Korean foods-- bap

[torakris]

What are some of your favorite Korean style rice dishes?

[mamster]

Jinmyo, you first.

[Jinmyo]

BIBIMBAP!

[Jason Perlow]

besides bibimpap I like various kinds of "dub bab" which is basically the korean equivalent to the japanese donburi rice-bowl style dishes.

A local Korean-owned sushi place makes a bulgogi dub bab, with bulgogi on the top along with jullinne slices of omlette, some other veggies, and some furikake. Simple, but quite tasty.

[tissue]

I like hwae do bap.

Raw fish, greens, rice, red sauce....

[torakris]

I like hwae do bap.

Raw fish, greens, rice, red sauce....

tissue this is one of my favorite too!

I usually prepare this for a quick lunch on the weekend.

[torakris]

then there is kimchi fried rice, this is my lunch a couple times a week. Usually just kimchi and egg with some scallions tossed in. when there is no kimchi in the house ( ) I use kochujang.

My favorite way to prepare it in when it is almost done cooking, push the rice so it is spread as thin as possible covering all the surfaces of the pan, turn the heat up a little high and then don't touch it for a minute or so. Turn the heat off and let it sit like that for a couple minutes. The bottom gets nice and crunchy similar to the stone pot cooked bimbimbap.

[Jinmyo]

when there is no kimchi in the house ( )

Aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[slkinsey]

...The bottom gets nice and crunchy similar to the stone pot cooked bimbimbap.

As it so happens, I just picked up a bunch of stone bowls for the express purpose of making dolsot bibimbap at home...

[skchai]

I also love the crusty bottom (nurungji) of dolsot bibimbab, as do most people who've tried it. It surprises me that some other rice-eating cultures don't enjoy it as much. In Japan, it seems that "okoge" is not traditionally appreciated, and I'm not aware of any recipes that deliberately make use of it (other than Korean imports like ishiyaki bibinba). Does anyone know of any?

Also, colloquiallisms incorporating "koge" or "okoge" seem slightly pejorative, e.g. the luckless "kogepan man", or the use of "okoge" to refer to women who enjoy spending time with homosexual men (not that this is anything that deserves to be derogated, but unfortunately the word seems to be used in this fashion).

Also, why is it "bibinba" in Japanese instead of "bibinbappu"?

The ultimate lovers of rice crust must be the Iranians, for whom the "tah dig" is the ultimate prize. In fact Iranian recipes often called for oil and yoghurt to be specially mixed into the bottom layer of rice to enchance the crust. Perhaps we could try to do something analogous to make super-bibimbab!?

[torakris]

.

Also, why is it "bibinba" in Japanese instead of "bibinbappu"?

This I think I can answer.

The Japanese shorten EVERYTHING! they have a problem with long words.

But actually in the case of bibimbap, I think because it is sort of a soft p sound at they end they leave it off instead of over annunciating it. I have noticed this with a lot of loan words in Japanese, they tend leave off the last constanant, they try to make the words as easy to say in Japanese as possible and like I said before the shorter the better!

[torakris]

I also love the crusty bottom  (nurungji) of dolsot bibimbab, as do most people who've tried it.  It surprises me that some other rice-eating cultures don't enjoy it as much.  In Japan, it seems that "okoge" is not traditionally appreciated, and I'm not aware of any recipes that deliberately make use of it (other than Korean imports like ishiyaki bibinba).  Does anyone know of any? 

Also, colloquiallisms incorporating "koge" or  "okoge" seem slightly pejorative, e.g. the luckless "kogepan man",  or the use of "okoge" to refer to women who enjoy spending time with homosexual men (not that this is anything that deserves to be derogated, but unfortunately the word seems to be used in this fashion).

There are some people who love the okoge especially from takikomi (mixed rice), but there are no Japanese dishes that go so far as to purposely harden it.

I was not aware of the term okoge referring to women who enjoy spending time with homosexual men (guess I am not hanging in the right places!) I wonder if it has anything to do with homosexual men being referred to as okama (kama being the tradional rice pot)?

[skchai]

But actually in the case of bibimbap, I think because it is sort of a soft p sound at they end they leave it off instead of over annunciating it. I have noticed this with a lot of loan words in Japanese, they tend leave off the last constanant, they try to make the words as easy to say in Japanese as possible and like I said before the shorter the better!

