Bibimbap

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Photo by Smaku/flickr

Ingredients

1/4 pound of ground or chopped beef
1 cucumber
1/2 carrot
100 grams of doraji bellflower roots
50 grams of bean sprouts
1 lettuce leaf
3 shiitake mushrooms
1 sheet of vegetable jelly
Seasoned red pepper paste
1 egg per person

Directions

1. Wash 3 cups of rice, soak for 30 minutes and drain. Put the rice in a thick cooker and add 3 1/3 cups of water, then bring them to a boil. After 10-15 minutes boiling, reduce the heat and simmer with the lid on for 5 minutes. Do not lift the lid while cooking.

2. Season beef and stir-fry lightly until cooked. Slice the cucumber into discs 2.5 millimeters thick, cut carrots into match stick size, and shred doraji and shiitake mushrooms. Sprinkle them with salt, and then squeeze out excess water after 5 minutes. Season each of them separately.

3. Add 1 teaspoon of sesame oil to hot frying pan and stir-fry the cucumber quickly so the color stays vivid. Spread them on a big plate to cool. Add more oil, then stir-fry bellflower roots, carrots, and mushrooms consecutively.

4. Fry an egg sunny-side-up in a frying pan (unless using a hot stone pot, in which case don't.)

5. To make seasoned red pepper paste, combine 4 tablespoons of red pepper paste, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, and then mix well.

6. Place the lettuce leaf in a deep dish and empty a small bowl of rice on it. For hot stone pot bibimbap, heat the stone pot until hot enough to burn the fingers (carry it carefully on a tray), and dump the rice sizzling right into the hot stone pot. In either case, arrange the prepared ingredients attractively on the rice. Place the fried egg on top or, in case of hot stone pot, the raw egg. At the table, the diner adds red pepper paste to taste and mixes it thoroughly with the rice and vegetables before beginning to eat. In case of the hot stone pot, the diner might spoon in a bit of soup to moisten the mixture.

Recipe excerpted from Encyclopedia of Asian Food by Charmaine Solomon (Periplus Editions, 1998)