My Foodie Experiments: Tuna Kimbap

May 10, 2011 / 0 Comments
Here we go again with my fascination for Korean cooking. I got this recipe from Maangchi again. I swear, I am getting to be a big fan of her cooking. She makes it appear so effortless and easy that it really makes the whole Korean cooking experiment fun in my kitchen.
I already made this Kimbap twice and I wasn’t just able to blog about it the first time around as I wanted to make it again and include in this recipe some personal notes of mine that I discovered during the cooking process.
Enjoy making this as it really is very simple and quite good. J Have fun!
 
Korean Tuna Kimbap
Ingredients:
·         5-6 cups cooked rice (made from 3 cups of uncooked rice)
·         laver (“kim”) – Roasted seaweed sheets
·         yellow radish pickle (“danmu ji”)
·         1 avocado
·         crabmeat, a can of tuna
·         soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil and seeds, and a green onion
(2-3 servings)
1.       Prepare about 5-6 cups of cooked rice in a large bowl
2.       Make your mixing sauce by mixing up ½ tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 tablespoon of vinegar until the liquid looks clear
3.       Mix rice with the mixing sauce and stir it evenly. Set it aside for now.
 
 
Prepare a large plate to arrange all ingredients for kimbap
1.       Make seasoned tuna flakes
A)       Open a can of tuna and remove the oil or water. Put it on a heated pan and drizzle some sesame oil over it. Toss it and cook it for 2 minutes
B)       Add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, ½ tablespoon of sugar, 1 clove of minced garlic, and 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper.
C)       Keep stirring for another 3 minutes.
D)       Turn off the heat and add 1 chopped green onion, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil and 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds.
 
 
2.       Place 3 yellow radish pickle strips on the plate.
3.       Place 3 pieces of crab meat on the plate.
4.       Slice an avocado and place it on the plate.
 
Let’s roll Kimbap!
 
 
1.       Place a sheet of laver(“kim”) on the bamboo mat and evenly spread a layer of rice in the center of it.
2.       Place 2-3 spoons of seasoned tuna flakes on top of the layer of rice. Add a yellow radish pickle strip, some avocado, and a red crab meat strip.
3.       Roll it up gently using the bamboo mat.
4.       Remove the bamboo mat and cut the roll into pieces about 2 cm thick and place it on a plate
*tip: prepare a wet cloth or paper towel to wipe the knife while cutting, it will make it slice easier.
 
 
My Personal Notes:
 
I used Japanese sake (rice wine vinegar) in place of the ordinary vinegar that was indicated in this recipe. It worked out fine. Just make sure that you mix the vinegar, sugar and salt really well to mix with the cooked rice. You can buy the yellow pickled radish in Korean stores as they are not so available in the local grocery stores but I did see them once in SM Supermarket but just to be sure, go to your friendly neighborhood Korean grocery store. You will find the laver (roasted nori sheets), crabmeat  and the yellow pickled radish there.
 
For the tuna powder, I used Century tuna’s chunks in brine. Avoid the ones that are in oil as much as possible. For the soy sauce, I used Kikkoman again as I find that it really gives a different and more robust flavor rather than your regular soy sauce. The rolling of the kimbap is a bit tricky but after a few times of doing it, you can already gauge for yourself how to do it without spilling the rice and everything else. Also, make sure that you don’t put too much rice because overfilling makes it harder to roll.
 
Enjoy your kimbap. Mine was a hit with the family accompanied of course with some wasabi and Kikkoman!
 
XoXo
 

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