Korean Food Project: Figure-Friendly Chapchae.

Chris came back home really early on Friday, and bugged me to prepare something noddle-y for dinner. I wasn't in the mood to eat or cook anything (the smell of food is kind of revolting these days), but he rarely makes a request like that so I dutifully obliged. I checked our perpetually understocked fridge and somehow I came up with a few veggies... perfect! Next, I rummaged the storage cabinet and found an old pack of chapchae noodles and thankfully, it wasn't expired yet. Chapchae isn't really a main dish here. It's more of a side dish served alongside stews and meat dishes. But together with rice, kimchi and a few other banchan, it can be considered a decent meal and ought to give him a noodle fix.

Since I'm bent to lose weight, I wanted to make my chapchae as healthy as possible; no meat, less oil and lots of veggies. And again, pardon me if my ingredients and methods are kind of different from the usual..

Here's what I used: 300 grams of chapchae noodles (soaked in water for 15 minutes), cabbage, carrots, bell peppers, onions and minced garlic. I veered away from meat and used re-hydrated mushrooms and shrimp - both are rich in flavor and enough to give chapchae a savory boost.




First, I sauteed the vegetables in 1 tbsp of olive oil. 2 minutes is probably good, you don't want your veggies to be overcooked. *Many presumes olive oil as light and low in calorie, but go easy on using it. Olive oil packs in a whopping 120 cal/tbsp.




I added the shrimp and mushrooms and stirred it for about 3 minutes.

Next, I added the noodles, a cup of water (you could use chicken or beef broth instead of water)

and half a cup of soysauce. Let it sit for about 5 minutes till the liquid evaporates. And lastly, season it with salt and pepper. *Like most Korean dishes, this dish calls for sesame oil, but I don't particularly like the flavor of that.

And here's the finished product.. A figure-friendly chapchae that's bursting with flavor!

I don't mean to brag but Chris said it's the most delicious chapchae he has ever tasted. He ate it with rice and few other stuff, while I only had a small serving of it and nothing else. He found it weird that I eat it by itself, he doesn't know that for us Pinoys, it's taboo to eat noodles with rice. ^^;