I am quite a fan of jajangmyeon both Chinese style or Korean style although both taste quite different from one another. I had my best Korean jajangmyeon when I was on holiday in Jeju Island and ever since then I have been on a constant lookout for that one bowl of jajangmyeon to bring back fond memories of this dish. After watching the restaurant on wheels show, I realised it doesn’t seem too difficult to cook this on my own so I decided to pop down to the Korean supermarket to get the black bean paste needed
Here are some of the ingredients required:
2 to 3 red onions diced into cubes
1 zucchini cut into quarters
3 mid-sized potatoes cut into cubes
5 stalks of spring onions diced into small cubes
200 grams of pork meat
Most importantly, Chun Jang which is the black bean sauce. The pack I bought is 200 grams
First, fry the spring onion in oil to create an onion fragrance oil
Once you start to smell the fragrance from the spring onions, put in the red onions and stir fry them till slightly brown and soft.
After 2 mins, throw in the meat and the potatoes and continue to stir fry them till half cooked which will take another 3 minutes over high heat.
Add the zucchini last and fry for another 1 min over high heat.
Put in the black bean paste which is quite thick.
For added flavours, you can add either chicken stock or just water to simmer the harder ingredients. The sauce should look abundance and cover the ingredients slightly so that it can simmer and cook the potatoes and zucchini.
Prepare starch water at the side with 2 tablespoons of corn starch powder with 2-3 tablespoons of water. Stir until there are no lumps.
Add the starch water once the sauce boils and it is important to add the starch water while the sauce is boiling so there are no lumps. Keep string until the sauce becomes thickened. The sauce is now ready.
You can choose to eat the sauce on top noodles or rice and I choose to have them with noodles. You can choose handmade noodles or instant noodles or other kinds of noodles available. The one I have i the picture is the flour-based noodles which is closer to hand-pulled noodles which I bought from the local provision store.
Once the noodles are ready, you can lay the sauce on top of the noodles and it is ready to be mixed and eaten.
Mix thoroughly and you can enjoy the noodles just like the ones sold in Korea. It is best to enjoy the noodles while the noodles are freshly cooked and the sauce is warm so that the noodles do not stick altogether. This is my first try at cooking this at home and I am surprised at how good the flavours all came together and I will probably stop looking for jajangmyeon outside now that I can cook it on my own.
I kept the extra sauce in the fridge and had them the next day on top of instant noodles and it paired very well with the springy and chewy noodles as well.
Bear Travels . Bear Eats . Bear Cooks 