Tag Archive for 'dolsotbibimbap'

The Benefits of Fermented Foods: Part 1 of 2

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Korean Food Lover
on August 1, 2008
in Traditional Food
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Fermented foods exist universally in ethnic cuisines. Korean foods rely heavily on fermented foods. Korean recipes for kimchee, gochujang (hot bean paste) and fish sauce exist as basis for the building of many other Korean dishes including dolsot bibimbap.

Dolsotbibimbap is a traditional Korean dish that includes kimchee, gochujang and fish sauce (used to make kimchee) along with rice, namul (sautéed or seasoned vegetables), beef and egg.

Dolsot bibimbap is coming into its own lately, as lovers of fine cuisine herald their praises of this Korean dish. Recipes for dolsotbibimbap are springing up all over the internet as shows like Iron Chef and others from the Food Network provide Korean recipes.

Truly traditional foods from every culture have a food or drink that is fermented. This practice stems from the necessary need to preserve vegetables over the winter months so that peoples could benefit from those properties essential to human health and continuation.

It’s an ancient practice that hasn’t evolved by chance or because of an appreciation of flavor. The survival of a culture necessarily precludes the fact that their diet has kept them here to pass it on. Recipes of extinguished cultures do not exist.

Food knowledge used to be a regular part of cultural wisdom that was taught to youth. Today we are unable to determine what is healthy and what is not. The food that is touted as the nutrition-miracle today is consequently proven to cause cancer tomorrow.

Korean food has an advantage in the fact that it consists of Korean recipes and Korean dishes that have not been readily available to Western consumers and that the making of Korean food has, up until recent times, been home-made and hand-down-through-the-generations cuisine.

Korean people have had to make their native foods themselves in order to eat the foods that they love and need. Dishes like dolsot bibimbap have only recently become more well-known in the West.

Globalization, the spread of information, healthy practices and consumer demand for information are actually detrimental to knowledge of healthy eating. No one wants to wait for a long-term study. These involve following a group of people partaking of a substance or eating practice over the course of their lifetime.

Kimcheebap

Published
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Korean Food Lover
on July 27, 2008
in Traditional Food
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Kimchee bap is a lesser known Korean dish than dolsot bibimbap but it has much in common with the dish that is now considered representative of Korean food.

I had never heard of dolsotbibimbap from my Korean mother. I learned of its existence when I ordered the dish in a Korean restaurant in my 20’s. When I dined out with my family in Korean restaurants, no one ever ordered dolsot bibimbap. I suspect it was because dolsotbibimbap was considered by my family as a home-made dish, and while we were out we might as well order Korean food that couldn’t be easily had at home. Dolsotbibimbap originated as a way to make use of leftovers and kimchee bap serves the same type of purpose.

Dolsotbibimbap is an artful layering of sesame oil, rice, assorted marinated, cooked and raw vegetables, egg and beef. Kimchee bap includes many of these ingredients but they are stir-fried together, kind of a kimchee fried rice.

Kimchee bap was always referred to as “hot rice” by my mother and she made it with sour kimchee.  When kimchee becomes sour, it hasn’t gone bad but it has become a bit soft and a bit too sour to serve on its own. There are other delicious Korean recipes for sour kimchee that are worth checking out if, like me, you can’t keep up with the gifts of your mother’s constant kimchee production. At times, my mother would rinse this kimchee and others she didn’t. Both versions are delicious and the very different flavors are worth experimenting with.

Many Korean recipes for kimchee bap call for egg and beef. We mostly had a vegetarian version but at times my mother would add leftover beef, pork or tofu. The additions that I most enjoyed were those that included many different vegetable dishes such as bean sprouts, fern, shredded and seasoned fresh sea weed and sautéed spinach. As is common in many Korean dishes, texture is very important and the different vegetable combinations my mother tossed in provided just that.

Online recipes for kimchee bap differ than what I grew up with. In many of these recipes, the rice is sautéed in sesame oil on its own. Shredded beef is marinated in soy sauce, garlic, scallions, sesame seeds, and sesame oil, and then added to the dish. The kimchee is steamed in a rice cooker and the whole shebang is topped with shredded egg.

My mother’s version was easier and I think, tastier: she sautéed the rice in sesame oil. As the rice got crispy she would add soy sauce, garlic, scallion, kimchee, veggies, and most importantly, gochujang, the hot red pepper paste found in many Korean dishes. That’s what made it “hot rice.” And if she did add beef or pork it was shredded bulgoki or pork ribs that had already been marinated and cooked, making use of leftovers in the true tradition of this Korean dish.

