Weekday dinner

My roommate's sister visited over Thanksgiving and taught her to make japchae, aka stir fried Korean glass noodles. Since then, the roomie has been cooking it often and sharing with me, but I wanted to try to make it myself. Turns out, it's nowhere nearly as intimidating as it seems. All you have to do is boil potato noodles for 10 minutes, then rinse under cold water and drain. Then, stir fry some beef in garlic and oil (I had some steak in the fridge that I sliced thinly and marinated overnight in storebought kalbi marinade), add thinly sliced veggies (mushrooms, bell peppers, carrots, spinach), and add the noodles plus soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar and adjust until it tastes right. Voila.

The picture of the japchae is only 1/5 of what I made -___- I have a huge vat left in the fridge, even after dinner AND packing tomorrow's lunch. I was only able to eat half of what's pictured here since I was prioritizing finishing the greens first. My Chinese broccoli (gai lan) was starting to wilt, so I stir fried it in a touch of oil and garlic, then added some broth and let cook for two minutes before transferring to a plate. Then, I heated oyster sauce mixed with sesame oil using the same pan until bubbling and poured on top of the veggies. Easy peasy and it took less than 10 minutes. I managed to almost finish the plate (it's huge!), but now I'm sick of Chinese broccoli for at least the next year.

The roomie tried my japchae and said it tasted just like hers. That made my day :)