Welcome to my site!

Welcome to my site!
I'm Cindy, and I love to cook! And, I love to eat... hence the size of my rear end! I come from a long line of cooks. My great great Grandmother was a cook in the original Harvey Houses. My grandmother Julia was an awesome cook, and my mom was incredible. I owe my skills to these great women. Especially my Mom who said this to me about making gravy... "Cindy Lynn, wallpaper paste is wallpaper paste & gravy is gravy. Never the two shall meet!" Shall we say my first experience at making gravy left a little bit to be desired! Thank the high heavens my cooking skills have improved since then! Enjoy!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Chapchae

Chapchae is the most popular noodle dish in Korea. I adapted this recipe from my favorite source, Cooking Light 2004 cookbook. It’s a little more labor intensive than most of the recipes I’ve posted – but it’s so tasty and well worth the extra work.

Beef:
1 Tbls cornstarch
8 oz eye of round steak, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 Tbls soy sauce, I like low-sodium
2 tsp Thai curry paste
2 tsp fresh minced ginger
1 tsp dark sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced

Place beef in a bowl and sprinkle cornstarch over it; toss to combine. Add remaining ingredients; toss well to coat. Cover and set aside while preparing other ingredients. Can marinate anywhere from 15 – 60 minutes.

Noodles:
3.75 oz package uncooked bean threads (cellophane noodles)

Pour boiling water over noodles; let stand for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse well with cold water. Drain. Snip noodles several times with kitchen shears in order to shorten the length making it easier to too add to beef/vegetable mixture and for serving.

Sauce Ingredients:
1/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
1 Tbls brown sugar
1 Tbls rice vinegar
1 Tbls dark sesame oil
Optional: 1 Tbls sesame seeds, toasted to be sprinkled over finished dish

Mix the liquid ingredients and set aside.

Vegetables:
1 tsp dark sesame oil
1 tsp vegetable oil
½ tsp red pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp fresh minced ginger
3 cups of shitake mushrooms, sliced. (I use the dried variety and reconstitute in boiling water. But, if you can get or prefer fresh – that would be fantastic too!)
1 bunch of green onions, diagonally sliced into 2” pieces
1 cup julienned carrots, 2” pieces

Directions
:

Heat large nonstick skillet or wok coated with cooking spray over medium high heat. Add beef mixture; stir fry for 5 minutes – or until almost done. You don’t want to overcook as the beef will become tough. Remove mixture from pan. Cover and keep warm.

Add 1 tsp sesame oil & 1 tsp vegetable oil to pan. Add red pepper flakes, garlic and ginger; stir fry for 30 seconds. Add mushrooms, green onions and carrots; stir fry for 5 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium low; add beef mixture and noodles to pan, stirring well to combine.

Whisk the sauce mix to assure it is well combined; add to pan. Stir well to combine; cook for approximately 3 more minutes to warm through. Sprinkle with sesame seeds if desired.

4 comments:

Jill said...

Man, this looks and sounds heavenly. I would like to try this someday -- eating it that is! Of course it would be good to make for my family as well, though I have a non-beef son so would need to substitute.

Anonymous said...

Thankfully, Columbo gave me your link. What a delicious blog you have! Everything here looks so good. I'd like to try this dish, since I've never tasted it before. I hope to be able to visit again.

Best,
Paz

Columbo said...

Thanks for being such a good cook. The food was greaaaaaat!

nolablossom said...

I will try to make this one using vegetarian "steak" strips. I recently made a bib im bop without the meat and it was pretty good! With my Korean heritage, I'm trying to appreciate Korean culinary.

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