Japchae: Information from Answers.com

Japchae

Korean name
Hangul	잡채
Hanja	雜菜
Revised Romanization	japchae
McCune–Reischauer	chapch'ae

Japchae (also spelled jabchae or chapchae) is a Korean dish made from cellophane noodles (called dangmyeon), stir fried in sesame oil with and various vegetables (typically thinly-sliced carrots, onion, spinach, and mushrooms), sometimes served with beef, and flavoured with soy sauce, and sweetened with sugar. It is usually served garnished with sesame seeds and slivers of chili. It may be served either hot or cold.

This dish is served at Korean parties and special occasions, with seasonal vegetables added.

Japchae is most commonly served as a side dish, though it may also be eaten as a main dish. It is also often served on a bed of rice; together with rice it is known as japchae-bap (잡채밥), bap (밥) meaning "rice."

1 Etymology
2 History
3 Types
4 References
5 External links

Etymology

The name, japchae, comprises the two hanja words; jap (hangul: 잡, hanja: 雜, literally "mixed and stirred") and chae (hangul: 채, hanja: 菜, literally "vegetables"). Therefore, japchae literally means "a mixture of vegetables."^[1]

History

Japchae was first made in the early 17th century, when the Joseon Dynasty was reigning in the Korean peninsula. When King Gwanghaegun hosted a big party at his palace, one of his lieges, Yi Chung, created this delicious dish to please the king’s palate. The king liked this dish so much that he rewarded his liege by promoting him to the position of hojo panseo (hangul: 호조판서, hanja: 戶曹判書, equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury).^[1] At the time, japchae was made with a variety of vegetables and mushrooms, such as sliced cucumber, shredded daikon, and pyogo (shiitake) mushroom. Although dangmyeon (cellophane noodles made from sweet potato starch) was only added in the 20th century, Korean people loved the texture of the noodles so much that dangmyeon is now an integral and primary ingredient of this variety of japchae.

Types

Japchae was originally made without noodles, but instead, the dish comprised various thinly shredded vegetables.^[2] Although the variety with noodles is most commonly available in Korean restaurants, varieties without noodles are also popular.

Variety with noodles

This variety is described in the first paragraph of this article.

Varieties without noodles

Gochu japchae (고추잡채), made with shredded fresh green chili pepper and vegetables
Buchu japchae (부추잡채), made with Korean leeks
Kongnamul japchae (콩나물잡채), made with kongnamul (soybean sprouts)
Haemul japchae (해물잡채), made with seafood and vegetables
Beoseot japchae (버섯잡채), made with mushrooms

Varieties served in Korean royal court cuisine

Tangpyeongchae (탕평채), made with nokdumuk (mung bean starch jelly), sukjunamul (mung bean sprouts), watercress, red pepper, and various types of seaweed
Gyeojachae (겨자채)
Jokchae (족채), made with shredded jokpyeon (cow-hoof jelly) and vegetables
Wolgwachae (월과채), made with zucchini, beef, pyogo (shiitake), chapssal bukkumi (찹쌀부꾸미, a pan-fried variety of tteok made of glutinous rice flour), and other vegetables.^[3] "Wolgwa" (월과) refers to the Oriental pickling melon (Cucumis melo var. conomon ^photos) in the Korean language.^[4] Nowadays zucchini has largely replaced wolgwa for making the dish due to the latter vegetable's rarity.^photo