Bibimbap

Bibimbap

 

Yum

Bibimbap

We've tried a number of bibimbap recipes and this one from My Korean Kitchen is hands down our favorite. It's easy enough for a weeknight meal and can be loaded with a ton of veggies. Plus it makes more than enough for lunch the next day! We had to make a few tweaks because we had trouble finding all of the ingredients regularly, but even with the modifications, this dish is filling and delicious!
Cuisine Asian
Servings 4 servings

Ingredients
  

Meat and meat sauce

  • 1 pound ground beef we like 80/20 for this - you need the fat!
  • Tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 Tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp sugar – we went with the original recommendation of brown sugar and decided dark brown sugar tastes best!
  • 1/4 tsp minced garlic

Bibimbap sauce

  • The original recipe suggested this sauce might be only enough for 3 servings if you like eating it spicy and it holds true!
  • 2 pinch Tbsp gochujang (in awe've used Sriracha sauce not the same
  • 1 Tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 Tbsp water
  • 3 small carrots
  • 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds
  • 1 Tbsp sugar we use brown again here
  • 1 tsp vinegar I'm partial to this addition!
  • 1 tsp minced garlic

Vegetables and other

  • Couple of handfuls spinach we use one handful per person
  • Bag of bean sprouts (f you can find them. If not don't go with canned, it isn't worth it!)
  • 1 package shiitake mushrooms sliced
  • 2 peppers we use a mix of red and green or whatever we have on hand
  • 1 small onion sliced
  • 1/2 tsp fine sea salt 1/4each will be used when cooking shiitake mushroom and carrots, You can also use Kosher
  • 3 to 4 serving portions of steamed rice
  • 3 or 4 eggs depending on the serving portion
  • Some cooking oil to cook the meat mushroom, carrots and eggs (We use sesame oil)
  • 1 Tbsp sugar we use brown again here
  • 1 Tbsp water
  • 1 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp vinegar I'm partial to this addition!
  • 1 tsp minced garlic

Instructions
 

  • For meat, mix the ground beef with the meat sauce ingredients. Marinate the meat for at least 30 minutes while you are working on the other ingredients. We usually make the meat mixture first and let it sit while we chop the veggies.
  • Then chop the veggies into julienned strips. We usually combine the carrots, peppers and onion but leave the spinach and mushrooms to their own pans.
  • Mix the Bibimbap sauce ingredients in a bowl.
  • Add some sesame oil and 1/4 tsp of fine sea salt in a pan and cook the carrots, peppers and onion on medium-high to high heat for 2 to 3 minutes or longer if you liked them more caramelized.
  • Remove the carrots, peppers and onion from the pan and place on a plate. Add some more sesame oil, another dash of salt and a bit of garlic and saute the spinach and mushrooms.
  • Cook until the spinach is wilted.
  • Remove from the pan and add to the plate with the other veggies.
  • In the same pan, add some more sesame oil and cook the meat on medium-high to high heat. It takes about 5 to 8 minutes to thoroughly cook it. When the moisture has evaporated and the meat is cooked through, remove from heat and drain.
  • In another pan (trust me on this one do not try to reuse the same pan you sauteed the mean in!) make fried eggs. (As the original recipe stats and is spot on: "While sunny side up is common, you can make them per your preference.")
  • Ladle the rice into bowls and add the vegetables, meat and egg. Cover with the sauce!

Notes

My opinion:
I've eaten this dish three days in a row and I'm still not sick of it! You can also substitute ground pork or chicken for the beef. If you plan to use ground chicken, make sure you get ground chicken thighs. The ground chicken breast is too dry.
p.s. even our toddler likes this without the spicy "sauca."
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Korean Short Rib Tacos

http://garbosgrillkw.com
photo from: http://garbosgrillkw.com

We made these the other night for dinner and they were amazing. J and I fell in love with the Kogi Korean BBQ  tacos at Garbo’s Grill in Key West this summer. This recipe from Food for My Family is really close and with a few tweaks, we won’t have to trek to Key West every time we crave this dish.

