Summary

Preparation Time: 45 min including cooking the rice.
Cook Time: 30 min , which can be done while waiting for the rice to cook.
Total Time: 60 min
Servings: 10 rolls (1 roll = 6 pieces) so 60 pieces
Meal type: Appetizer
Cost: $16

Ingredients

• 3 cups short grain rice, $5.50 for a 5lb bag. ~$1.10
• 1 package roasted seaweed, $3.99 for 20 sheets ~ $2
• 1 carrot
• 1 bunch of fresh spinach, $1.69
• 1 package fish cake, $2.65 for 5 sheets
• 4 large eggs, $0.65
• 1 package surimi (imitation crab), $3.99 – used half – $2
• 1 package seasoned burdock and pickled radish, $3.39 – used 2/3 ~ $2
• 1 jar kimchi, $4.99 for 1L – used $2
• 4 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 rolling mat, $2

Instructions

1. You’ll want to start first thing on the rice because you can prep other ingredients while waiting for it to cook. It would be great to allow some time to let it cool as well since working with steaming hot rice for rolling just isn’t a good idea. We used a rice cooker, but feel free to cook rice however you’re most comfortable with. Just note that you want the rice to be ‘just’ cooked and not on the overcooked side or else it may become mushy when you mix it with the seasonings.

2. Wash the spinach to get rid of the sandy grit. An easy way to do this is in a sink half-full of water. Separate the spinach leaves off the stalk/root as well. Remove the leaves from the water and drain as much water as you can.

3. Next, peel and cut off the ends of the carrot. We need to get it finely sliced, which you could do with a knife, but using a mandolin will make it faster.

4. Crack the 4 eggs into a bowl and mix well.

Now we can move onto the stove, where we can quickly prep some of the ingredients.
5. Heat a bit of oil in a frying pan at medium heat and saute the spinach for 5-10 minutes until all of it is wilted.

6. Add some more oil to the frying pan and now saute the carrots for about 5 minutes. We just want to make them less crunchy, but not super soft so don’t overcook them.
7.Next, take the sheets of fish cake and place single layer on the frying pan. They are already fried so this is just to brown and soften it up.

8. Lastly, take your bowl of whisked egg. After heating a bit of oil at medium heat, ladle some egg into your frying pan. The goal is to make a thin crepe so put enough to cover the entire pan.

When the edges start to look done, you can take a quick peek underneath. When it looks slightly browned, flip the crepe to brown the other side.

Now for the final prep of the ingredients, we just need a cutting board and knife.
9. Slice the sheets of fish cake and the egg crepes into one inch thick strips.

10. The surimi usually comes in short fat sticks so we cut them in half length-wise.
11. By now, the rice should be done cooking and ideally had time to cool off a bit. Scoop the rice into a large bowl to mix well with 4 tablespoons of rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar.


You’re now finished prepping all the ingredients for the kimbap filling. On to the rolling!

11. It’s not absolutely necessary, but covering your bamboo mat with saran wrap will make cleaning your mat a lot easier.

12. Place a sheet of seaweed on the mat with a very thin layer of rice. Leave about an inch of seaweed uncovered along one edge.

13. Start placing your filling ingredients along the edge of rice nearest the uncovered seaweed. You can add any mix of ingredients you want, but just remember that the more you put in, the harder it might be to roll later!

14. Start rolling by folding the uncovered seaweed portion over the filling.

15. Continue rolling, using the bamboo mat to help press down around the roll and make it nice and compact.



16. All that’s left to do is cut it into bite-size pieces! Using a sharp knife and keeping the blade slightly wet will help to cleanly-cut it for presentation.

Results

The fun of kimbap is that you can put any variety of filling inside! Some common popular Korean versions are tuna kimbap, kimchi kimbap, and bulgogi kimbap. If you want a vegetarian version, you can leave out the surimi and fish cake.

Preparing all the filling ingredients is the time-consuming part of this recipe. Once you have it all laid out in front of you though, you’ll have a dozen rolls up in no time. Making it with friends is great because everybody can customize what they want in it. We definitely had a lot of fun and it was hard to resist stealing bites while making it but we finally got a picture of a plate full of kimbap!