Day 162: South Korea and Kimchi Bibimbap

안녕하세요 (read: annyeongaseyo), Raffies!

We are going to South Korea today! I have been looking forward to today's dish! Bibimbap was the first dish that open the doors to the culinary world of Korean cuisine. There are so many delicious dishes in Korea that I know of and probably so many more I have never even heard about.

Korean cuisine is famous for its spicy soups and delicious barbecued meats.
I would really like to visit Korea, but for now I am eagerly following the adventures of Sylvia in Korea to get a teenie tiny glimpse at this wonderful country.

Today's recipe is accompanied by a homemade kimchi and I don't think I have to say much more about it. It is wonderful! Obviously spicy and so incredibly satisfying, because it simply has it all :P

As for the bibimbap recipe, I have followed my great Korean cookbook "Our Korean Kitchen" (by Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo):

*Serves 2

Marinated beef
100g ground beef
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 crushed garlic cloves
1 spring onions, finely chopped
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

Toppings
50g bean sprouts
100g spinach
1 spring onion
100g shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 eggs
sesame oil to season
soy sauce to season
sesame oil to fry
roasted sesame seeds

Fried Rice
*150g Kimchi
2 cups rice

Gochujang sauce
2 tbsp gochujang chili paste
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Mix the ingredients for the marinate and mix with the meat. Leave to marinate for at least 15 minutes.
Put the rice in a small pot. Rinse it with cold water and carefully get rid of the water. Repeat this until the water gets transparent. Cover the rice with the same amount of water as of rice (if the rice is 1 cm thick, cover with 1 cm of water) and put it on the fire. Once it gets boiled, turn the fire to low. When no water is left, it is ready. Set aside and keep warm.

Now, fill a medium pan with water and bring it to a boil. Blanch the bean sprouts, spinach and spring onions one after another until tender. Do not mix them! Put them on a plate and season with sesame oil and soy sauce. Still do not mix them!

Pour some sesame oil in a large pan (ideally a wok) and fry the shiitake mushrooms until brown. Put them on the plate with the other vegetables and season with sesame oil and soy sauce.

In the same pan (wok), fry the marinated beef with sesame oil. Once it is well cooked, set aside a bit of it for garnish, add the kimchi and the cooked rice and mix well.

Fry the eggs in a pan as done as you like. Ideally the yolk should still be runny.

Now the cooking is done. Put the fried rice in a medium or large serving bowl. Put the fried egg on top of the rice and put all vegetables and kimchi and cooked beef on top of that. Garnish with roasted sesame seeds. Serve warm.
You can add some Gochuajang sauce mixed with soy sauce as a dip.

*How to make Kimchi at home:

For Cabbage:
half of cabbage or napa cabbage
50g salt


For sauce:
2 tbsp sesame seeds
4 tbsp chili pepper powder
1 garlic clove
1 small piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp gochujang chili paste
1/4 grated apple
50 ccl water
1 tbsp flour

Wash the cabbage well and cut it into small pieces. Put it in a small storage bag, not leaving any air inside. Use one or more bags if the pieces of cabbage do not fit in one. Cover the first bag with a second bag so that the liquid does not leak. Put something heavy (like a dictionary) on the bag and leave it for 1 hour.
Now start to prepare the sauce by mixing all the ingredients (except water and flour). Pour the water and add the flour in a small pot, heat them on a medium fire while you blend them continuously. Once it gets dense add it into the sauce mixture you have just prepared.
Wash the pieces of cabbage well in running cold water to remove all the salt. Leave them to rest and drain for 1 hour.
After that, add the cabbage into the sauce and mix well.
Put kimchi in a small bag to assure that it is always soaked.
You can enjoy the kimchi after some hours or after some days (even some weeks or months!). It is said the more fermented the kimchi is, the better the flavour. So you can either wait for a few hours or for a few months ;)

Love,

Raffi