Thanks, Kristen!

I was not aware of the term okoge referring to women who enjoy spending time with homosexual men (guess I am not hanging in the right places!) I wonder if it has anything to do with homosexual men being referred to as okama (kama being the tradional rice pot)?

I believe you're correct about the origin of the term.

[Jinmyo]

.

Also, why is it "bibinba" in Japanese instead of "bibinbappu"?

This I think I can answer.

The Japanese shorten EVERYTHING! they have a problem with long words.

But actually in the case of bibimbap, I think because it is sort of a soft p sound at they end they leave it off instead of over annunciating it. I have noticed this with a lot of loan words in Japanese, they tend leave off the last constanant, they try to make the words as easy to say in Japanese as possible and like I said before the shorter the better!

Yes, and follow a consonant with a vowel, such as the ubiqitous "u".

[jschyun]

I love nurungji as well. I took a Vietnamese friend to a soondubu house and the rice was cooked individually in the dol sot. I poured the water and put some of the nurungji in a bowl for him to try. He tasted it and said it reminded him of when he was back in 'Nam, when he would do the dishwashing chores in order to get the last scrapings of the rice pot, because they were so poor. He didn't try any more.

My favorite rice dish is one that I experienced in Seoul 2 years ago. My relatives took me to a fancy restaurant where the most amazing thing was this small bowl of rice, that was an appetizer. Maybe this is normal in Korea, but I had never seen it before. It had little black round grains of what they told me was wild rice. It had other grains as well, and it was topped with crunchy ghim slivers and some other stuff I can't describe. The taste was amazing: light, salty, nutty yet sweet. Does anybody know what this is called? They don't have it here, and I want to eat it again.

[torakris]

My favorite rice dish is one that I experienced in Seoul 2 years ago.  My relatives took me to a fancy restaurant where the most amazing thing was this small bowl of rice, that was an appetizer.  Maybe this is normal in Korea, but I had never seen it before.  It had little black round grains of what they told me was wild rice.  It had other grains as well, and it was topped with crunchy ghim slivers and some other stuff I can't describe.  The taste was amazing: light, salty, nutty yet sweet.  Does anybody know what this is called?  They don't have it here, and I want to eat it again.

I think I have seen this before (in Korean cookbooks I have bought in Japan) it is a mixture of rices, grains and beans, usually with mochi rice, so that it makes it quite sticky. I have seen some recipes heavier on the beans and others heavier on the grains. I have no idea of the name and have not noticed it any restaurants (of course if I don't know the name......... )

what is ghim?

[jschyun]

what is ghim?

You know, Korean for nori. Except we crisp it up and make it salty. Yum

--actually I know about the 9 grain bap and such, but I never had it like this. Very light, with little black crunchy grains in it. I wonder if it was that restaurant that had a special rice cooking guy or something, it was so good.

Edited August 28, 2003 by jschyun (log)

[torakris]

what is ghim?

You know, Korean for nori. Except we crisp it up and make it salty. Yum

--actually I know about the 9 grain bap and such, but I never had it like this. Very light, with little black crunchy grains in it. I wonder if it was that restaurant that had a special rice cooking guy or something, it was so good.

oh! duh!

I always spelled it kim (the Japanese pronunciation)

someone really needs to sit down and decide on ONE way to write romanized Korean words.

[jschyun]

I used to spell it kim but then realized that it was not correct because the Korean letter is a hard 'g' sound, not k. I didn't want to be incorrect but I guess I was trying to hard.

[torakris]

I used to spell it kim but then realized that it was not correct because the Korean letter is a hard 'g' sound, not k.  I didn't want to be incorrect but I guess I was trying to hard. 

and here I thougth ghim was something new and exciting!

[jrufusj]

I used to spell it kim but then realized that it was not correct because the Korean letter is a hard 'g' sound, not k.  I didn't want to be incorrect but I guess I was trying to hard. 

Actually, you weren't doing anything wrong to start with.

The Korean character ¤¡ changes its sound depending on its position in the word. Korean is a pretty simple

language phonetically and alphabetically, but there is still some confusion with romanization.

