Bibimbap 비빔밥

 One of my favorite foods is bibimbap.  Bibimbap is a Korean dish.  Bibim (비빔) means mix and bap (밥) means rice.  I can't remember when I first ate it, but after that first time I always craved it.  I've always wanted to try making it myself, but then all the veggies that are required scared me away from trying out the recipe.  I wanted to buy every single ingredient required before I attempted making this.  Because of this, it took me a few months before I actually tried making it myself.  However, I ended up making it with only a few veggies.  The veggies I used were bean sprouts, carrots, and spinach.  I didn't have any zucchinis, mushrooms, gosari, garlic, or sesame seeds.  I was worried it wouldn't turn out well because I was lacking so many ingredients, but I was pleasantly surprised.  Also, I used some ground pork that I had left in the freezer for a year.  It was still good! Hahaha.

I followed Maangchi's recipe for bibimbap and used Korean Bapsang for the red pepper paste sauce.


College Student's Version of Bibimbap
Slightly adapted from Maangchi's recipe.

 
 Before mixing.


After mixing.

California Sushi

On the day of Mother's Day, my dad and uncle planned to make dinner for our moms (my aunt, my mom and my grandma). After I discovered that my uncle was going to make sushi, I rushed over to his house to learn how to make it. When I was little, I thought sushi was disgusting. However, after trying my uncle's sushi and tasting the weird, orange fish eggs, I found that sushi isn't that bad. Now I even go to eat sushi buffets!  I still don't like sashimi though.

The most complicated part of sushi is prepping. Cooking the rice, slicing the cucumber and avocados, cooking eggs, and etc. I think it is totally worth it though. If you go out to buy sushi, you spend $5 on a few pieces alone. If you make it yourself, you can make several rolls with $5 of ingredients.

California Sushi
Recipe from my uncle, who got it from a church friend

Makes 10 rolls, each roll may be sliced into ~10 pieces

Spam Musubi

Hi everyone, I'm still alive. Sorry for being such a bad blogger recently. I decided to take a very short break back in June...and it turned into a two month break! I didn't feel motivated/patient enough to blog, but now I'm back. I'll tell you what happened these past couple of months in more detail another day.

Here's something that I learned how to make in a cooking class, the beginning of freshmen year, or more specifically, the summer before. I learned that spam was a solid chunk of meat. Before, I had always believed that spam was some type of veggie. Anyway, I finally made this again after a few years. I made this with my friend J. We had a great time making it. It's a very simple recipe and delicious too.

Spam Musubi



Ingredients for one spam musubi
1 strip of nori seaweed
Cooked rice
1 slice spam
Furukaki powder to taste
Musubi maker
Musubi Cooking Sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp mirin (rice wine)

Directions
Mix the soy sauce, sugar, and mirin in a small pan or pot and heat, stirring until it comes just to a boil. Keep it warm at low heat.



Slice the spam however thick you want it.

Fry the spam slices in a little oil in a skillet. Once slightly browned, soak spam in musubi sauce.



Musubi Assembly
Line a musubi maker with nori so that both ends stick straight up out of it.
Put a ¼” layer of rice on tope of the nori that is in the maker.

My friend J. puts the rice on the seaweed.

Sprinkle a dash of furukaki powder on the rice. Lay one slice of spam on top of that layer.

Spread another ¼” layer of rice on top of the spam. Add another dash of furukaki on top of the rice. Fold over one flap of nori. Use the musubi maker “pusher” to press down on top of the nori wrapping the rice and spam. Fold over the other flap, press down again. Remove the musubi and enjoy!



Notes:
1. The extra sauce can be reserved and used as a dipping sauce.
2. The nori seaweed may need to be cut into two pieces. Make it so that the it will fit the length of the spam.

小 牛牌 Little Ribs

When I was little, my mom would cook this pretty often. However, now we only eat this once in a while. The ingredients below are estimates because my mom adds ingredients by eying the amount, not measuring like me. Hopefully, I will learn how to cook one day without measuring ingredients. Sorry, but I don't know the English name for this dish...so my translation may sound a bit weird.

小牛牌 Little Ribs
Recipe from my mom

some ribs
BBQ sauce or black pepper sauce -2-3-4 tbsps
Soy sauce around 1 tbsp or more, depending on the amount of meat

Directions
Cut ribs, get rid of the fat by peeling it off. If there is too much fat, cut it off with a knife.

Marinate the ribs for around 30 minutes in the BBQ sauce or black pepper sauce. Use enough sauce to marinate all the meat.



When cooking it, no oil is needed for the pan because there will be a lot of fat coming out.

Add the meat to the pan by laying it on its side. Cook on medium heat for a few minutes so the meat won't become tough.
Cook on one side for a few minutes, then flip over to the other side.

Then cover the pan with the lid, checking from time to time to see when it is done on that one side. After it is done on that side, flip it over to continue cooking. This will only take a few minutes and then you're done!


The remaining sauce leftover from this dish is good for noodles. Just cook and drain the noodles, then mix the sauce with the noodles.

Btw, these pictures were taken with the old camera, before it died.

Chicken Quesadillas

The first time I ever made quesadillas was during the summer before freshmen year in high school. I was taking a cooking class at my high school for summer school. In that class, I learned how to make several new things and I discovered a new food that I had never heard of before and that food is one of my favorites now (spam musubi). I'll share the recipe another time, when I get to make it. But today, I have the quesadilla recipe. Actually, my brother made these for Father's Day and I helped (to his annoyance b/c I became too bossy). He's currently taking the cooking class and I think he enjoys it.


