Hoedeopbap

Raw fish on rice with a sharp gochujang dressing that does not touch the fish until the bowl is at the table.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish.

Ingredients

For the bowls

• 300 g sashimi-grade white fish or salmon
• steamed short-grain rice for 2, as on its own page, warm
• half a cucumber, in matchsticks
• 1 carrot, in matchsticks
• a handful of lettuce, shredded
• a handful of perilla leaves, shredded
• 2 tablespoons flying fish roe, optional
• 1 sheet gim, crumbled
• 1 egg yolk per bowl, optional

For the dressing

• 3 tablespoons gochujang
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Method

1. THE FISH NEVER TOUCHES THE SAUCE UNTIL THE BOWL IS AT THE TABLE. Gochujang dressing is acidic and salted, and raw fish sitting in it starts to cure within a couple of minutes -- the surface turns opaque and firm and the texture you bought it for is gone. So the dressing goes into a separate bowl, or onto the rice at the edge, and the person eating it mixes everything at once.
2. THE FISH IS BOUGHT TO BE EATEN RAW AND SAID SO AT THE COUNTER, kept cold all the way home, and used the same day. The same rule as the yukhoe on this site. A piece of fish from the ordinary chilled counter is not the same thing and no amount of chilli paste makes it safe.
3. IT IS SLICED THICK, against the grain, 1 cm or so -- not the thin sashimi slice. It is going into a mixed bowl and being tossed with rice and vegetables, and thin slices shred to nothing.
4. THE RICE IS WARM AND THE FISH IS COLD, which is the whole sensation of the dish. Warm rice under cold fish and cold vegetables. Hot rice starts cooking the fish from below; cold rice makes the bowl dull and hard.
5. AND THE VEGETABLES ARE CUT FINE AND KEPT DRY. They are there for crunch, so anything washed must be spun or patted dry -- water in the bottom of the bowl thins the dressing into pink liquid.
6. The dressing ingredients stirred together and chilled.
7. Vegetables cut into fine matchsticks and shreds, patted DRY, and kept in the fridge.
8. Steamed rice made as on its own page and kept warm.
9. The fish taken from the fridge at the last moment and sliced 1 cm thick across the grain. Kept COLD on a chilled plate.
10. Two bowls filled with warm rice.
11. The vegetables arranged around the edge in sections.
12. The fish laid in the middle, with the roe and crumbled gim over it, and an egg yolk in the centre if using.
13. THE DRESSING TAKEN TO THE TABLE SEPARATELY, in a small bowl.
14. Added and mixed hard by the person eating it, and eaten straight away.

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