Bibimbap

How to Cook Bibimbap

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1. Marinate the sliced beef in the soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and garlic for 20 minutes.

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2. Blanch the spinach for 45 seconds, refresh in cold water, squeeze dry, and dress with 1 tablespoon sesame oil, a quarter of the garlic, a pinch of salt and sesame seeds.

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3. Blanch the beansprouts for 2 minutes and dress the same way.

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4. Stir-fry the carrots with a little oil and salt for 2 minutes; do the same separately with the courgette and then the mushrooms, dressing each with sesame oil and garlic.

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5. Sear the marinated beef in a hot pan for 2 minutes until just cooked and caramelised at the edges.

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6. Mix the gochujang with the vinegar, sugar and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil into a pourable sauce.

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7. Fry the eggs until the whites are set and the yolks runny.

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8. For stone bowls, brush the inside generously with sesame oil, heat until smoking, then press the rice in and leave 3 minutes to crisp. Otherwise use warm bowls.

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9. Arrange the vegetables and beef in neat sections over the rice, top with the egg, kimchi and nori, and serve with the gochujang sauce for each person to mix in.

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Related guides: Prep, cook and total time · Choosing rice.

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What Can Go Wrong

1. Season each vegetable separately. Doing them all together is faster but you lose the point of the dish.
2. The vegetables can all be made a day ahead and served at room temperature.
3. Mix vigorously at the table, breaking the yolk through everything. Bibimbap literally means mixed rice.

Ingredient Swaps

• An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.

About This Recipe

Each namul — the seasoned vegetable toppings — is cooked and dressed separately so that spinach tastes of sesame, carrot of garlic, and beansprouts of salt, rather than everything merging. The crisp layer at the base of a stone bowl forms because the rice in direct contact with the hot surface dehydrates and toasts.

To Go With It

Soju, or a cold Korean lager · Serve with a bowl of doenjang jjigae · Finish with fresh Korean pear

Keeping Bibimbap

Components keep 3 days refrigerated separately. Assemble to order with a freshly fried egg.

Quick Answers

What's in a Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

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