Bip Bim Bap

As my tour of “all things Asian” continues this week, I just had the urged to make “Bip Bim Bap”. With a name like that, it has be to really good or really funny tasting; I’m just glad that it’s not the latter. Many years ago when I worked as an international telephone operator, my Korean co-workers introduced me to Bip Bim Bap for the first time. Although they never told me what Bip Bim Bap meant; they explained to me it was a combination of thinly sliced meat, assorted veggies, red chili peppers, and different kinds of pickled vegetables (Kimchi is a popular choice); mix all together to form an explosion of flavors. ¬You can find the same dish in Korean restaurants where they would often placed a sunny side up egg on top; you would break the yolk and continue with your mixing of all the ingredients.

It’s been years since I had this wonderful dish, so what better time to make it than this week? Staying true to my budget and now …a healthy diet (with great foods come great responsibilities, or something like that), I set out to make my own version of Bip Bim Bap. In this version, I will make Korean style BBQ to go with vegetable sauté. Simple and delicious. Notice that I left out the fried egg and Kimchi; I’m cutting back on those.

Below are a list of stuff that you’ll need, how much of it will depends on how many servings you intend to have:

• beef
• green onions
• cabbage (sliced)
• garlic (chopped)
• hoisin sauce (pho sauce for my American friends)
• chili pepper or sriracha sauce
• sugar
• black pepper
• rice wine vinegar
• bean sprout
• soy sauce
• rice (I won’t go over how to make rice)
• sesame oil

Although this is technically one dish, there are multiple components, so first thing first.

Directions to make Korean BBQ

• slice beef into very thin slices (the thinner the better) and set that aside
• using a large bowl, add hoisin sauce, sugar (the ratio of sugar to hoisin sauce should be 1 ½ to 1), black pepper, sriracha sauce, garlic, a little bit of rice vinegar, green onions, and a bit of sesame oil. You might want to add a little bit of hot water to help dissolve everything as you mix all ingredients until they are uniform in texture. It should taste sweet, spicy, and tangy, with a bit of saltiness.
• On a very hot grill or flat pan place the sliced beef and cook evenly or until you think it’s done (for me, 2 mins on each side)
• Add the BBQ sauce that you’ve just made to the meat while it’s still hot so that it could soak up all the flavors

Directions for vegetable sauté

• with a hot wok, add oil and cook the garlic until golden brown
• add sliced cabbage and cook for about 4-5 mins (you want to make sure that it’s still crunchy)
• add the bean sprouts
• add a little bit of sugar and soy sauce to taste
• finish off with some black peppers

To serve:

With a large bowl of rice, add the sauté veggies and BBQ to it. Mix everything up and you’re ready to enjoy! This is a very simple dish and there are tons of ways that you can make it your own by incorporating different vegetables and sides. The trick is to experiment and figure out if one dish will complement the next and so on.