In the Korean word for a stray dog, which is spelled µé°³ (literally "wild dog") and pronounced deul gae, the "g" sound is close to what we would think of as a classic western hard g. This is because it is in a medial position.

(The operative character here is the same one, called 񃨦 in its full name, that I isolated above in the second paragraph. Hangul characters change shape and proportions depending on the number and shape of the other letters in the same syllable block.)

However, when the same letter begins the word for seaweed -- ±è -- it has a sound much closer to an English "k", though closer to the one in ski than to the one in kite. This sound shift is because the character is now in initial position.

So...you can continue to spell the word "kim" because when it is the initial sound the character in question yields a sound much closer to a "k" than a "g".

To bring this back a bit closer to food:

In the Korean word for shiso/perilla seeds, which is spelled µé±ú (literally "wild sesame") and pronounced deul ggae, the "k/g family" sound is much stronger and has a bit of throat clearing sound to my ears. Be careful, because it's very easy for a non-native speaker to confuse the consonant sounds in gae and ggae. Note how close the hangul spelling is. There is only a small change in one character to move from a wild dog to shiso seeds.

Ironically, deul ggae is one of the main elements in the seasoning dip for what I think is Korea's best gae (dog) dish.

Sorry to be confusing, but the commonly used spelling of kim is perfectly acceptable. It is what you will see used most frequently inside Korea in romanized food writing and labeling.

There are multiple romanization systems, so my romanization here is not gospel, but it is acceptable. My point is really to explain the sound shifts and how kim is pronounced.

Take care,

Jim

[jrufusj]

Favorite Korean rice dishes:

Like everyone else, my wife and I love hoe dop bap (raw fish on rice with salad greens, gochujang and whatever other garnishes are the specialty of the house).

I dearly love the bokkum bap (fried rice) that is made at the end of a night of nakji bokkum, especially at the great place in Gwanghwamun where they use saebal nakji (very small octopus from Cheolla-do). The fried rice at the end of the night is loaded with the flavor of the nakji and seasonings, but also seasoned up with kim and chamggireum (sesame oil) in its own right.

My favorite way to make bokkum bap at home is to saute manul jjong (garlic stems) slowly to mellow them, then to fry the rice with egg, manul jjong, yangpa (western onion), and a little gochujang and sesame oil. It's not a classic combination, but it is very Korean in flavor profile.

I do like good dol sot bibimbap like everyone else, though I don't eat it that often. I really like bibimbap with yukhoe (Korean raw beef similar to steak tartar) and korean pear as the main elements.

The one thing I don't like is kimbap. There's nothing wrong with it inherently, but I just can't eat what is essentially a hosumaki with unseasoned or underseasoned rice. Same reaction I have to kimuchee in Japan.

Jim

[Chris Amirault]

I'm resurrecting this thread in the hopes that we can chat a bit more about Korean rice (bap) dishes. We just learned about a fantastic Korean and Japanese store in East Providence (Asiana on Warren Ave) that stocks many things I had not been able to find, and I loaded up.

But before I get out the kochuchang, I want to know what rice people use for Korean bap dishes. I bought a bag of new crop, medium grain Nishiki rice, thinking that'd work. What do you think?

[touaregsand]

But before I get out the kochuchang, I want to know what rice people use for Korean bap dishes. I bought a bag of new crop, medium grain Nishiki rice, thinking that'd work. What do you think?

Sounds fine.

[touaregsand]

Other rice dishes (maybe some were mentioned upthread and I just missed them).

Jook- basically rice porridge. The two most common are abalone jook (jun bok jook) and Spinach jook (shigum chee jook).

Samgye tang (Korean ginseng chicken). This can also be prepared as a jook.

Rice casseroles (have to ask mom what they are called). These are made by cooking vegetables and meats with the the rice.

Joomuk bap (literally fist rice, but more like the size of rice balls usually). Usually seasoned with sesame oil, sesame salt and salt.

Joomuk bap formed into log shapes and wrapped with fresh perilla leaves

Kim bap- rice seasoned as for joomuk bap, julienned and cooked vegetables, maybe slices of fish cakes, wrapped in seaweed.