Recipe Hall of Fame: Korean Rice Bowl

When I lived in Paris last year, there was a tiny Korean restaurant named Sésame et Sel practically right around the corner from my dormitory. Their food was good (especially their bibimbap), though generally somewhat small in portions and high in price. They did have a pretty good offer that I took occasionally: a takeaway lunch box for 10€, containing some fried rice, sweet and spicy bulgogi (grilled beef or pork), a few gyoza and sirup-y sweet potatoes. As a bonus, the nice Korean lady running the place would always offer you a cup of tea while you were waiting for your lunch to be prepared 😊

Is this story related to the recipe in this post? Tangentially. It was after Paris (and hanging out a lot with Koreans there) that I bought certain Korean ingredients for the first time and started cooking Korean food. Today's recipe hall of fame entry reminds me a little bit of that saucy bulgogi with rice that I really enjoyed. It's very easy and quick to make, doesn't require many ingredients (once you've stocked up on East Asian essentials – and trust me, that'll be worth it), and is almost vegetarian or even vegan if you want it to be (there's essentially one ingredient you need to substitute to get to the finish line, see below).

With that, welcome to another entry in my recipe hall of fame!

The dish

The original recipe comes from Aaron and Claire, a Korean couple with a cooking channel on YouTube that I frequently take inspiration from.¹ Essentially, I've simplified their Gochujang tofu rice bowl in some aspects to make it more accessible to lazy people (like me sometimes).

In the original, they use broccoli on the side, which I skip here. You should be able to replace broccoli with pretty much any other vegetable as well: maybe some bok choi, thinly sliced carrots or some cabbage. Just steam/cook it to an appropriate texture, season it with something and add to the rice bowl. Having some vegetable in this is probably a good idea, since this dish otherwise lacks fiber and is probably not super healthy. It's not like that's ever stopped me before, though!

The original also requires a considerable amount of effort for the tofu: dry it, coat it in starch, shallow-fry from all sides it until crispy. This is an excellent way to prepare tofu in general and I've done it a lot, but it also takes time, you need additional space and oil, and it's very easy to make a mess. When I don't feel like going to those lengths, I simply use something other than tofu. In this case, I find that fried gluten (aka seitan) works great.

Ingredients

For the sauce mix:

• 2 tbsp Korean fermented chili paste (Gochujang 고추장)
• 1 tbsp Korean chili flakes (Gochugaru 고추가루)
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • This is the non-vegetarian ingredient. There are vegetarian versions of it, though.
• 2 tbsp rice wine (mirin, shaoxing, ...)
• something sweet
  • The original asks for 1 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of corn syrup. Corn syrup isn't really a thing here in Germany, so I use equal amounts of sugar and rice syrup instead.
  • I used to have a caramel sauce (literally slightly diluted caramel) that also worked well for this.
  • If you only have sugar, use 1.0-1.5 tbsp of it.
  • Any other sweetening agent will work, too. Just keep in mind that not all sweet things are equally intense.
• 1/2 tbsp corn starch
• 1 tsp bouillon/broth powder
  • Choose whatever you want here, honestly. Chicken, beef, vegetable, ... all is fine.
  • Check how much salt is in whatever you add. Bouillon is very salty, while a stock has typically no salt. Adjust accordingly.
• pinch of MSG
• ~50ml of water
  • How much exactly isn't a science. The result should be fairly liquid-y, but not like water.
  • You can always add more!

And the rest:

• ~200g of rice (I prefer Jasmin)
• 2 green onions
• n cloves of garlic
  • where 3 ≤ n ≤ enough to kill a small child
• small knob of ginger
• neutral-tasting cooking oil
• can of fried gluten
  • You'll find these as blue cans labelled "vegan chicken" or "vegetarian mock duck" or similar.
  • It's basically pure protein and similar to meat in texture.
• sesame seeds (garnish)
• optional: 1 egg to serve

Ok, I admit this may look like a lot of stuff at first, but I promise it isn't. The ingredients for the sauce aren't single-use, and if you continue cooking East Asian dishes you'll always have most of them in your fridge or on your shelf anyway (they keep forever, too).

Instructions

1. Wash the rice, then cook it.
2. Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl.
3. Cut the white parts (the thicker, multi-layered parts) of the green onions into thin slices. Reserve the green parts for garnish.
4. Peel and mince the garlic.
5. Peel and mince the small knob of ginger.
6. Heat oil in a pan, then fry the white part of the green onions, garlic and ginger for a little bit, until soft and fragrant.
7. Pour in the contents of the can of seitan and stir. Let some of the liquid evaporate.
8. Add the sauce, stir and let it cook until it gets thick. Add water or corn starch if necessary.
9. Taste for seasoning (salt, (white) pepper)
10. Optional: soft-boiled egg
    1. bring a small pot of water to a boil
    2. put in the egg
    3. after 6 minutes boiling, place the egg in a bowl and keep it under cold, running water to cool it down
11. Plate: add rice, pour sauce on top, peeled egg halves on the side, garnish with slices of green from the green onions and sesame seeds.

I realised after taking this photo that I have a proper, much prettier Japanese bowl that I could have presented this in. Oh well.