Kimchee Sales Soar

Published
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Korean Food Lover
on July 21, 2008
in korean food
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Kimchee is becoming fashionable. Korean foods altogether are becoming trendy. The Korean dish dolsotbibimbap, the dish most representative of Korea, is now considered high cuisine. Korean recipes for dolsot bibimbap contain kimchee.

Dolsotbibimbap is a traditional Korean dish consisting of rice, seasoned or sautéed vegetables, meat, egg, kimchee and gochujang (spicy fermented bean paste.) Dolsot bibimbap means “stone pot” and refers to the practice of serving the dish in a bowl so hot it crisps the sesame-oil coated rice in the bottom. Dolsot bibimbap was recently featured on Iron Chef.

A real trend behind this bloom of global interest, besides the appreciation of fine food, is a health-conscious one.

Korean foods lend themselves to healthy eating practices. There are many Korean dishes that are vegetarian. Korean food is unique in flavors and is very different than any other Asian food. Korean recipes are springing up all over the internet.

Fermented foods are found in all traditional cultures. Fermentation was a way to preserve vegetables for eating in the winter months before the days of refrigeration. Fermented foods have enormous beneficial health qualities.

Kimchee, a Korean staple dish, has been shown to increase digestibility and iron uptake from beans and grains. It has anti-carcinogenic and antibiotic properties. It produces many helpful enzymes and is a decongestant. Folklore has it that it rids the body of fats.

Korean fermentation of cabbage and other vegetables has its origins in the Japanese and Chinese practices of pickling vegetables. This practice may have been introduced to Korea by its neighbors but Korean tastes always ran to the strong and flavorful. The introduction of the chile pepper in the 17th century led to the unique combination of ingredients that makes kimchee the most distinctive of Korean foods.

Japan and China are now the largest importers of Korean kimchee. The Japanese import $36 million worth of kimchee a year. The 2003 SARS outbreak in Japan and China had much to do with this. For reasons no one fully understands, Koreans remained largely unaffected by the virus, and accordingly, kimchee was touted as the reason. The typical Korean eats about 8oz. of kimchee per day, which makes up over 12% of their overall daily diet.

In 2005 the BBC reported that Seoul National University had conducted a bird flu study using kimchee. They fed 13 infected chickens kimchee and 11 began to recover. Following this news, the Wall Street Journal reported that Pulmuone Company, South Korea’s leading manufacturer of health foods, saw a 46% increase in kimchee sales.

Although there are yet no definitive studies proving that kimchee can prevent SARS or the bird flu there is no doubt that kimchee is a healthy Korean food.

The appreciation of Korean dishes that include fermented products like kimchee, gochujang (hot bean paste) and fish sauce can help many people to eat in a more healthy way. Dolsotbibimbap, the Korean dish that has gained in popularity here in the states contains both gochujang and kimchee.

Kimchee-making is a craft and mass production always carries with it the threat of thrift. Cutting costs to get the most return will change the original process of making kimchee and its traditional recipes.

Already, “healthy” versions of kimchee are appearing in natural foods stores and different versions of Korean recipes for kimchee are all over the web. Trendy or “healthy” versions of this already healthy product include cutting back salt, making super-fresh versions, using vinegar, and refrigerating kimchee immediately upon its making. Vegetarians object to the use of fermented shrimp paste or fish sauce in kimchee.

One maker of kimchee for natural food stores in Vermont explained that her kids complained about not wanting to have “kimchee breath” and that people are concerned about salt. She used sea salt (the one good change), added vinegar and sold it so fresh that fermentation couldn’t possibly occur.

The unfamiliarity with fermented foods and their process makes people leery of buying anything that has sat out unrefrigerated or that bubbles (a sign that lactic acid is at work.)

Salt is necessary to keep bad bacteria at bay until lactic acid is produced to ferment the kimchee. This lactic acid takes time to do its stuff and room temperature degrees are required to activate it.

The increasing use of vinegar to aid in fermentation detracts from the health benefits of kimchee: vinegar is not good to eat in large quantities and does not produce the same effects.

Also, fermentation is an unpredictable event. Kimchee flavors and Korean recipes for kimchee differ from batch to batch, household to household and region to region. Mass production requires uniformity and that often means the abandonment of original practices. Worries about food illness outbreaks leads to the practice of pasteurization.