Ingredients:
3 pounds flank-style beef short ribs (We actually used about 2 pounds of short ribs because they were on sale!)
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup mirin
1/4 cup sesame oil
6 cloves garlic (we used a bit more than six cloves)
6 scallions
2 teaspoons fresh peeled ginger (we used grated)

Slaw ingredients:
3 cups Napa cabbage, chopped (we shredded it)
1 cup daikon, diced into matchsticks (in case you’re wondering, like I was, this is a root vegetable and kind of tastes like a radish)
1 cup bean sprouts (If you can’t find this, don’t worry we left the out and it still tasted great!)
6 scallions, diced
3 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
1 lime, juiced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon sriracha or chili pepper sauce (or more if you like it spicy!)
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Other ingredients:
10-15 yellow corn tortillas (we used flour because it was what we had on hand)
sriracha sauce

Directions:
Begin by cutting off excess fat from the short ribs. You can also remove the membrane under the bone side of the rib. (We just removed the bones because we were hungry and in a hurry.) Place in a zip-top bag.
In a food processor, blend together soy sauce, brown sugar, mirin, sesame oil, garlic, scallions and ginger. Reserve 1/2 cup of sauce and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Pour the rest of the sauce over the short ribs, ensuring all ribs are covered. Seal tightly and allow to marinate in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Longer is better, but you should let them marinate for at least 3 hours.

To prepare the slaw: Place shredded Napa cabbage, shredded daikon (use your food processor, otherwise you’ll be cutting forever!), spouts, scallions and cilantro together in a medium to large bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together lime juice, soy sauce, mirin and sriracha. Slowly whisk in olive oil. Pour dressing over vegetables and toss to coat. Store covered in the fridge until ready to serve.

IMG_6640
The original recipe called for reducing the extra marinade ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is thick. Place in a serving bowl to drizzle on tacos. We thought this made it too salty. Next time, we won’t reduce it. But this is what it looks like reduced.
IMG_6642
Heat a pan over high heat. (Or like the original recipe suggests, heat a grill to at least 550 degrees). The intent here is to flash cook the meat while simultaneously caramelizing the marinade. Place your short ribs on the grill. Cook for three minutes and flip. Cook an additional three minutes, wrap in foil and set aside.
IMG_6641
Cut short ribs into strips, avoiding the bones. Assemble your Korean tacos:  tortilla, barbecued short ribs, a drizzle of Korean barbecue sauce, Napa cabbage slaw and extra sriracha to match your tastes. Serve immediately.

My opinion: It was so good, I didn’t get a photo of the completed dish. Next time!

Homemade Beef Pho

Homemade Beef Pho by Dispatches from the Castle

The more J and I cook at home, the more we find amazing recipes of meals we once thought were super complicated and therefore only available in a restaurant. Pho is one of those dishes. With the complexly deep flavors and food coma-inducing warmth, we were sure we couldn’t make it in our own kitchen. We were so wrong. J found this recipe from Sarcastic Cooking (love!) and it was dead on. We adjusted a few things to our taste and suggest you do too.

East at Home Beef Pho Ingrdients

My opinion:
This makes a lot. Enough for three of us to have two large bowls each and quite a bit leftover. It’s in the freezer waiting for one of those cold, rainy late fall days when soup sounds best. I love this dish. I couldn’t eat it fast enough.

Homemade Beef Pho

Ingredients
  

  • 2 Tablespoons Canola Oil we used vegetable
  • 2 Yellow Onions halved (we ended up quartering them)
  • 1, 3- inch Piece of Fresh Ginger halved (we left this whole but kind of crushed to infuse more flavor)
  • 2 Cloves Garlic we used minced
  • 4 Quarts Low-Sodium Beef Stock
  • In a tea ball we put: 1 Cinnamon Stick, 3 Star Anise Pieces, 3 Whole Cloves, broken If you do not want to invest in cinnamon sticks star anise, and cloves, some stores sell pho seasoning packs. But it's worth it to have your own, plus, with a tea ball removing it is simple!
  • cup Fish Sauce
  • 3 Tablespoons Packed Light Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon Kosher Salt
  • cup Button mushrooms we used sliced
  • Ingredients for the Pho:
  • 1 12-ounce Ounce Package of Bahn Pho or Udon Noodles These ended up being hard to find so we just used glass noodles . Flat Rice Noodles, thin rice noodles
  • 1 Pound Flank Steak or charcoal steak
  • 2 Thai Chiles stems removed and thinly sliced (we left these out)
  • 2 Handfuls Bean Sprouts fresh is crunchier and we loved it!
  • 1 Bunch Fresh Cilantro
  • 1 Bunch Fresh Mint
  • ½ White Onion sliced paper-thin
  • Sriracha or Chili Garlic Sauce for Serving
  • Lime Wedges for Serving
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

