As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I live in the
boonies. I mean, don’t get me
wrong: I LOVE MY HOUSE. It is bee-yoo-ti-ful where I live. We have twenty acres of trees, wildlife, and
poison ivy. It rocks! We live three miles from a historic Shaker
village, with pastoral scenes a-plenty.
We’re also not far from the Kentucky River, and the when the fog rolls
up over the palisades, well, it’s pretty darn breathtaking.
But, it also means that I do a LOT of what I like to call Flying
by the Seat of My Pants cooking and baking.
Now, mind you, I commute to the big city of Lexington to work every
Monday through Friday, so it’s not like I don’t have access to Whole Foods,
Trader Joe’s, and the Good Foods Co-op.
But that requires PLANNING, with a capital P. And sometimes the urge to make some fantastic
vegan recipe or another just overtakes you, and you’re not gonna find a package of fermented Korean chili paste down at the Dollar
General. So, you learn to wing it.
A couple weekends ago, I was curled up reading Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero (y’all
curl up with vegan cookbooks like other people curl up with novels, right?) and
read about Bibimbap. While her recipe was
definitely intriguing, I knew the chili paste was going to be a challenge (see Dollar General comment above). So I
jumped onto the internet (thanks, Satellite!) and did some more research. I read a bunch of other recipes for Bibimbap,
checked out Wikipedia, and watched some videos on YouTube.
This one in particular caught my eye:
What’s that you say? Cute young Korean Boy Band stars cooking tasty food? Yes, please! |
(Totally random side note:
If you’ve never seen the Japanese boy band SMAP’s cooking show, you need
to check that out, too: SMAP!
Okay, so back to Bibimbap.
I let all this information marinate in my brain for awhile, and finally
came up with the version below. It’s got
a lot of components cobbled together from various books, recipes and videos,
but none of them are difficult, and well, it’s basically one of my new absolutely
favorite meals. Authentic? Nope. I’ve never had Bibimbap in my life
before. Delicious? Hands down awesome! I hope you enjoy it. Thanks!
Flying Vegan Korean
Bibimbap
Basically, you need to make all these components and then
assemble your bowls.
Start by putting on some sushi rice to cook (enough for 2-3
servings).
Prep your veggies:
matchstick cut some carrots (I used 2 medium), zucchini (1 medium), one
bunch of green onions. Set aside to sauté
in a bit. You’ll also need a couple big
handfuls of baby spinach and a coupla handfuls of mung bean sprouts. And you could do some mushrooms, too. Or whatever strikes your fancy.
Flying Bibimbap
Chili Sauce (serves 2-3): Mix and refrigerate until ready to assemble.
2 Tbsp. mellow white miso
2 tsp. sriracha
2 finely minced garlic cloves
1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
2 green onions, finely sliced on the diagonal
2 tsp. sugar
Flying Bibimbap
Seitan:
2 patties of your favorite homemade seitan (here’s mine),
sliced into thin strips and marinated in:
2 Tbsp. soy sauce
4 tsp. sugar
4 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. rice wine (mirin)
2 Tbsp. chopped green onions
4 cloves minced garlic
Pinch of black pepper
Let seitan marinate for about 20-30 minutes, then sauté over
medium high heat until sauce is reduced, things are hot, seitan is a little
browned, and it smells yummy. Set aside.
While seitan is marinating:
Flying Asian Style
Tofu Omelet: (This is based on
the Vegan Brunch Tofu Omelet recipe)
Whiz up in the blender:
½ package tofu (firm, extra firm, soft, silken,
whatever. I’m not fussy. I used extra firm cuz that’s what I had. Trader Joe’s makes a tofu two-pack that is
nice for this.)
1/3 cup chickpea flour
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. rice wine vinegar
¼ cup water mixed with ½ tsp. Better than Bouillon Not-Chick’n
broth stuff (**You may need less water
depending on the type of tofu you use)
Pinch of turmeric for yellow color (optional)
If you’ve got it, add ½ tsp Indian black salt for eggi-ness
Heat up a skillet (non-stick or cast iron) over medium heat,
and spread about a teaspoon of sesame oil on the skillet. Now add about ½ cup of the tofu batter and
spread it out with a spoon so it looks like a pancake. Cook for about 3-4 minutes, then flip and
cook for another minute. Repeat until
batter is used up, then slice omelets into matchstick strips. Set aside.
Flying Veggies:
In separate batches, sauté the carrots, zucchini and green
onions in sesame oil. Sprinkle with a
little salt and pepper. Set in separate
piles on a plate for fixing up your Bibimbap bowls. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.
Bring a medium size stockpot full of water to a boil and
drop in your mung bean sprouts. Boil for
about 3 minutes, then scoop out with a strainer and rinse with cold water. Put in a bowl and toss with some sesame oil,
soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar (about a tsp of each). Set aside.
Put the spinach in a colander in the sink and pour the
boiling water from the mung bean sprouts over it. Let it drain out, then use a wooden spoon to
press out as much of the excess water as possible. When it’s not too hot to handle, you can pick
it up and squeeze it more. It’s
fun! Then dress the same way as the
sprouts. Set aside.
Whew! Almost ready to assemble our bowls!
Heat up your cast iron skillet over medium/medium-high heat
and swirl in some sesame oil. Now scoop
in some of your cooked sushi rice and let it cook for a couple minutes, until
the rice is lightly browned on the bottom.
Put the sesame fried rice in a bowl.
We are ready to be artistes!
Get yourself a nice size serving bowl and a nice amount of
rice in the bottom. Then decoratively
arrange your toppings (seitan, tofu omelet, veggies) around the sides. Finish with a nice big dollop of Flying
Bibimbap chili sauce in the middle.
Sprinkle the whole thing with more sesame seeds. Admire.
Take pictures.
Now, stir it all up and EAT EAT EAT!!!!
*Disclaimer: I know I was complaining about not being able to find stuff like gochujang earlier in this post, and then used a bunch of esoteric ingredients like black salt, miso and chickpea flour and stuff. But you guys have got all that stuff in your pantries already because you're vegan, right? RIGHT?
No comments:
Post a Comment