Korean steak with japchae

To my knowledge, this was the first time I cooked Korean food. It was with a twist though, as I used venison instead of beef. Why? Because we have an entire red deer in the freezer and that's what I will be cooking with for a while. 

Yes, the meat is over cooked. Although I like quite rare red meat, it started off as as too under-cooked after 7 minutes in the oven, so I popped it back in for another five minutes and got distracted by a phone call. Shamelessly, I blame the over-cooking on the phone call. Chatting away, I left the meat for 6 or even 7 minutes and the damage was done. Even so, it was still really nice and there were pink patches in the middle. I just wish that the marinade would have flavoured more than the outside of the steak. Let me tell you, those end pieces were divine.

I cooked two pieces of meat and they were left in marinade for 6-7 hours and I cooked it the way I normally cook venison, first browned in a frying pan, then finished off in the oven and left to rest before slicing. I'm gutted that I got the timing wrong. Never mind. I'll hopefully get it right next time.

Japchae is a Korean noodle stir-fry, at least Pinterest says so. The recipe featured sweet potato noodles and by the look it of, that's what I used. Spiralled sweet potato is however not what they meant. They used glass noodles, that look like bendy strings of glass and are apparently called sweet potato start noodles. Well, I didn't have any of those, so I decided to pick up on the name and do my own thing. 

Meat marinade:

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp chilli paste

1/2 thumb piece ginger, finely chopped

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp honey

Japchae:

2 medium sweet potatoes, spiralled

1 large carrot, mandolined

1 pepper, finely sliced

3 handfuls fresh spinach, chopped

1/2 leek, cut into slim sticks

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 onion, finely sliced

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp syrup

1 tbsp sesame oil

1. Get the meat marinade ingredients out.

2. Chop the ginger and garlic and mix with the other ingredients in a container that will fit the meat.

3. Add the meat to the marinade, pop the lid on and leave in the fridge for a good 5 hours or more, even over night if possible.

4. When the time comes for cooking, brown the meat on high heat in a frying pan. 

I didn't add any oil, as there was plenty in the marinade.

5. While the meat is browning, get the ingredients and equipment out for the stir fry.

6. Once the meat has been brown on all sides, finish cooking it in the oven. 

These two pieces probably needed 10 minutes at 200 degrees to be medium-rare, but I over cooked mine for 12+ minutes, so don't trust me. Cooking time depends on the size of the piece of meat and you need to adjust it every time.

7. Mandolin the carrot into thin sticks.

8. Turn the sweet potatoes into noodles.

I have a spiraliser, but this can be done with a mandolin as well. I wouldn't grate it, as it becomes mushy rather than noodley.

9. Chop and slice the rest of the ingredients and mix the sauce.

10. Soften the onion in a frying pan.

I used the leftover oil and meat juices from the steak.

11. Stir fry the chopped vegetables. Hold the noodles and spinach back.

12. Once the meat is cooked, cover it and leave it to rest.

As you can see, I cooked mine with water in the oven tray. This is to add moisture, but also for easy washing of the tray. It works a treat.

13. When the vegetables are done, add the sweet potato noodles and mix.

14. Add the sauce and leave to cook for a couple of minutes.

15. Chop the spinach.

I totally forgot about the spinach and didn't remember until I had already put the noodles into the pan. There is spinach growing in the garden, so I nipped to pick what I needed.

16. Add the spinach when the sweet potato noodles are cooked.

17. Mix well. The spinach will cook instantly.

18. Slice the meat.

If you look closely, you can see that there is actually a bit of pink, so although it was over cooked, it wasn't ruined. Phew!

19. Dish up and enjoy.

The flavours of the noodles were quite plain, but it was still nice. Not everything has to be a mouth explosion. In fact, it made me appreciate the edges of the meat even more. The meat marinade was definitely the star of the show. I should have held some back after initially mixing it and added it after slicing. Next time...