Gimbap

Seaweed rolls whose rice is seasoned with sesame oil and salt and never with vinegar, with each filling cooked separately.

Pork, Shellfish, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains pork, shellfish.

Ingredients

For the rice

• steamed short-grain rice for 4, as on its own page, warm
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

For the fillings

• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 carrot, in matchsticks
• 200 g spinach
• 4 strips pickled radish
• 4 strips imitation crab or ham
• 150 g beef, in strips, optional
• soy sauce, sesame oil, salt

To roll

• 4 sheets gim or nori
• sesame oil, to finish

Method

1. THE RICE IS SEASONED WITH SESAME OIL AND SALT, NEVER WITH VINEGAR, and that one difference is what makes this gimbap rather than a sushi roll. The sushi rice on this site is dressed with vinegar, sugar and salt and tastes sharp; this is dressed with oil and salt and tastes nutty and savoury. They look nearly identical in a photograph and they are not interchangeable in either direction.
2. THE RICE IS WARM, NOT HOT AND NOT COLD. Hot rice steams the seaweed limp before it can be rolled; cold rice will not stick to itself and the roll falls apart when cut. Body temperature.
3. EVERY FILLING IS COOKED AND SEASONED SEPARATELY, as with the bibimbap on this site. Egg as a thin omelette cut in strips, spinach blanched and squeezed, carrot fried, beef fried with soy. Cooked together they taste of one thing and the cut face looks like mush rather than stripes.
4. THE FILLINGS GO IN A LINE ACROSS THE LOWER THIRD, not piled in the middle. The roll has to close over them, and a heap in the centre leaves nothing to grip.
5. AND THE OUTSIDE IS OILED BEFORE CUTTING, with a wet knife wiped between every cut. Dry, the knife drags the seaweed and squashes the roll flat; oiled roll and wet blade give a clean round face.
6. Steamed rice made as on its own page and left to cool to warm.
7. The sesame oil, salt and sesame seeds folded through it with a cutting motion, not stirred.
8. Eggs beaten with a pinch of salt and cooked as a thin flat omelette, then cut into long 1 cm strips.
9. Spinach blanched 30 seconds, refreshed, SQUEEZED DRY, dressed with sesame oil and salt.
10. Carrot fried 2 minutes with a pinch of salt. Beef, if using, fried with a splash of soy sauce.
11. A sheet of gim laid shiny side DOWN on a rolling mat.
12. Rice spread over about two thirds of the sheet in a thin even layer, a 3 cm margin left at the far edge.
13. The fillings laid in a LINE across the lower third, each one beside the next rather than on top.
14. Rolled up firmly with the mat, pulling back against the roll to tighten it, and the far margin pressed to seal.
15. The outside brushed with sesame oil, then cut into 2 cm rounds with a WET knife, wiped between cuts. Eaten the same day and never refrigerated, which makes the rice hard.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under South Korea · All recipes