The feast we had assembling our own bowl of bibimbap at iftar (breaking fast during Ramadan)! What is Bibimbap? Bibimbap, sometimes romanized as bi bim bap or bi bim bop, is a Korean rice dish. The term "bibim" means mixing various ingredients, while the "bap" noun refers to rice. Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped with namul or kimchi and gochujang, soy sauce, or doenjang -Wikipedia As we are in the middle of celebrating the month of Ramadan, (also in the middle of a global pandemic). I'm glad that it has brought some time for me to spend more time with the family. Dinner was a success and the family loved this dish! Got to toot my own trumpet a little bit as I managed to make some super delicious gochujang sauce on my own! (Oh! And my mom makes some delicious kimchi! Not right now because the main ingredients are impossibly expensive to get)
As you can see, the bowl of bibimbap is packed with colours and a balance of carbs, veggies and meat (you can go meatless if you wanted to as well!). Before you eat it, mix it up well with a large dollop of gochujang so you get every ingredient in a bite!
I'm not the best at julienning veggies (look at the oddly shaped cucumber as a testament to my lack of knife skills). What was in my bowl?
Recipe for a
Delicious Bibimbap Bowl
Ingredients:
1. Carrot
2. Zucchini or Japanese cucumber
3. Omelette
4. Seaweed
5. Mushroom
6. Marinated Beef (or any meat of choice)
* you can leave out the meat if you want a vegetarian option
7. Chives/ Spring Onion
8. Gochujang (Korean Red Pepper Paste)
9. Short grain rice/ Japanese Rice
Instructions:
1. Julienne all your veggies and omelette.
2. For the carrots and cucumbers, blanch them or steam them for a few minutes till they get a limp. If you are too lazy to boil some water, nuke it for 1min in the microwave in a covered container. Drain any access liquid and squeeze the juices out (you don't want a soggy bowl of bibimpab)
3. For zucchini & mushroom, stir fry them in a little bit of olive oil till they get limp.
4. Soak the dried seaweed in water for a few minutes to rehydrate, drain well and stirfry in olive oil
5. Marinate your stir fry meat in a marinade of your liking. For me I used a cofee & soy marinade. Leave overnight for best absorption.
6. Stir fry your beef over high heat for a few minutes, add your spring onion or chives and season to taste with a little bit of light soy.
7. Assemble and enjoy!
All the ingredients are cooked separately, and technically if you are pretty savvy, you can reuse the same pan for this cooking process so you don't have too many dishes to wash after!
For the gochujang, You can actually just buy a store-bought one! That would be way easier! However, not many grocery stores sell the "halal certified" gochujang sauce. That is a bummer and also, unfortunately, we also ran out of it in our fridge! Talk about bad timing too! So I googled if there was an alternative to gochujang as we had a couple of fermented pastes in the fridge that could possibly be altered.
I saw the ingredients and steps in Pepperscale's recipe and it got me thinking of the ingredients available in my pantry that I can somehow bastardize a gochujang in mere minutes.
Recipe for Easy Halal Gochujang!
Yield: 200g
Ingredients:
1. 1 heaping tbsp of White Miso Paste
2. 3/4 cup of brown sugar
3. 1 tsp of salt
4. 1 cup of water
5. 3 heaping tbsp of korean pepper powder
6. 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar (ACV)
Instructions:
1. Dissolve the 3/4 brown sugar in the 1 cup water over medium heat.
2. Add the miso paste after sugar is dissolved. Incorporate till no clumps.
3. Add your 3 heaping tbsp of Korean Pepper Powder. Add your 1 tbsp of ACV. Add your 1 tsp of salt.
5. Stir well and your mixture will start to thicken to a paste as it boils down.
6. Taste it, it should have a nice balance of sweet tangy taste.
7. Leave it too cool before storing in a jar or bottle.
Give it a try if you love Korean food! Happy Fasting!
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