Noodle With Black Bean Sauce (jja-jang-myun)

We've been eating this dish a lot to get rid of the noodles... lol~

If you need some guidance with the ingredients, you can check my Korean Cooking 101. ;)

Ingredients:
noodles
beef
olive oil or any cooking oil
chopped garlic
1/2-1 potato
1/2-1 carrot
1/2 of onion
1/2 squash
pinch of black pepper
pinch of garlic salt
water
black bean sauce
sugar
cornstarch

Step 1:
Grab a pot and add water. Once it starts boiling, add the noodles. Sorry I don't have a picture for this. You can usually find the noodles at Korean market. Look at the cover of the noodles, it usually shows you.

Step 2:
I usually soak my meat, in this case beef, in water to get rid of the blood. You don't have to do this part. Once the blood is gone, I cut it in small bite-sized pieces. Grab a frying pan and add olive oil or any oil to fry the beef. Then add some chopped garlic and fry the beef.
While I'm cooking the beef, I usually cut my potato and carrot. Once the beef is done, I add the cut pieces of the potato and carrot. You want to add the vegetables that take longer to cook first.
While I'm cooking the potato and carrot with the beef, I cut the onion and squash. Then I dump the chopped onion and squash in the frying pan. Then I add some seasoning like black pepper and garlic salt.
Then cover the vegetables with water and let it boil.
Once it starts boiling, I add black bean paste. It depends on the amount of sauce you're making, but usually it's about 2 spoonful of black bean paste. I mix it around with the spoon. The heat from the water will melt the black bean paste. ;) Then add 1 spoonful of sugar and taste the sauce. If the sauce isn't to your taste, you can add more sugar to sweeten it.
I used this black bean sauce just in case you didn't know how the sauce looks like.
Then I grab a cup and add some water. I add 1 spoonful of cornstarch. Make sure the cornstarch is all mixed in the water.
Slowly add the water with the cornstarch while mixing it with a spoon. The cornstarch mixture will thicken the sauce. If you need more cornstarch mix, make some more. You can directly add the cornstarch, but from my experience it sticks to the spoon that's why I mix it with water.
Put noodles in a dish and add the sauce on top. I topped it off with chopped cucumber. You don't have to do this part but it looks nicer that way... hehe~ :)


This past week, I also made pho for the first time... hehe~ It's the thanks for my kim-chi eating buddy, Spankedelic. She sent me a pho powder for the broth.
It came out delicious!!! My dad even said it taste the same as the restaurant... hehe~ I'm drooling, as well as, salivating as I type this... lol~ :X

She also sent me this cute Hello Kitty candy. I still have it sitting around... lol~ It's too cute to eat!!!

Thank you Spank!!! :)

This week I checked out Sally's Beauty because of their buy 2 get 1 free deal on all nail polishes. I bought three China Glaze polishes. I bought two summer collection, Orange Marmalade and Watermelon Ring, and one regular collection, Coral Star (click here to see all the swatches of the China Glaze collection I have).

Orange Marmalade:

Watermelon Ring:

Coral Star:

If you can see, I've been into coral/orange-y/peachy colors lately... lol~ Even my nail of the week (NOTW #10) is in that color. :X
I've also been into solid colors that's why you don't see much nail arts anymore... hehe~ I used China Glaze in ThatAway. It's such a gorgeous color! :)