Birthday Menu Ideas to Please Everyone, from Kids to Parents

When a child’s, parent’s, or husband’s birthday suddenly arrives, it can be hard to know what to do. It becomes even more overwhelming if plans for a small, intimate family meal out fall through and someone announces plans to invite friends over instead.

To avoid panicking in such a situation, it helps to learn more about birthday menu options. The sheer number of birthday dishes found online and in cookbooks can often feel overwhelming. But there is no need to panic if you consider them one at a time. Here is a closer look at birthday meal ideas.

Japchae, the Most Important Birthday Dish

Japchae is one of the most fundamental dishes on a birthday table. It is considered more essential for a husband’s or parent’s birthday meal than for a child’s. Here is a go-to japchae recipe.

The ingredients are 250 g glass noodles, half an onion, half a carrot, 150 g pork, a handful of garlic chives, four shiitake mushrooms, two eggs, and one carrot. You may also prepare other vegetables, such as spinach or bell peppers. For the japchae sauce, you need half a cup of soy sauce, half a cup of starch syrup, one tablespoon of sugar, and 1/4 cup of cooking oil.

First, clean the vegetables and cut them into thin strips. Bring water to a boil, add the dry glass noodles, and cook for just eight minutes. There is no need to worry about the noodles being undercooked, as they will cook thoroughly without being soaked beforehand. Immediately rinse the cooked noodles in cold water, rubbing them together as you would when rinsing noodles to wash away the starch. Rinse them thoroughly for some time to remove the starch, then drain well.

Once the noodles are cooked, make a thin egg omelet and cut it into strips. Oil a pan, then add the sliced onion, carrot, shiitake mushrooms, garlic chives, and other vegetables and stir-fry them. Stir-fry the pork separately with cooking wine. Next, combine the prepared sauce and noodles thoroughly and stir-fry until almost all the sauce has been absorbed. Add the cooked pork and then the vegetables, continuing to stir-fry. Finish with sesame seeds or sesame oil for an even more savory japchae.

Japchae is the most important birthday dish, but it takes considerable work and can leave little time for preparing other food. In that case, Vietnamese spring rolls or pickled radish wraps are also good options, as you only need to slice the vegetables and other ingredients so guests can assemble their own.

What If You Cannot Make Everything Yourself?

Using ready-to-cook foods can also reduce the work involved in preparing a birthday meal. These products contain individually packaged ingredients that can be turned into delicious birthday dishes with just a little blanching or boiling.

For a child’s birthday table, it may seem better to prepare more dishes, but it is best to pay greater attention to the cake, fruit, or cookies than to side dishes or labor-intensive food. It is also more effective to ask children in advance what foods suit their tastes. If you truly lack confidence, having party food delivered to your home is another reasonable way to put together a birthday party.

Serving expensive, high-quality dishes at a birthday meal can be nice, but the best thing is to prepare a thoughtfully written birthday message. Even if the menu is somewhat limited, a heartfelt birthday message can make it an outstanding birthday celebration.

[FamTimes = Reporter Kim Jae-young]