Vegetarian Japchae

Adapted from this website.

Ingredients

The seasoning is extremely vibes-based, so YMMV.

Timings

Chop up ingredients before cooking: 30 min. Let mushrooms marinade at least 30m while chopping and cooking other ingredients.

Recipe

1. Mushrooms: Remove stem and slice shitake mushroom caps. Marinade with 1 clove minced garlic, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil.
2. Chop into thin strips: onion, red pepper (and then lengthwise in half), julienned carrots, green onion into large chunks but separate whites and greens.
3. Jidan egg garnish: separate egg yolk from egg white, remove white stringy stuff. On a heated nonstick pan with a bit of oil, pour the egg yolk and tilt the pan so that the mixture spreads thinly. Turn off heat and let it cook with the remaining heat. Cover as needed. Flip over, take off once fully cooked. Slice into thin strips.
4. Spinach: Bring a large pot of water to oil. Add spinach and blanch for 30 segments. Keep water boiling for noodles. Rinse spinach, and cut it with scissors into smaller pieces. Remove as much water as possible, put into large mixing bowl. Add 1 teaspoon soy sauce and 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil.
5. Noodles: Put into boiling pot of water, stir so that they don’t clump. Cook for 7 minutes until soft and chewy. Strain, and cut with scissors. Add to large mixing bowl. Add 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil, 1 teaspoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar. Mix well.
6. Onions: On a relatively high heat, put onion and white part of green onion into the pan. You do not want to caramelize them, you want a tiny bit of controlled burning for a delicious maillard reaction. You will need to pay a lot of attention to this step, so if you can’t do that, err on the side of lower temp and not quite as delicious (no one will notice the difference). Add a bit of soy sauce towards the middle of cooking, cover. Once they look delicious, transfer and mix with other ingredients in mixing bowl.
7. Carrots and bell peppers: Add carrots to hot pan. Once halfway cooked, add red bell peppers. Carrots should maintain a bit of crunch while being cooked, red bell peppers should be fully cooked through.
8. Mushrooms: Add marinaded mushrooms to hot pan. Once cooked to preference, add to mixing bowl.
9. Season to taste: Add roughly 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil to the mixing bowl. Season to taste. Jen usually adds less sugar, slightly less sesame oil, and more soy sauce.
10. Garnish: Add egg garnish and sesame seeds until the dish looks pretty. Serve immediately.