Chicken Quesadillas with Avocado & Pico de Gallo (fresh salsa)


Quesadillas

Serves 4, 2 each
Ingredients
8 tortillas
around 1 1/2 cups of grated cheese
around 2 cups of cooked chicken cubes
1/4 avocado, sliced (optional)
butter, to spread on the tortillas (optional)

Directions
Cube chicken and just cook it.
Butter one side of each tortilla, if you don't want too much fat, just don't butter the tortilla.
Prepare the avocado by cutting it in half, twisting the 2 halves to separate them, using the knife technique to extract the seed, then quartering it lengthwise. Lightly slice each quarter into lengthwise strips.

Now, heat the pan. If you like using butter, butter the pan, if not, use something like vegetable oil. Personally, I dislike using to much butter, so I just use vegetable oil to oil the pan and I do not butter any of the tortillas at all. Put one of the tortillas on the pan, once the pan is heated up.

Start adding cheese to one side of the tortilla. The amount of cheese you put is actually up to your own tastes, that's the good thing about making these yourself. If you like cheesy food, add a lot of cheese, if you just like a little, put a little. After a few seconds or so, the cheese will start melting and then you can add a portion of chicken onto the quesadilla. Fold the quesadilla in half and you're basically done.

When the tortilla is crispy and the cheese is all melted, the quesadilla will taste really good. They are really easy to make and you can give the recipe a twist by adding chunks of pineapple with bbq chicken, or steak with cheese, it basically works with anything. :) Serving them with salsa will make this a very delicious and easy meal.

Pico de Gallo

Ingredients
1 tomato
1/4 onion
1/3 bunch of cilantro
[1 jalapeno chili]
1 lime
a pinch of salt

Directions

Dice the tomato and onion, put in a small bowl. Add in the coarsely chopped cilantro leaves to the bowl. Add in chopped up jalapeno if you like spicy stuff. First slice it lengthwise and remove the stem, membranes and seeds. Squeeze the juice of one lime into the bowl and add one pinch of salt. Mix around and you're done.

Tip: Rolling the lime around on the table top while pressing down will make it easier to squeeze out the juice because the cells of the lemon will break down.

My First Fried Rice

I made my first fried rice last Friday for a Chinese school project. I had to cook it the night before Chinese school, the next day it still tasted good even though it became 2 days old rice. Here's the recipe. As you can tell, I added a lot of veggies.

So I just followed all the directions and it turned out good. The only problem I had was the rice sticking to the pan...it eventually became this "chip". This is what happened.


Now the step by step instructions.

First, I prepared the marinade.

Here's the ground meat with the egg.

I then added the amount of meat needed for the recipe into the marinade and mixed it together.

Also, remember to refrigerate the cooked rice a day in advance, to ensure that your rice won't become soggy when it is cooked.


Then I heated up the pan and then added oil. When it was ready I started cooking the meat.


Keep cooking it until it's almost done, but not really.

I realize now that I might have overdone it, but the overall product turned out fine.

Put the meat in a separate bowl.

Prepare the veggies, I used cabbage and spring onions.


Cook the egg, and when the egg is almost done, add the rice. Mix.


Add the soy sauce.


and the cabbage and meat.

After I stirred in the cabbage I was worried that it wouldn't cook because it wasn't in contact with the pan. However, after a while it cooked, so don't worry if that happens to you. I am still a beginner cook though, so I doubt it will happen to other people. :)

Then, we're done! Yay! Mission accomplished.


Funny short story: This rice was for the Chinese school project right? Well, the project was cook a dish, get the recipe, and give a report on how to cook it. It ended up with half the class bringing fried rice cuz it's one of the easiest thing to make. Lol

Steamed Eggs

This is something that I have eaten since I was a little kid. The instructions are really simple, and I would say that this is a Chinese dish. If you want, you can also add some scallops on top or abalone to give it a special flavor.

Steamed Eggs
Serves: 4
4 eggs
1 can chicken broth
1 can water (use the chicken broth can to measure)
Mix the three ingredients together, using a whisk would be easier. When the mixture is uniform in color you can start steaming it.
Steam until it is pale yellow in color, so that when you stick a chopstick in the middle the chopstick comes out with nothing goey. This takes around 20 minutes or so. The time varies.

Shrimp and Eggs

The recipe below is something that my mom cooks occasionally. I don't know if you would classify it as Chinese food, but in my opinion it is just that. I really love eating this dish. The eggs are really good especially with the shrimp. My mom taught me how to cook this and I wrote down the instructions while learning. This is also for my own reference. I still haven't made this yet, but one day I will. :) Can't wait till then.
Shrimp and Eggs


Servings: 4

5 Eggs
2 Cups of shrimp soaked in 2-3 tablespoons of Shao hsing cooking wine
½ scoop of cornstarch (1 1/2 teaspoons)
½ teaspoon of salt
15 turns of the pepper grinder
Vegetable oil for the pan

Peel shells off shrimp. Cut shrimp in half lengthwise. Soak in the cooking wine.

Put around 1 tablespoon of oil in the pan. Make sure oil is hot. Whisk eggs together. Then cook the eggs by letting them “flood” the whole pan and let the raw eggs move to pool at an area until they are half cooked. Scoop eggs out and place them in a bowl. Add more oil

Add corn starch ½ scoop of corn starch to shrimp
Cook shrimp. Turn heat to low. Close pan’s cover. cook shrimp on high heat.. try not to cook the orange ones too long. After 5 minutes put egg w/ shrimp
Mix on medium heat to make mixture uniform
Close the pan’s cover
Then mix the shrimp again
Add white pepper
Then wait before mixing it again
Medium/low heat and then it’s done
Perform a taste test.