That dish from Parasite: Ram-don aka jjapaguri aka steak and noodles
Ram-don (aka jjapaguri) is the name of that dish fixed up in the 2019 Oscar winning film Parasite, when the rich family is on their way back from camping or wherever. We haven’t done loads of research, but the premise of the dish seems to mix high elements of cuisine (a nice ribeye or whatever) with low elements (instant noodles).
The authentic recipe calls for two particular brands of noodle which we didn’t use. Instead, we copped a medley of instant noodles from the Asian supermarket in Shoreditch and used those. For the steak, we found a flank steak (“bavette” if you’re French) on sale.
We seasoned it with a bit of mirin and sesame oil (plus salt and pepper) right before cooking it.
Super easy and fun dish.
That steak and noodle dish from that movie Parasite
Equipment
- Large pot to boil noodles
- Grill pan (or saute pan) for steak
Ingredients
- 350 g steak (flank or ribeye)
- 2 tbsp mirin (can substitute with apple cider vinegar)
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 packet ramen-style instant noodles
- 1 packet udon-style instant noodles
- salt
- pepper
- green onions, sliced for garnish
- sesame seeds for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat your grill pan to high heat. It needs to be quite hot.
- Pat the steaks dry. Salt and pepper them before adding them to a bowl with the mirin and sesame oil. Mix well.
- When grill is sizzling hot, throw the steaks on it. Cook for about 8 minutes, turning every 2 minutes or so. You want them rare-ish because they will cook further in the noodles. When they are cooked, put under foil and let them rest.
- Bring 5 cups of water to a boil and cook the noodles according to package instructions (should be for 2 minutes). Take half the water out. Add the spices from the packaging. Mix for 2 min.
- Slice the steak and dump the steak with its juices in the pot. Mix well and serve in bowls with green onions and sesame seeds on top.
Ram-don: who came up with that?
So the name was not actually a thing up until the people in charge of subtitles for the movie Parasite decided it was. Koreans know the dish simply as jjapagauri. The dish is usually made with chapaghetti (which despite the name, have nothing in common with spaghetti), a type of ramen noodle, and udon noodles. The dish is so simple that in some ways we think of it as the equivalent of spaghetti aglio e olio for Italian people: a comforting, easy to put together dish that became interesting because someone decided so.
I can’t help but wonder how Korean people are feeling about the explosion of jjapaguri recipes (this one included) and if they laugh at us because of that. Not that we would blame them.
Also, this is our first Korean recipe!
Stocking up on Asian ingredients (including ram-don essentials)?
We said it before and we’ll say it again: Asian food it’s all about a few, key ingredients that you can’t possibly substitute in any other way. The good thing about it is that Asian stores are now pretty much everywhere so you won’t have to look too hard to find them.
For this dish, realistically you only need the noodles (crucial, for a noodle dish), mirin, and sesame oil (which you can find pretty much in any supermarket). The noodles have to be the right ones though, otherwise, I’m sure you’re gonna end up with a good dish, but not the right one.
Our advice is to go over Asian Grocery UK or your country’s equivalent. We bought the Korean noodles when we stocked up on our Asian ingredients when we paid a visit to Longdan, they have different locations and conveniently ship all over the UK if you prefer to place a bulk order. Any decent-sized Asian grocery shop or e-commerce will have these few basics so don’t stress too much about it.
On top of that, make sure to always have some green onions in the house: just buy a bunch, put them into a glass of water (and make sure to change the water every day) and after you cut them to add them to your dish, put them back into the glass. They’re gonna grow back in a matter of days. A note on that: the outer layers are going to deteriorate in time, so just take them out when they start feeling a bit mushy. Otherwise, they smell like shit. There’s no other way to put it. And trust me, that’s not a smell that you want to ever come into your nose. We posted a video on that a while ago on Instagram if you need some visual support.
If you want to try other Asian recipes, we’re starting to collect a few at this point (sneaky look?) but these are some of our favorites: