Bi Bim Bap It! Homecoming in Seoul
Off to see Jorge in Korea!
Do you have a bucket list of things to do when traveling, if so, what’s yours? I’d love to know. Here’s ours when we travel:
FIRST DAY- a tour of the city on bikes. It’s a great way to get an overview of the city you are visiting and get a bit of exercise (guilt-free eating for the day, yay!) It does have it’s heartbeat quickening moments when you ride in traffic and every big city in the world has traffic. But we have biked in Rome, London, Boston, DC, Paris, and Seoul without mishap, just a couple of choice words from drivers. But hey, I get that here too.
SPORTS: We have watched rowing on the Thames, soccer in Italy, and now baseball in Korea and Japan. BOSS, so much fun and gives you a taste of the folks that live there.
EATS: Street food, hole-in-the-walls, local joints, my kinda food. Ok, occasionally, a meal that breaks the bank.
I push the envelope sometimes with my search for local food. I have waited in line for 90 minutes for Egg Tarts in Macau, meandered down small alleys looking for Won Ton Soup in Hong Kong or Okonomiyaki in Osaka. Unfortunately, the combination of spotty maps and my non-existent sense of direction means a lot of wandering around and spewing expletives at my phone when looking for those food gems. Good thing my family loves me, or at least I think they do.
HOME COOKING: Do you get tired of eating in restaurants? Miss your kitchen? Take a cooking class! We have made pasta and gelato in Florence and now homemade kimchi, seafood pancake-pajeon and Bi Bim Bap in Seoul.
Early morning at a local street market
Our cooking class with Joungy began with a visit to the market to buy ingredients, a Korean Veggie primer!
I was mesmerized watching this gentleman grind chili peppers into Gochugaro powder.
We made Seafood Pancakes or Pajeon, fresh kimchi, and my favorite bowl meal, Bi Bim Bap. Bi Bim Bap starts with a pile of fluffy, warm rice and topped with julienned carrots, cucumbers, squash, spinach, mushrooms, yesterday’s banchan, seasoned beef or chicken. You get the picture, you can use anything you desire for toppings. For Joungy’s class, we had a wonderful array of veggies, carrots, cucumbers, daikon, shiitake mushrooms, shredded beef and a chiffonade of Perilla leaves. Delicious!
The secret to her Bi Bim Bap is the extra attention given to the sauce. Her Gochujang paste included corn syrup, a bit of soy sauce, and chopped garlic, stir-fried briefly. This brought the sauce to a new level.
Season each component, stir-fry, and place on top of the rice in neat little separate piles-kid-friendly, lol. Top your masterpiece with a sprinkling of sesame seeds and a dollop of sauce. It’s colorful, delicious, easy to prepare, flexible…what more could you ask for? If you can’t find Perilla leaves, garnish with chopped green onions are good too.
A great primer for Bi Bim Bap can be found at My Korean Kitchen which has instructions to season the blanched bean sprouts and spinach.
Bi Bim Bap (Korean Mixed Rice)
Ingredients
Bi Bim Bap Rice (proportions for 1 bowl)
- 50 gm thinly sliced beef
- 1 clove garlic finely chopped
- 1/2 t brown sugar
- 1 t corn syrup
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 T soy sauce
- 1/2 t sesame oil
- 2 fresh shiitake mushroomes, thinly sliced
- 1/2 carrot, julienned
- 1/4 c daikon, julienned or bean sprouts
- 1/8 t pepper powder Gochugaru
- 1 handful spinach leaves or sub 1/4 cup thinly sliced zuchinni or Persian cucumber
- 5 perilla leaves aka sesame leaves can sub shiso leaves, julienned
- vegetable oil for frying, 1/2 T for each vegetable
- 2 cups Cooked white rice I use a rice cooker, its your call how to cook the rice!
Ingredients for Sauce for servings
- 5 T Gochujang chili paste
- 2 T Corn syrup light
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 T brown sugar
- 1/2 T vegetable oil
Instructions
For Sauce
- In a nonstick skillet, add oil and chopped garlic. Turn heat onto medium high. Saute until garlic is brown color, don't burn!
- Add remaining ingredients for sauce and stir over medium low heat for approximately 5 minutes. Set aside.
For Vegetables and Rice
- Cooked medium grain white rice
- In a small bowl combine soy sauce, brown sugar, corn syrup, pepper powder and chopped garlic. Add beef and stir to combine.
- Stir fry each vegetable-mushroom, carrot, daikon, separately until tender crisp. Season with salt to taste. Place each vegetable on a platter, keep separate. Stir fry mushrooms in 1/2 T sesame oil, remaining vegetables can be saute in 1/2 T vegetable oil or a blend of sesame oil and vegetable oil
- If using bean sprouts or spinach, blanch in hot water until tender crisp about 1 minute
- Stir fry beef until cooked through.
Building Your Bowl
- Divide hot rice between 3-4 bowls
- Place vegetables in bundles around the bowl in a radial pattern. Place beef in the center.
- Garnish with sesame seeds and perilla leaves and approximately 1 T sauce for each bowl. Place extra sauce in a bowl and serve along side bowls.
- Optional (mandatory for me): Fry an egg for each serving, sunnyside up, and place on top of beef
Notes
So good! Bowled over by Bi Bim Bap!