Life in Ann Arbor

Soooo i have many different things in the recipe backlog. I’ve made so much but i thought i’d start off with something simple. It’s Mark’s kimbap! I used to always buy the kimbap on the weekends at the manna store down the street and paid the 7 or 9 bucks for the two rolls. I then thought to myself damn i spend a lot on kimbap. So i thought why don’t i just make my own kimbap!!! I went and bought the ingredients and figured i could actually make like a bunch of kimbap rolls for the same price as 1. So i bought all the ingredients at manna and made them myself.

Here is the end result of my kimbap adventure!

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The ingredients i used were very simple

• For the beef
  • 1/2 Pound Thinly Sliced Beef (Bulgogi sliced beef)
  • 1 tablespoons of grated ginger
  • 2 tablespoons of grated korean pear
  • 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar
  • 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
  • 1/2 medium onion
• For the rest of the kimbap
  • Package of Burdock root strips
  • Package of pickled radish
  • 2-3 carrots
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/2 tablespoon of mirin
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar
  • 1/2 cup of frozen spinach
  • 2 teaspoon sesame oil
  • a bunch of cooked white rice
  • a bunch of seaweed sheets

I put the ingredients but for the bulgogi i really just did it by feel. I threw the sliced beef into a big ziplock bag and then threw in all the other ingredients for the bulgogi in the bag and shook it all up. Basically you want a sweetish marinade so that the beef absorbs it all. The grated pears actually contain calpain which is a natural meat tenderizer like in papaya and kiwis. It also adds a nice clean taste. So shake it up and let it sit for a while in the marinade. Remember don’t let it sit too long or it’ll get too soft. While that’s marinating go and prepare the eggs. I beat up the eggs and added mirin and sugar to make the eggs taste sweet. I was going to add some dashi too but got lazy. Basically i was making edo-style tamago but without all the ingredients. So cook and while you cook the eggs fold them so it creates a nice thick rectangle piece of egg. Boil the frozen spinach till it’s done. Then take it out and chill it in cold water. Strain and then mix the spinach with the sesame oil. Slice up all the vegetables so they are nice strips to be put into the kimbap. After the meat has tenderized go and throw the meat and onions in a medium-high heat pan and cook it. I usually just put the meat in and not the juices because more juice will come out of the meat when you cook it.

Now it’s just time to put it all together. Lay the seaweed down on your bamboo sushi roll roller and then spread a thin layer of rice all over the sheet. Don’t put too much rice or you won’t be able to put a lot of ingredients inside. Then lay all the ingredients down in the center of the roll. Put however much of each you like. Then roll it up however style you like rolling it. Voila! Simple Kimbap! You can now feed an army of hungry people! Enjoy!