Kimbop

I know you've all been waiting for this :)  Kimbop is the ultimate Korean picnic/travel/packed lunch food.  It's often mistaken as sushi rolls, but Korean kimbop has no raw fish.  It's usually packed with yummy vegetables like carrots, spinach, and cucumber, proteins like bulgogi or imitation crab, and egg.  Everything rolled together in kim (=seaweed) and bop (=rice).  You don't need to be a linguist to figure out where kimbop got its name. 

Kimbop is great because it's one of those all-inclusive meals that have rice, veggies, dairy, and meat/fish all rolled up into one.  You can eat them by hand and they transport well, so it becomes the perfect travel food.  When my family goes on a car trip, the first thing we do when we get up that morning is start making kimbop to take with us. 

Ready to learn how to make some yourself?  Okay!

Ingredients (makes 4 servings):
-4 cups cooked Asian rice (this will not work with the fluffy variety)
-4 pieces of seaweed (ask the Asian grocer for kimbop-making seaweed)
-2-3 tsp salt
-3 tbsp sesame oil
-1 cup bulgogi, cooked
-2 eggs
-1 carrot, julienned
-1 seedless cucumber, sliced into thin spears
-1 pickled radish (dan mooji), sliced into thin spears
-toasted sesame seeds

*And keep some salt and sesame oil on hand*

1.  First, you wanna make the rice.  We used brown rice because we're trying to be healthier these days.  Mix the rice, salt, and sesame oil in a large mixing bowl.  Make sure you don't mash down the rice too much.

2.  The rice is all set.  Now it's time to make the ingredients to go into the kimbop.  Here is where you can get creative.  You can put all kinds of things into kimbop, but I'll just show you a simple type of kimbop we made for our camping trip. 

Egg strips are a very common ingredient for kimbop.  Remember that post on Engrish and my attempt to make egg strips?  This is what I was trying to make.  Beat two eggs in a small bowl and sprinkle with a dash of salt to taste.  Gently fry in a large skillet.  Spread it out so it makes a large sheet of egg.

Flip and turn off heat.  Cut into strips.

3.  Next ingredient: saute carrots in a skillet with a little salt and sesame oil to soften them up a bit.

4.  Chop up cucumbers and picked radish into thin spears. 

Dice up some beef and make your bulgogi.  If you want to make simpler bulgogi, you can just marinate the beef with some sesame oil and salt. 

Fry it up!

5.  Okay, so now you should have all five of the ingredients ready!  Here is the secret weapon: the kimbop roller.  It's a bunch of thin bamboo rods tied together to make a curtain of sorts.  It's called baal (with a geminate vowel, if you care about that sort of thing). 

And here is the seaweed that we use for kimbop.  It's much thicker than regular kim that you would eat with your dinner. 

It has a rough side and a shiny side, which you can kinda see here.

On the kimbop roller, place a sheet of seaweed rough side up.  Spread rice across about 3/4 of it.

6.  Place ingredients long-ways on the rice, putting smaller and messier ingredients towards the bottom. 

To make really pretty kimbop, you wanna use a wide range of colors.  The green, orange, yellows, and brown make for pretty colors when sliced, as you'll see soon.

7.  From the side that has rice on it, roll very tightly, giving it pressure each time you roll.

Just make sure you don't accidentally roll the kimbop roller into the kimbop itself.  See how my mom is kinda scooting the front part of the roller forward as she rolls?

Squeeze it tight to make sure everything is tightly packed in.

8.   Let sit on plate (or in our case, the counter) with the seam-side down, and brush with sesame oil.  The moisture from the warm rice will sink to the bottom and seal the kimbop.

 

9.  This is the part that's trickier than it appears.  You want to use a very very sharp knife and cut the roll into 1/2" thick slices.

Here's the end-piece that you get to eat!

Look how pretty they are!

Try to cut them all the same size.  My mom is good at doing this.  I am not.  See?

If you're layering the kimbop in a container, sprinkle some sesame seeds between the layers to prevent sticking.

You will probably have some random leftover ends of egg, cucumber, etc.  We usually pack those in on the sides to eat with the kimbop.  We already know it goes well together, so why not?

There are tons of different things you can put into kimbop.  Imitation crab is a popular ingredient, as is spinach.  You can also spice things up by putting kimchi in there.  Now that you have the concept, go out there and make some creative ones yourselves.  Enjoy!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.