Fusion Ja Jang

I’ve always had an irrational fear of starvation. My family has a genetic tendency to hoard food, massive amounts that often end up in the compost bin. We’re overachievers when it comes to emergency preparedness of the caloric kind. So when I saw a bag of ja jang sauce at WeMart Hypermarket in Dubai last year, I bought it on impulse. Somehow in my head, I was afraid I would never be able to buy ja jang sauce again, because I didn’t expect to find this creamy, sweet and savory fermented bean paste (almost identical to Chinese tianmianjiang) in the hot deserts of the Middle East.

Having ja jang sauce in my pantry was comforting, it meant I had another dish I could cook, an obsession I love doing, but sadly haven’t done much of lately. I used to joke with my husband that I needed an eating service for the volume of food I was cooking and baking. Nowadays, even my refrigerator looks thin…

Since last August when I lost 20 pounds, my relationship with food has evolved. I’m the fittest I’ve ever been and I’m enjoying my new physique, but I won’t lie; I don’t eat the way I used to. My diet these days consists of low-carb, high-fiber, and lean proteins. When it comes to taste, I’d say they’ve evolved, too. I had some three-year aged Cornish quartz the other day (something I was once addicted to), but after a bite, I said, “Meh, it’s okay.” It was a bizarre experience. It was still good; I just had so much control over myself. I didn’t need to eat the entire block of cheese.

Initially, I thought I’d make a low carb dish dressed with ja jang sauce, substituting noodles with roasted sweet potato. Once the sauce was ready though, I realized it was meant to sit atop a glistening pile of chewy noodles. I immediately went to work and whipped out my mixer.

While I appreciate haute cuisine, I prefer simple, comfort food these days. On top of that, I’ve become incredibly lazy (though, you might argue that fresh, homemade noodles are anything but lazy). Gone are the days I religiously followed recipes to a T. With no regard for rules, I’ve become flexible and creative with the outcome of my cooking. I didn’t have the ginger, dashi broth, or zucchini usually required for ja jang sauce, so I made due with what I had. Instant single serving sakura seaweed soup that I brought back from Taipei became my dashi broth. An extra serving of frozen green peas for the zucchini. I skipped the ginger all together, too lazy to take a five minute stroll downstairs to the convenience store in our building. I’m positively sloth-like.

The results look good, don’t they? Well, looks can be deceiving. After the first bite, a sad disappointment washed over me. The sauce was so salty, I almost spit it out. It turns out Invisalign impairs my cooking ability. Ever since I started wearing Invisalign, I’ve been hesitant to put food into my mouth, afraid that food would get stuck and rot my teeth. I thought I could wing the seasoning, but without tasting it, I ended up with an overly salted sauce. 🤦

Fortunately, ja jang sauce is versatile. I can’t let food go to waste, so I’ll try the sauce on top of Italian pasta, bulgar wheat, quinoa, you name it. Anything in my pantry that might play well with a delicious, albeit less-than-perfect, sauce. Nothing like failure giving me an opportunity to learn and experiment, right? Actually, inside, I’m quite wounded. My pride as a cook took an uncomfortable blow. Nevertheless, I will carry on.

That’s the nice thing about home cooking. The stakes are low, so it’s easier to accept my mistakes. Rejection from deflated macarons is frustrating, but I can welcome the challenge again once I’m done sulking. I wish I could say the same about my career, but for mysterious reasons, those stakes are ultra high… but that’s a story for another time. :)