Kongbap

Rice cooked with beans soaked overnight, where the water is reduced to allow for what the beans already hold.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 350 g Korean or Japanese short-grain rice
• 100 g dried soybeans or black beans
• 350 ml water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

1. THE BEANS ARE SOAKED OVERNIGHT AND THE RICE WATER REDUCED TO ALLOW FOR THEM. Soaked beans arrive already full of water and go on giving it up in the pot, so the usual one-to-one rice and water becomes slightly less than one. Measured as though the beans were not there, it comes out wet and porridgey -- and because the beans are dotted through it, the wetness is uneven, which is worse than uniformly wet.
2. AND THE BEANS MUST BE SOAKED, not just rinsed. Dried soybeans will not soften in the twelve minutes rice takes, whatever the water; eight hours in cold water gets them most of the way and the rice finishes them. Unsoaked, you get gravel in soft rice.
3. THEY GO IN FROM THE START AND NOT ON TOP. Stirred through the rice before the water goes in, so they are distributed and cook in the same steam. Laid on the surface they steam-cook unevenly and the bottom layer of rice has none.
4. EVERYTHING ELSE IS THE STEAMED RICE PAGE, including the rice washing, the 30-minute soak and -- especially -- the lid staying on for the full 10 minutes after the heat goes off. Those rules do not change because beans are in it.
5. A QUARTER TEASPOON OF SALT GOES IN, which is a departure from the plain steamed rice on this site, where none does. The beans are bland and faintly chalky on their own and need it; the rice around them does not mind.
6. Beans rinsed, picked over for stones, and SOAKED in plenty of cold water 8 HOURS or overnight.
7. Drained and rinsed.
8. Rice washed as the steamed rice page directs, 3 or 4 times until the water runs almost clear.
9. Covered with fresh cold water and SOAKED 30 MINUTES, then drained 10 minutes.
10. The rice and the drained beans STIRRED TOGETHER in a heavy pan, with the salt.
11. The measured 350 ml of water poured in and the surface levelled.
12. Brought to the boil uncovered over a high heat, 3 or 4 minutes.
13. The lid on and the heat to its lowest for 13 MINUTES -- a minute longer than plain rice, for the beans.
14. The heat off and the pan LEFT ALONE, lid on, 10 MINUTES.
15. Turned over gently from the bottom with a flat spoon to distribute the beans, and served at once.

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