Bibimbap (Mixed Rice)

Bibimbap. Mmm.... delicious... one of my favourite Korean dishes ever! This very popular Korean dish is not only mouth-watering but also give you a healthy dose of vegetables. It is a bowl of white rice served with a variety of vegetables and meat, usually beef, with a fried egg in the middle. The ingredients are then stirred together and mixed with gochujang (hot pepper paste).

I recently found a WONDERFUL website about Korean cooking. The creator, a Korean lady who nicknamed herself maangchi has a great collection of recipes and videos there, which I find extremely helpful. Not to worry, everything on her website is in English including her videos. I decided to try out her recipe for Bibimbap. I used whatever ingredients that I could find in my refrigerator and eliminated the egg and beef to make it vegetarian. It was quite easy to make and the result was just YUMMY! However, I really should have cut the carrots thinner, I ended up frying them longer to soften the texture.

The original recipe is on Maangchi's website. Below is the recipe that I have adapted for myself (without beef, egg and kosari, and using mung bean sprout that is more widely available to substitute soybean sprout).

BIBIMBAP RECIPE - Mixed Rice with Vegetables (For 1 Serving)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cooked short grain rice
• A handful of mung bean sprouts
• A bunch of spinach
• 1/3 of zucchinis
• 3 shiitake mushrooms
• 1/3 of carrot
• 1 -2 cloves of garlic
• Soy sauce, sesame seeds and sesame oil
• Gochujang (hot pepper paste) or bibimbap sauce

Preparation:

1. Cook rice according to package instructions. (1/2 cup uncooked rice usually yields 1 - 1.5 cup of cooked rice)
2. Bean Sprouts - Rinse bean sprouts and cover with water in a pot. Add a pinch of salt and cook for 1 minute. Drain water and mix with some garlic, salt and sesame oil.
3. Spinach - Chop off the roots and boil spinach for a minute. Rinse with cold water and squeeze lightly. Mix with garlic, soy sauce and sesame oil.
4. Zucchinis - Cut 1/3 of zucchinis into thin strips. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Let sit for a few minutes before sauteing over high heat until translucent.
5. Shiitake mushrooms - Thinly slice mushrooms and saute with few drops of vegetable oil. Mix in soy sauce and a pinch of sugar. Add sesame oil just before removing from heat. 
6. Carrot - Cut 1/3 of carrot into thin strips and saute for a minute.
7. Arrange vegetables nicely on rice in a bowl and serve with bibimbap sauce.

I found this bibimbap sauce at a Korean grocery store in Desa Sri Hartamas. I forgot the name of the store, but it is somewhere beside Daorae Garden Korean BBQ restaurant. There is also another Korean grocery store nearby, within walking distance, called Lotte Mart. The address is:

Lotte Mart

26g, Jalan 25/70A,

50489 Sri Hartamas,

Kuala Lumpur. 

I am not sure about the difference between this and gochujang shown on Maanghi's website, but it taste good.

Ready to eat!

Try it out, you will certainly enjoy it!