! Masitge deuseyo!