Tom Yum Noodle Soup
Or as a dear friend of mine calls this, sick soup. It’s perfect when allergies are high or a cold is settling in. We like ours a bit on the hot and sour side, so if you don’t feel the same way, make sure you adjust the spices. A good rule of thumb is you can add spice easier than you can take it away. Like the last recipe, J found the base on RasaMalaysia.com and with a few modifications, it is thisclose to our favorite Thai restaurant in town. If only we could get our hands on fresh ingredients…

Ingredients:
1 roll packaged soba noodles (We used rice noodles because we had a hard time finding soba noodles)
1 1/4 cups water
1 stalk lemongrass, white part only, pounded and bruised (we finally found dried lemongrass from Thai Kitchen at our local grocer. If only we could find fresh…)
5-6 kaffir lime leaves, bruised (just like with the lemongrass, we could only find these dried from Thai Kitchen, but dried is better than none!)
4-5 slices fresh galangal (if you aren’t already noticing a trend, this is also only available in our area dried from Thai Kitchen, if you can’t find anything fresh ginger root will do in a pinch)
1/2 small tomato, cut into 3 to 4 wedges
6 medium-sized shrimp, shelled and deveined (we just used a whole bag of frozen, shelled, deveined ready to use. But we like shrimp)
one can straw mushrooms pieces (pieces were the only kind available)
1 1/2 tablespoons Nam Prik Pao (Thai roasted chili paste, we couldn’t find this so we just used Thai chili paste, it was a bit sweeter than we expected)
1/2 tablespoon fish sauce (we ended up using at least 1 and 1/2 tablespoons)
3 dashes chili powder (we used three squirts of Sriracha sauce)
1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
Cilantro leaves, for garnishing

Directions:
Cook the noodles according to package instructions. Drain the noodles, rinse with cold water and set aside. At the same time, bring the 1 1/4 cups water to boil in another small pot. Add in all the aromatics, follow by the shrimp, mushrooms and Thai chili paste.

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

Keep boiling until the shrimp is cooked through. Add the fish sauce and Sriracha. Turn off the heat, add in the lime juice. Stir to combine well. We opted to remove the lemongrass stalks and the kaffir lime leaves because they didn’t taste very good on their own. We added the cooked noodles and stirred to combine.

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

Top with some cilantro leaves and serve immediately.

My opinion:
This was one of the fastest dinners we’ve made in a long time. I’m sure if we had let it simmer a little longer, the flavors would have been even better, but we were hungry. Next time, we will add more vegetables like zucchini and onions. I was surprised at how much the noodles absorbed the broth, which I think is the best part. By the time we got around to a second bowl, there wasn’t a drop of broth left. To remedy this, we plan to add at least a cup  more water at the beginning.

Hot and sour soup

homemade hot and sour soup

J grew up eating the decadent hot and sour soup at King Doh, authentic Peking and Szechuan cuisine. After several years of trial and error, we finally found a recipe that is really close to the original. To celebrate the Chinese New Year last night, we made a big pot.

Ingredients:
2 quarts chicken stock
2 ounces dried black mushrooms (we had trouble finding these and had the must success using fresh shiitake mushrooms)
1 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tablespoon red chili paste (in a pinch, we combined Thai chili oil, Sriracha sauce and Hoisin sauce to make a paste)
1 small can bamboo shoots
1 small can water chestnuts (you can buy them already sliced)
1 small can straw mushrooms
18 ounces firm tofu, drained and cubed
three small boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced thin
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water
2 large eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons sesame oil
green onion, chopped (to garnish)

Directions:
If using dried mushrooms, reconstitute them in water according to package directions. Heat oil in wok or large pot. When the oil is hot, add ginger, chile paste and chicken, cook for about two-minute. Add bamboo shoots, water chestnuts and mushrooms, cook for about a minute. In a bowl, combine vinegar, soy sauce, salt, pepper and sugar and pour into wok. Add chicken stock, bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes (don’t rush this. The simmering is what seals in the hot and sour flavors). Add tofu and cook another 3 to 5 minutes. Mix cornstarch and water and add to soup and cook until thickened (this will make the soup cloudy and thick, but don’t add too much cornstarch or it will gelatinize . Stir soup in one direction to get current going then add beaten egg, it will look feathery. Stir the soup brining the contents from the bottom to the top> Garnish soup with green onion and serve.

My Opinion:
Make sue you leave the soup on low for seconds. The second bowl is always better than the first. The only thing we might add in the future is some shrimp or an onion. The soup is even better the next day!

Here’s a photo of the King Doh version.
King Doh Hot and Sour Soup