KOREAN BIBIMBAP AND DOLSOT BIBIMBAP
Korean Bibimbap/Dolsot Bibimbap 비빔밥/돌솥비빔밥 ビビンバ/いしやきビビンバ
My Korean Bibimbap and Dolsot Bibimbap recipe is a super healthy, nutritious and delicious vegetarian dinner. Leave out the eggs to make it vegan. If you don’t like it too spicy you can change out the gochujang for soy sauce.
Bibimbap is a two word combination in Korean, bibim and bap. Bibim means mixing and bap means rice, so, basically it means mixing all the ingredients in a bowl with rice. A Dolsot is a stone cooking bowl which makes everything in the dish sizzling hot.
Watch My Easy Bibimbap Recipe Video (3m 40s)
Traditionally, Bibimbap was eaten after finishing worship to ancestors. There are lots of vegetables and dishes to be prepared to worship to ancestors and after the ceremony, all the family members used to sit together and mix all the vegetables and rice which becomes Bibimbap. It was first written in a book called “SieuiJunseo” at the end of the 19th century.
My mum used to cook Bibimbap whenever my dad was out eating dinner with his mates. It is because my mum loves Bibimbap and she could use any leftover cooked vegetable side dishes and some lettuce or watercress in the fridge and cook fried eggs and mix everything in a huge bowl with Korean red pepper paste and sesame oil and shared them amongst my sisters, brother, my mum and me. It was basically a quick, lazy dinner for my mum when my dad wasn’t around (he would always want something with meat).
There are lots of Bibimbap restaurants in South Korea. As the country gets more and more advanced, people’s tastes change and develop, therefore, there are various versions of Bibimbap, for example, Bulgogi Bibimbap, Kimchi Bibimbap, Belly Pork (Samgyeopsal) Bibimbap, seafood Bibimbap etc… I love Bibimbap! Believe me I can eat it every single day!
Bibimbap is famous for being one of the healthiest dishes on the planet. It is simple but you can have tons of vegetables in one meal. You can easily get your five-a-day in just one sitting. 🙂 Even though it is a healthy dish, it is incredibly delicious. The main sauce is Gochujang, Korean chilli paste. You can find it in an Asian grocery store or Amazon. It is made from red chili powder, glutinous rice powder, powdered fermented soybeans and salt. It is spicy but sweet and warm. As Gochujang has been commercially produced since the early 1970s, the majority of Koreans purchase it in a supermarket instead of making it at home.
Let me show you the ingredients in my bibimbap. If you don’t like any of the vegetables in the ingredients, you can skip them or substitute them for ones you do like. As long as you have at least three vegetables, your bibimbap will taste marvelous. There are some vegetables often used in Bibimbap in Korea like baby Fern shoots (Gosari in Korean), but, I can’t get them in England. So, I use vegetables which are easily accessible here. As I said before, you don’t need to use all the vegetables as long as you have at least three you are good to go. Enjoy!
Leave a comment or a question at the bottom of the page. I love to hear from you.
- 150 grams of beansprouts
- 250 milliliters of water
- 2 carrots
- 200 grams of chestnut mushrooms (you can replace them with any mushrooms.)
- 1 aubergine
- 2 red pepper
- ½ a red cabbage
- 2 eggs
- cooked rice (2 portions)
- korean red pepper paste to taste (or soy sauce if you don’t like spicy food)
- 30 grams of watercress
- sesame oil
- salt
- vegetable oil for frying
- Wash all the vegetables first. Chop aubergines into round slices and then cut the slices into four pieces. Julienne (cut into matchsticks) the carrots, red cabbage and red peppers and thinly slice the chestnut mushrooms. I like to use a mandolin for this part but watch your fingers!
- Boil a kettle with 250 ml water and pour it in a pan, add the beansprouts and a small pinch of salt. Cover the pan with a lid, boil them for 3 minutes, drain the beansprouts thoroughly and put them in a bowl, add a couple of teaspoons of sesame oil and and mix them together.
- Fry the remaining vegetables separately in a little vegetable oil and if you want, a pinch of salt.
- Fry an egg to your liking. I like runny eggs, but, you can do whatever you want.
- Put 1 portion of cooked rice in a large, preferably oversized, bowl. Use whatever amount of rice you fancy. A little or, like me, a lot. I used brown and white rice mixed for a healthy diet. In Korea, we eat sticky rice, the same as sushi rice, but it is up to you if you prefer long grain rice or basmati rice.
- Arrange the cooked vegetables on the bed of rice. Add a handful of watercress, the fried egg, 1 or 2 tablespoons of chilli paste (or you can use soy sauce if you don’t like spicy food), and a teaspoon of sesame oil. I like to serve bibimbap at this point and let my guests mix everything together in the bowl.
- For Dolsot Bimbimbap follow steps 1, 2 and 3 of the Bibimbap recipe.
- Put the dolsot on a low heat. Add 2 teaspoons of sesame oil. This is to stop the rice from sticking to the bowl while cooking and it tastes nice too!
- Add 1 portion of cooked rice. Again, use as much as you would eat if you were serving it on a plate.
- Arrange the cooked veg, watercress, chilli paste (or soy sauce), a raw egg (don’t worry! It will cook in the hot bowl when you mix it all together) and a teaspoon of sesame oil on top of the rice.
- Cover with the dolsot lid and cook for 3-4 minutes or until it sizzles.
- Carefully serve the dolsot at the table on a heat proof mat. Take care, it will be very hot.
- Mix all the ingredients in the bowl and enjoy!
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