Pasteurization entails subjecting foodstuff to high degrees in temperature, effectively killing all bacteria, even the beneficial bacteria that makes kimchee so healthy!

It’s wonderful to see this Korean dish getting the recognition it deserves but the Korean recipes floating around are not necessarily authentic, and the grocery store versions that contain preservatives belie the true process and benefits of fermentation altogether. If it needs preservatives, t hasn’t been fermented.

The Korean Chile Pepper—There Really Is Nothing Like It

Published
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Korean Food Lover
on July 18, 2008
in korean food
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Korean foods are finding their way into the spotlight more and more.  Recently Iron chef Mario Batali won a challenge with the Korean dish dolsot bibimbap or dolsotbibimbap and Rachael Ray of The Food Network lists Korean recipes. As more recipes for Korean dishes crop up to meet consumer demand, one of the most frequent ingredients called for is ground red pepper. Often, authors claim that any red pepper will do. This is not the case, as I found out the first time I left home.

When I moved to Vermont I was well-prepared with kimchee-making skills. What I didn’t count on was the unavailability of necessary ingredients. As anyone who has ever been homesick knows, nothing can comfort you more than that taste of home.

My first batch of kimchee was so off. I wasn’t new to the practice of making this Korean dish and soon realized that the red pepper was the culprit. I scoured the state, touring natural foods and gourmet stores. I shopped at Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese groceries. Alas, no Korean market existed. Batch after batch, and I could not duplicate kimchee from home. There was nothing to be done for it until my mother sent me a care package of Korean red pepper.

I picked up an Asian cookbook one day and read about the distinctive flavor of the Korean red chile. This author explained how the unique geography of Korea, its sea air, mountainous regions, soil and water contributed to the one and only kochu, a pepper that tastes like no other.

Kochu is a member of the capsicum pepper family. When ground it is called kochu garu, gochukaru or gokchu garu. Gokchu garu is used to make gochujang a hot pepper paste that is a common ingredient in dolsot bibimbap or dolsotbimbap, the dish most representative of Korea.

The chile was introduced to Korea in the 17th century by the Japanese, who were loathe to give up their monopoly on “japanese mustard” as Portuguese missionaries called it. They claimed that the plant could only grow in its native environments, Central and South America. Korea finally did gain the seeds to grow the chile and is now exports over 1 million kg. per year.

Before the chile, Korean dishes did not include red pepper, a now unimaginable phenomenon. Korean recipes for kimchee consisted of greens, salt and alcohol. Today, there is a claim that Koreans have the highest per capital chile consumption in the world.

Korean food absolutely requires Korean red pepper to taste authentic. Whether you’re making dolsot bibimbap/dolsotbibimbap or other Korean dishes, to really follow a Korean recipe that calls for red pepper, you must get your gokchu garu.

Variations of Dolsot Bibimbap

Published
by
Korean Food Lover
on June 19, 2008
in Dolsot Bibimbap and Korean Dishes
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Dolsot bibimbap is a popular Korean dish which many individuals love to order when they go to eat at a Korean restaurant. It is flavorful and bountiful enough to be a meal in and of itself. Although the traditional type of dolsot bibimbap consists of the usual ingredients such as marinated beef, kimchi, rice, egg and an assortment of vegetables, there are variations of this delicious dish which many opt for when they need a change.

One variant of the dolsot bibimbap is to add fish instead of the usual beef ingredient. Salmon is one type of fish which makes for a unique and tasty combination. Chicken is another popular meat substitution for the prepared dolsot bibimbap as some individuals do not eat red meat and would prefer to have the chicken comprise the main part of the dish instead of the marinated beef. Vegetarians may also be able to eat dolsot bibimbap as tofu has been known to be included with this dish so that all may enjoy this traditional Korean entrée.

In addition to switching up the type of meat which is part of the dish, dolsot bibimbap lovers can also make variations of this item by adding and/or leaving out different types of vegetables. Some of the more commonly added vegetables to this dish include kimchi, cucumber, zucchini and mushrooms. However, this is just an example of the more commonly cooked type of dolsot bibimbap. Those who prepare this dish may add and delete different vegetables as they see fit.

Lastly, the heat factor of the dolsot bibimbap may vary as well. The one ingredient used in this dish which gives it a little kick in the area of heat is gochujang, or chili pepper paste. Those who like their bibimbap a little hotter may choose to increase the amount of gochujang to their liking. These are just some of the many different variations one can choose in order to make their dolsot bibimbap appeal to their tastes.