Advertisement
Published: August 10th 2009
Our Bibimbap
A masterpiece! And delicious too.Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun.
Today I had my first Korean cooking class! We made bibimbap and a jigae (stew). For the first hour of class we watch our sansangneem (teacher) prepare the two dishes and talk about them in Korean. It was like watching Julia Child in Korean. I was trying to keep track of what she was doing and the order of preparation, since our instruction sheet was also all in Korean and the only food words I know are rice (bap) and cucumber (oo-ee).
Luckily my partner Angel, who's from Hong Kong, was paying attention too. We got right down to work like we were on Top Chef or something. There was chopping and salting and open flames and boiling and ingredient fetching and sauteing and tasting. I had a lot of fun, and it was really fast to prepare when there were two people working on it.
Basic Bibimbap recipe:
White Rice
Carrots
Cucumber
Alfalfa sprouts
Mushroom
Fried egg
a little red meat
Sesame oil
veggie oil
Red pepper paste
Salt
Chop up all the veggies (and fried egg) in very thin strips- julienne style maybe? Sprinkle them with salt to start
Cooking instructor
Watch out Rachel Ray! them softening. Boil the alfalfa sprouts until tender and set aside. After the veggies have sat for a few minutes, squeeze out as much liquid as possible into sink. Fry/saute each kind of veggie separately for a few minutes. Brown the red meat strips in the pan. Get a bowl of white rice and toss a little of each veggie into the rice. Add a big dollop of red pepper paste to center of rice mound and then lay out remaining veggies, alfalfa and egg strips in wedge-shaped areas on top of the rice. Serve immediately and eat with a spoon.
I ended up eating most of our bibimbap and man was it tasty! There really is nothing better than eating something you've prepared yourself. The jigae was also really good and we shared it with the boys we had shared ingredients with.
In other food related business, I have noticed a disproportionate number of Outback Steakhouses in Seoul. What's up with that? Why do the Aussies have a corner on the steakhouse market? Why are there more Outbacks in Seoul than in any other place I've seen? I mean, I know Koreans have a love affair with
Partners
Angel and I with our raw ingredients. beef, but let's be reasonable.
Finally, I just had a big waffle with ice cream for dinner. Before and after photos prove why that's never a good idea. I've learned my lesson and I promise to only eat kimchi and rice and my own jigae from now on.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0446s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
