Japchae

Before you start

• sweet potato glass noodles — dangmyeon, from an East Asian grocer

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 120gsweet potato glass noodles
• 120gbeef sirloin — or more mushrooms in its place
• 1eggs
• 2 tbspoil
• 150gspinach
• 1carrot
• 1onion
• 100gshiitake mushrooms
• 4 tbspsoy sauce
• 1½ tbspsugar
• 2 tbspsesame oil
• 1 tbspsesame seeds

Method

6 steps

1. boil · 9m

   Noodles in plenty of boiling water for six or seven minutes until they are clear and springy, then rinsed cold, drained and cut through twice with scissors — full length they are impossible to serve and impossible to eat.

2. chop · 12m

   Carrot and onion into fine strips, mushrooms sliced, beef into thin strips, spinach washed.

3. fry · 14m

   Each thing cooked on its own in a little oil and lifted out into the same wide bowl: onion, then carrot, then mushrooms, then the beef fried hard and fast until it is browned and cooked through. Spinach wilted last and squeezed dry in your hands.

4. fry · 5m

   Egg beaten and cooked as a thin flat sheet in a barely oiled pan, rolled up and cut into ribbons.

5. fold · 5m

   Soy, sugar and sesame oil turned through the warm noodles first so they take the colour, then everything else folded in with your hands. Dressed cold, the noodles refuse it and stay pale.

6. finish · 2m

   Egg ribbons and sesame over the top, and eaten warm or at room temperature — it is one of the few things here that is arguably better an hour later.