JAJANGMYEON (자장면)
Jajangmyeon (자장면) (Black Bean Sauce Noodles) is a Chinese cuisine adapted to the Korean style served in most of the Chinese restaurants in South Korea and has now become a favourite food among the Koreans. You can often see people eating jajangmyeon in Korean TV dramas and variety shows. It is said that every day over 7 million bowls of jajangmyeon are sold in South Korea. This is also one of the foods I often ate when I studied Korean in Seoul. Let’s talk about jajangmyeon in this blog post.
What is Jajangmyeon?
Jajangmyeon is a non-spicy dish of thick noodles (made from white wheat flour) served with a thick dark brown sweet sauce which is made from a salty black bean soybean paste called chunjang (춘장) stir-fried with diced onions, minced pork/beef and sometimes other vegetables. Usually, the sauce is placed on the top of the noodles and people use chopsticks to mix the noodles with the sauce before eating. I found this mixing ritual indeed quite interesting. You can watch this video to see how the mixing is done. The side dish usually served with this dish is danmuji (단무지 – pickled radish) which is yellow in colour and sweet. The danmuji helps reduce the greasiness of the dish.
Etymology
Jajang (자장; alternately spelled jjajang 짜장) derived from the Chinese word zhájiàng (炸酱), which means "fried sauce". Myeon (면) means "noodles". The Chinese characters are pronounced jak (작; 炸) and jang (장; 醬) in Korean, but the noodle dish is called jajangmyeon, not jakjangmyeon, because its origin is not the Sino-Korean word, but the transliteration of the Chinese pronunciation. As the Chinese pronunciation of zhá sounded like jja (rather than ja) to Korean ears, the dish has been known in South Korea as jjajangmyeon, and the vast majority of Korean Chinese restaurants use this spelling.
History of Jajangmyeon
At the end of the 19th century, some Chinese immigrants began settling in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul and that area became today’s Incheon Chinatown in which Chinese restaurants began to appear. It was said that in 1905, a Chinese restaurant called Gonghwachun in the Incheon Chinatown started serving jajangmyeonn which was based on the Chinese zhajiangmian (炸醬麵 – literally, “fried sauce noodles”) originated from the Shandong region in China. Later, caramel was added to the sauce of jajangmyeon to give it a sweeter taste to suit the Koreans’ taste and jajangmyeon has then become a Koreanized Chinese food.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s, after the Korean War, people made use of the wheat obtained from the U.S.A. to make noodles and jajangmyeon spread to other parts of South Korea at that time. In the 1960’s when South Korea was still a very poor country, a bowl of jajangmyeon cost 15 won and was considered as expensive at that time. So, in the past, parents brought their kids to Chinese restaurants to eat jajangmyeon only on some special days like graduation, birthdays or Childrens’ Day. Although jajangmyeon has now become relatively cheap compared to other dishes, this tradition is still observed by many Korean families. Therefore, to many Koreans, eating jajangmyeon not only fills one’s stomach but also brings back valuable memories.
In South Korea, apart from eating jajangmyeon in Chinese restaurants, you can order it by phone and the dish can be delivered to your home, office, hotel, other restaurants and even parks where you are located.
As jajangmyeon is a cheap and convenient food which can be ordered easily by phone and delivered quickly, many busy people working in offices and factories and students choose jajangmyeon for their meals. Housewives who are too busy to cook food may also order jajangmyeon to be delivered to their homes. Jajangmyeon has now become a popular food among the Koreans. If you study or work in South Korea, jajangmyeon should definitely be one of the foods frequently consumed by you.
Jajangmyeon (자장면) or Jjajangmyeon (짜장면)
There has been some confusion as to the correct Korean word for this dish. Initially, the Korean word “자장면” (jajangmyeon) was regarded as the standard term but a lot of Koreans pronounced it as jjajangmyeon (짜장면) because it was easier to pronounce and sounded better. Nowadays, both words are accepted as the standard terms for the dish.
Black Day (14 April) is the Jajangmyeon Day
Black Day (Korean: 블랙데이) is an unofficial holiday observed on April 14 each year. It is mostly observed in South Korea by singles.
The day is associated with Valentine's Day and White Day as a holiday on the 14th day of the month. On this day, people who did not receive gifts on the previous two days gather and eat Jajangmyeon, noodles with black sauce. This day is specifically for single people
Jajangmyeon in Pop Culture
Jajangmyeon is also a popular food often appearing in the Korean TV dramas and variety shows. Jajangmyeon is a favourite food used for eating contests because after the contestants have eaten the dish very quickly, the faces and mouths of the contestants are smeared with the black bean sauce which looks funny. You can click the links below to see the relevant video clips:
If you go to Seoul, don’t forget to visit the Incheon Chinatown and eat jajangmyeon in one of the Chinese restaurants there. It’s a good experience to taste this Koreanized Chinese cuisine in the place where it originates.
