Monday, May 30, 2011

What's for Dinner Tonight? Korean Mixed Vegetable and Seasoned Rice (BiBimBap)

I love a lot of things about Korea, whether that is Korean dramas, Korean music, Korean actors and actresses, Korean weather...okay, scratch that last part. But I'm sure I share this passion with a lot of people from all over the world.

If you haven't heard of Nanta (Cookin') Show, I highly recommend you to watch it, it's been performed all over the world. It's similar to Stomp but with a cooking-related twist. It's so great of a show that you never get bored watching it, I know because I had seen it twice (both in Seoul and in here). You can see the preview here


Back to my love for all things Korean, Korean food especially. Most people, if asked about Korean food, Kimchi is usually the first thing come to mind. It's the most known dish from Korea, and Koreans always have Kimchi on their meals.

Anyway, yesterday morning I was watching ArirangTV's show last night where they did a coverage on Korean food in New York. I won't go on the detail of that show but basically my mouth was watery from that coverage, so I decided to do the most basic Korean dish : BiBimBap, which translated to "mixed meal". It is served as a bowl of warm rice with sauteed vegetables and red-chili paste (gochujang). At Korean restaurant, you can usually see the on the menu "Dol Sot bibimbap" which is Bibimbap in a "dol sot" or stone bowl for extra crisp and crunchy rice.

It was say that this dish was introduced back in the war day where the soldiers needed a quick meal before going to war and that was how the women mix everything with the rice for convenient. Later on, the dish was also created out of all the leftover food from the ancestor's ritual ceremony. Source : my Korean friends.

So this is my version of it.
Ingredients :
1/4 cup Ground beef
1/4 cup kimchi
1 handful of bean sprout ( I use regular bean sprout)
1 handful of spinach
1/2 carrot, cut in stripes
3 pcs of mushroom, thinly cut
1/2 zuchini, cut in stripes
1/2 onion
1 egg
2 bowl cooked rice

Beef Marinate:
1/2 tsp (sugar, cooking wine, soy sauce, sesame oil)
1 clove mince garlic
a pinch of salt and pepper

For the bean sprout:
1/2 tsp sesame oil, a pinch of salt

For the red-chilli paste:
3 tbsp Red pepper paste (Gochujang)
1/4 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
3/4 tsp sesame seed
1/2 tsp minced garlic

Directions:

1. Mix beef with marinade in a bowl, set aside.
2. Wash and remove the end of the bean sprout. Put bean sprout in a medium pan with boiling water, cover and boil for about 10 minutes, when they are done, mix in a bowl with sesame oil and salt.
3. Sautee individually each vegetable (carrot, zucchini, mushroom, onion) in a small amount of oil for about 10 seconds, add salt.
4. Fry the marinated beef until they are done.
5. Fry the egg, you can do a sunny side up or omelette and then thinly sliced.
6. Mix all ingredients for the red-chilli paste and give it a good stir.

To assemble:
Put warm rice in a bowl, and start arranging your vegetables forming a circle on top of the rice.
Put the ground beef in the middle and the fried egg on top of it. Last, put the paste on top of the egg.

To eat:
Mix everything with a spoon until all mix and red in colour, and....dig in.

Warning : the sauce is spicy, so if you're not familiar with spicy food, it's best to avoid this dish. But only if you are sure you won't regret this because it is so deliciousss.

Recipe: adapted from Aeris Kitchen.
Aeris Kitchen put an excellent video on how to make this dish, you can view it here.


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