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Chop Chae (Sweet Potato Noodle)

by:
September 26, 2010
0
0 Ratings
  • Serves four to six
Author Notes

This dish reminds me of lunches at a narrow store front diner in my college town of Ann Arbor, MI. Steve's Lunch was known for Bi Bim Bop, but the chop chae was my Korean dish of choice. It's satisfying any time--late morning, lunch, late afternoon and late night. Now my son eats it as a lunch or late afternoon snack. It's kid friendly and satisfies adults as well. I add sriracha to mine just for a little spice. —edamame2003

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Ingredients
  • 1 pound dried vermicelli sweet potato noodles
  • 1 cup juilenned carrots
  • 1 cup julienned acorn squash or kohlrabi (whichever is in season)
  • 1 cup sliced shitake mushroon
  • 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 cups baby spinach
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
  • 2 tablespoons grape seed oil
  • 3/4 cup organic Tamari or gluten free soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup honey powder (or light agave, if vegan)
Directions
  1. Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil; place noodles in the pot and let cook for 5 minutes.
  2. Drain the noodles and rinse with cold water. (To keep noodles from sticking, just run water through the noodles when ready to stir fry)
  3. Mix soy sauce, honey powder and sesame oil.
  4. Heat the grape seed oil in a large pan or wok.
  5. Add the crushed garlic and brown.
  6. Add the carrots and kohlrabi or squash and stir fry until softened, for about 5 minutes.
  7. Add the sliced onion and shitake mushroom, and pour about 1/4 cup of the soy/honey powder mix to the pan and stir fry the ingredients for another 3 minutes.
  8. Place the vegetables in a bowl and mix with the spinach. Set aside.
  9. Add a little more grape seed oil (about 1 Tablespoon) and put the noodles in the pan with the remainder of the soy/honey powder mix. Mix well over medium heat for 3 minutes.
  10. Place the noodles in the large bowl with the vegetables and mix together.
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I work in the entertainment business, and in my free time, I really enjoy growing my own vegetables, trolling my local farmers markets and trying to re-create yummy dishes I eat at my favorite restaurants. My son is a big influence on how and what I cook. He's my guinea pig and promises to try anything I make once. Luckily the recipes on food52 are bountiful and delicious.

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14 Reviews

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tenpenny October 4, 2010
@edamame2003 thank you for replying. Yes, clear after boiling and brown after heating w/rest of mix. I added more veggies & tamari this evening to the leftovers and it tasted pretty good. I did buy the noodles at a Korean shop & just checked the bag again - it was labeled 1lb but perhaps mislabeled as it sure was A LOT of noodles.
edamame2003 October 4, 2010
vivzan--you know whats funny about that is my bag said 1 pound and after i boiled it, it really didn't look like that much...makes me wonder if my bag was mis-labeled. im glad you were able to add more veggies and tamari and make it work :)
tenpenny October 4, 2010
@Teri, possibly. 8oz would make much more sense. Meanwhile,I have leftover squash and carrots so I'm going to julienne them tonight, stir fry them and add it to the leftovers. :)
Teri October 4, 2010
Vivian, I'll be interested to see edamame2003's thoughts, but I wonder if maybe you could just cut the amount of noodles from one pound to 8 ounces? Maybe the package edamame2003 used wasn't a full pound.
tenpenny October 4, 2010
So, I made this last night and, I hope this is all right, I have some feedback to share with you. I stuck to the recipe and the ratios, but substituted the honey powder with agave.

For the 1lb of noodles, the one cup each of the squash, shitake and carrots wasn't nearly enough. They were lost in the noodles and we felt it could have used a whole lot more.

Also, for me, the dish lacked umami flavor and salt. Perhaps the umami could have been remedied with more shikake? I did use regular Tamari but perhaps shoyu for a stronger flavor?

edamame2003 October 4, 2010
hi- i absolutely appreciate the feedback--i usually don't measure when I make my dishes so I made this right before I wrote down the recipe to make sure it worked. the package I used was a 16 oz pack of dry sweet potato noodle; and I added 5 cups of vegetables (carrots, squash, mushroom, spinach), not counting the onion. I add spinach to the left overs, so maybe that's why it didn't seem like too few veggies . I also used gluten free Tamari. i stir-fried the veggies in only 1/4 of the tamari/honey powder mix and the rest the noodles soaked up. were your noodles clear after boiled, and then brown after heating up with the rest of the tamari mix? i hope you were able to adjust and enjoyed the dish though. thank you for letting me know--i'll take another look and make adjustments. thank you!
Teri September 30, 2010
I love chop chae, and am glad to have a recipe. What's honey powder, or is there a substitute? I hope your recipe gets picked!
edamame2003 September 30, 2010
hi teri! thanks for your comment :) honey powder is a sweetener made from honey. surprisingly its not as sweet as sugar, but regular sugar or agave works too; i might use a tiny bit less and see how it tastes since cane sugar and agave are a little sweeter.
Midge September 28, 2010
Sounds like my kind of lunch.
gingerroot September 26, 2010
Mmmm...I love chop chae and am happy to have a recipe for it now! Thanks!
edamame2003 September 26, 2010
thanks mrslarkin--i don't bake (very well, at least) so would love to try some of your muffins and scones!
JoanG September 26, 2010
where do you find sweet potato noodles?
edamame2003 September 26, 2010
Some Asian stores carry it--they are sometimes called Korean glass noodles, just make sure they say sweet potato on them, because there are also bean thread noodle that can work with this recipe, but don't have the same hearty consistency as the sweet potato noodles.
mrslarkin September 26, 2010
Yum! I want to eat at your house!