This recipe is adapted from Joanne Lee Molinaro’s ‘Korean Glass Noodles’ in her book ‘the Korean Vegan Cookbook, Reflection and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen.’ I love gathering ideas from her recipes and finding ways to adapt select recipes.
Vegan Korean cooking uses copious amounts of soy sauce, miso pastes and tofu not to mention grain flours. I do not eat soy, gluten or grains. My diet does not fit neatly in any particular label. I eat what nourishes my body. I eat a little fish. The fish based ingredients I use for depth of flavour and unami are Redboat Fish Sauce (anchovies, salt), Trachang Shrimp paste (80% shrimp, 20% salt) and high quality, dried anchovies (anchovies, salt) from Malaysia or Thailand. In this recipe, I substituted Redboat Fish Sauce for the soy sauce. I include the brand as not all fish sauces are equal. Most brands on the market add sugar, colours, preservatives and all sorts of junk. The two high quality fish sauces I discovered are Redboat and Son; they both have 75% anchovies and 25% salt as their only ingredients; they are traditionally fermented in wooden barrels for over a year.
A sweet, saltiness layers over the deep flavour of toasted sesame in this noodle dish.
Korean Glass Noodles (serves 4)
Ingredients
280-400 grams sweet potato noodles
4 cups fresh greens, finely chopped (spinach, swiss chard etc)
1 carrot, julienned
1/2 red pepper, julienned
1/2 yellow pepper, julienned
1/2 green pepper, julienned
2 cups red cabbage, julienned or finely chopped
1 brown onion
10 mushrooms, fresh or dried
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 pinches of salt
2-3 tbs Redboat Fish Sauce
2 tbs pure maple syrup
1 tbs toasted sesame oil
activated or toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
1 scallion, finely chopped, for garnish
Method
Put on a steamer and when the water comes to a boil, add the greens and steam for 2 minutes. Set aside and let cool.
Prepare the vegetables. Using a mandolin, julienne the carrot and purple cabbage. Julienne the peppers by hand. Chop the onion and slice the mushrooms. Peel the garlic and crush with a press.
On a moderate to low heat, add the carrots and a few grains of salt to a ceramic non-stick frying pan covered. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the carrots to a large bowl or airtight glass container. Do the same for the red, green and yellow peppers as well as the red cabbage, cooking each separately for 2 minutes, so the flavours do not mix. After each is finished, add them to the same container. Then fry the onion, mushroom and garlic covered with a few grains of salt for about 5 minutes until the onions are cooked through and the mushrooms have browned. Right at the end, add 1 tbs of fish sauce and 1 tbs of maple syrup. Mix together and add to the other vegetables. Squeeze the water out of the steamed greens, chop and add to the vegetables. Thoroughly mix all the cooked vegetables together and set aside.
Put a pot of water on high and bring to a boil. if you intend to make a large dish to serve 4 and eat right away, add 280-400 grams of sweet potato noodles to the boiling water and cook for 6 minutes. If however, you want to make only one bowl of noodles, add 70-100 grams of noodles depending on how hungry you are. Cook only as many noodles as you will consume right away; sweet potato noodles do not store well as they get sticky and glutinous when cold. When the noodles are fully cooked, drain and add the desired serving to a bowl. Add 1/4 of the cooked vegetables along with 1-2 tsp of fish sauce, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil and 1 tsp of maple syrup. Mix well and top with fresh scallions and toasted sesame seeds.
If you have made one or two bowls, store the remaining vegetables in the refrigerator. For your next bowl, put a serving of vegetables in a bowl and let them warm to room temperature while you cook the sweet potato noodles. Drain the noodles, add to the vegetables and mix in the fish sauce, toasted sesame oil and maple syrup. Top with scallions and toasted sesame seeds and enjoy!
Enjoy slurping these noodles!