Preparation and serving
Jajangmyeon uses thick, hand-made or machine-pulled noodles made from wheat flour, salt, baking soda, and water. The sauce, jajang, is made with fried chunjangwith other ingredients, such as soy sauce (and/or oyster sauce), meat (usually pork, but sometimes beef), seafood (usually squid and/or shrimp), fragrants (scallions, ginger, and garlic) vegetables (usually onions, zucchini or Korean zucchini, cabbage, and), stock, and starch slurry.
When served, jajangmyeon may be topped with julienned cucumber, egg garnish, boiled or fried egg, blanched shrimp, and/or stir-fried bamboo shoot slices. The dish is usually served with danmuji (yellow pickled radish), sliced raw onions, and chunjang sauce for dipping the onions.
7 types of Korean Jajangmyeon
Jajangmyeon is the Korean-style Chinese food made with fermented black bean paste which is called chunjang(춘장 in Korean) and the noodles. It is the most popular delivery food in Korea that many people frequently eat Jajangmyeon. If you go to the Chinese restaurant in Korea, you could see many kinds of the Jajangmyeon. Today I will introduce about the diverse types of the Jajangmyeon.
1. Kaan Jajang(간짜장 in Korean)
Normal Jajangmyeon uses the Black bean paste which is cooked before, meanwhile Kkan Jajangmyeon uses the Black bean paste which is fried just now. So the Kkan Jajangmyeon has more intense and oily taste. Cooking the good taste of the Kaan Jajang is hard and even if it is cooked little wrong, the taste could be salty and too oily that Jjangmyeon lovers judge the chef’s cooking skills depends on the Kkan Jajangmyeon.:)
Black bean paste and the noodles are given separately as you can see in below. Normally the Kkan Jajangmyeon is with noodle and the black bean paste, but in some places additionally give a fried egg above the noodle.
Then pour the black bean paste on the noodle and mix it.
2. Uni Jajang(유니짜장 in Korean)
All the ingredients in the Black bean are cut into small pieces. As the ingredients are chopped into little pieces, the water comes from the ingredient that it does not put the water into the Uni Jajang during cooking. Uni Jajang has the mild taste according to the ingredients are small that it is good for old men or children to eat.
You could see the ingredients are smaller than other type of the Jajangmyeon.
3. Sacheon Jajang(사천짜장 in Korean)
Sacheon Jajang is the most spicy among all types of the Jajangmyeon. Quite many restaurants put red pepper in it or the chili powder. Also the Seafood is in this Jajangmyeon. You could see the shrimp and the webfoot octopus in below picture.
4. Jaeng-ban Jajang(쟁반짜장 in Korean)
Jaeng-ban means ‘tray’ in Korean and this cuisine is served in a tray as you can see in below picture. Normally it is given in a large amount that two people can eat one dish. The good thing is the black bean souse and the noodle are already mixed that it is convenient to eat. Normally to eat the other types of the Jajangmyeon, you have to mix it by yourself.
5. Yetnal Jajang(옛날짜장 in Korean)
This means old Jajangmyeon in Korean. The characteristic of this Jajangmyeon is the ingredients such as onion, cabbage and potato are cut in big shape. Normally the sauce is thin and the taste of the black soybean paste is soft because of the potato which is in inside.
6. Jjajangbap(짜장밥 in Korean)
This means black soybean paste and rice in Korean. Black soybean paste is used as the other types of the Jajangmyeon, but the rice is in it instead of the noodle.
7. Jjamjamyeon(짬짜면 in Korean)
This means half is Jjamppong and half is Jajangmyeon.
Many Korean frequently having a hard time to decide what to eat between Jajangmyeon and Jjamppong. Acoordingly, new dish which has both Jajangmyeon and Jjamppong came out. Pros is you can eat both of the dishes at once but the cons is the food amount is less than you order the Jajangmyeon or Jjamppong itself. Because the middle part of the bowl is divided in half, and the amount of the food is less as much as the part which is dividing the bowl.
Sources:
https://koreancultureblog.com/2015/05/07/koreanized-chinese-cuisine-jajangmyeon-black-bean-sauce-noodles/
http://www.luckyturtles.com/?p=755
https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Jajangmyeon&uid=1575
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