Sunday, June 12, 2011

Ever fickle and changeable

I was all set to make hobak jeon, but an unexpected windfall in the form of friend-going-abroad-who-needs-to-get-rid-of-her-perishables brought me some black bean paste.

As Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka might say, "Strike that; reverse it." It's jajangmyun time!

Forgive the poor photography. I was too excited to cram this
into my gullet to take a good picture. Ardenter, you say?*
Jajangmyun is, as you may have guessed from the name, a Korean dish of noodles, vegetables, and (usually) pork in a black bean paste sauce. I had to use soba instead of sweet potato cellophane noodles, and I omitted the pork, and I didn't have tofu or cabbage or a potato, but other than that, I'd say this was pretty traditional. As a consequence of the fact that I dropped half the ingredients, there was way too much sauce, so here I present an updated version.

Jajangmyun, taken with a grain of salt because this recipe is coming from a white chick
1 onion
1 zucchini
2 carrots
(You should probably use cabbage and potato and cooked pork or tofu)
3 tbsp black bean paste
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar (or less)
1 tbsp rice wine
1 cup water
a slurry of 1 tbsp cornstarch and 1 tbsp water

Stir-fry the vegetables with the exception of the zucchini and cabbage in the sesame oil. Add the black bean paste, sugar, rice wine, and water, and stir to combine. Mix in the zucchini and cabbage and bring to a boil. When it's boiling, add the cornstarch slurry, return to a boil, and simmer until the sauce is thickened and slightly reduced. Stir in the cooked meat/tofu and heat through. Serve over sweet potato cellophane noodles.

*This is a reference to Thomas Aquinas, who listed six or seven ways to commit gluttony. Ardenter is, simply put, eating too quickly.

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