My Kimbap

Lately I've been obsessed with Korean culture and I love their food, so this time I wanted to make this dish, which is super simple, doesn’t require many ingredients and it is definitely delicious.

Gimbap or kimbap is a popular Korean dish made from steamed white rice and various other ingredients, rolled in sheets of dried laver seaweed and served in bite-size slices. The basic components of gimbap are rice, meat or other protein-rich ingredients, and a large variety of vegetables, pickled, roasted, or fresh.( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimbap).

Traditionally, the rice is lightly seasoned with salt and sesame oil. Popular protein ingredients are fish cakes, imitation crab meat, eggs, and/or seasoned beef rib-eye. Vegetables usually include cucumbers, spinach, carrots, and danmuji (pickled radish).

To prepare these kimbaps do you need:                           ( Makes 2 servings)

• 1/3 carrot, julienned
• 1 cups spinach
• Soy sauce
• 1 stick imitation crab meat
• 2 eggs, for tamago cut into julienned
• 1 cup cooked short-grain white rice
• 2 sheets of nori
• Sesame oil
• Salt                                                                            
• 1 tablespoon Rice vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon Sugar
• 2 tablespoon cream cheese
• Bamboo rolling mat

Kimbap-making is a bit of a process in that you have to get all your ingredients prepped and ready before you're ready to do the whole shebang. 

•  I'll go over the ingredients starting with the rice, to make 2 rolls, have 1 cup of cooked white short-grain rice at the ready. Cook rice as a standard rice, but add it 1 / 2 teaspoon rice vinegar and salt. When the rice is ready, add a few drops of sesame oil, remaining 1 / 2 teaspoon rice vinegar and 1 / 2 teaspoon sugar, let it cool.
• Next, the spinach. I used adult spinach, leaving the leaves whole and only trimming the stems by a few inches. Blanch or gently sauté the spinach in a little bit of sesame oil. The spinach should be fully wilted after cooking. 
• Take the julienned carrots, you would blanche these, too, but I think it's easier fresh as they give more texture. 
• The crab meat imitation is easy. It comes ready to eat and packaged. . Just slice them in juliennes. 
• Finally, the Tamago, the tamago no es más que un omelett, mezcla en un bol, los huevos junto con 1 cucharada de salsa de soya, después hazlo como haces normalmente un omelett en una sartén, cuando esté listo déjalo enfriar y pícalo en julianas.

 

Lay out a piece of nori in front of you on the bamboo mat. Take approximately 1/2 cup of rice and spread evenly over the sheet, leaving a border. Use your fingers to scatter the rice.

With about an inch of empty rice space at the bottom, place the filling ingredients on top and next to each other. They want to be close together.

 Now that you have all your fillings set and ready to go, get ready to roll.  Slowly and gently roll over the bamboo mat end that is closest to you, and keep rolling while pulling back that same bamboo mat edge. Once you've started the roll, the roll shape should be maintained. After fully encircling the kimbap filling, give a couple of extra squeezes with your hands to firm up the roll. At this point, you can check to see if the edges of the kim are sticking together.

Remove the bamboo mat, and get ready to slice up the kimbap. Keep a paper towel soaked with water to wipe your knife. You'll need to wipe it every so often to keep the knife from getting too sticky. And that's it! Let the kimbap feast commence!