One-Stop Kimbap Shop
'Fast food' has a different meaning in South Korea than the US. Back home, fast food is a few thousand calories of salty deliciousness in a grease-stained bag. Here, the last word in guilty pleasure is a breaded pork cutlet. Without a bun. Or fries. In Korea, 'fast food' is prompt, not unhealthy. The number one fast food over here is kimbap.
Kim is a sheet of dried, salty seaweed. Bap means rice. Kimbap, therefore, is a circle of seaweed-wrapped rice with vegetables and meat at the center. There are take-out kimbap places all over town where you can buy a long roll for only 1,500 won. It's cheap, convenient, and portable, so it's the staple picnic/field trip food for kids.
Discerning mothers, however, pack their kid's lunches with homemade kimbap to ensure top quality. I'd been told its more delicious this way, and one of my Korean friends graciously gave me a little cooking class.
Standard kimbap contains long, thin slices of ham, crab meat (generally of the faux variety), pickled yellow radish, carrot, burdock, egg, and sesame (perilla) leaves. Unlike sushi, nothing is raw. Except, I guess, the burdock and sesame. Those are burdock stems, by the way, and not the nasty, pokey balls that grab onto your socks when you go hiking.
We also put in canned tuna, which apparently made it 'fusion' kimbap.
It turns out homemade kimbap is easy to make. You just need to have plenty of time on your hands.
First you cook up a batch of rice.
This is mixed with a little salt and sesame oil. Then you have to slice the filling ingredients into long, thin strips.
The ham, crab, carrots, and egg get sautéed individually.
Then you lay out your handy kimbap mat and start the assembly line. First a sheet of kim.
Then a layer of rice.
Pile on the filling.
Roll it tightly, slice into rounds, and feast.
-Erin