How to make Bibimbap

By MiHyun Han
General Manager at Don’s Bogam, NYC
 

I was the head chef at Grace’s Kalbi Bar: a  Korean restaurant in downtown. Before that, I worked at Jewel Bako as a sous chef. Rice was always the main ingredient everyday. Even now at Korean BBQ restaurant, Don’s Bogam as the General Manager in Midtown, rice is a focus. The word for boiled rice in Korean, Bap, is used not only to refer to cooked rice but also meals in general. When my friend EunYoung asked me about Korean food recipes (rice), Bibimbap (mixed rice) came up as the first dish at the my top of my list. I am excited to share the recipe for Bibimbap.

Whenever I am asked which traditional Korean food deserves to become popular all over the world, I always say,“Bibimbap.” One bowl of bibimbap contains many different elements of traditional Korean food, including rice and side dishes, and it is a healthy food that has vegetables as its main ingredients. It offers nutritional balances, and its wonderful taste is enhanced by fermented gochujang (Chili pepper paste), which brings harmony to the flavors of all the other ingredients.

* History of Bibimbap
During the Jo-seon era, there was a custom in the royal place of eating bibimbap that had been made from all the left over side dishes at the end of the year. This custom was considered to be a symbolic of putting behind all the affairs of the past and celebrate the fresh start of the New Year.

Ingredients (Serving for four)
800g rice
100g bean sprouts
100g Gosari (Mountain vegetables)
100g bellflower roots
100g carrots
100g squash
100g shiitake mushroom
1 cup of Red chili pepper paste
Small amounts of salt, sesame oil and grape seeds oil.

Directions
1. After removing the roots from the bean sprouts, lightly boil the in the water. Then remove the bean sprouts from the water. Place them in the frying-pan and after adding a little salt and sesame oil, stir-fry them.
2. After stir-frying the Gosari (Mountain vegetables)together, with the soy sauce, sesame oil, finely chopped scallion, minced garlic and the beef stock or water, cover with a lid and simmer gently.
3. After tearing the bellflower roots into narrow strips, rub with coarse salt by hand, and then wash with the water to remove the bitter taste. Stir-fry them in a pan with sesame oil and grape seeds oil. Add about ¼ cups of beef stock or water and simmer gently.
4. After cutting the carrots into 3cm pieces, slice them into thin stripes. Then, stir-fry the carrots in a pan with grape seeds oil and sprinkle with the salt.
5. Remove the stems of the shiitake mushrooms, then slice the mushroom heads and fry gently in a pan with sesame oil and grape seeds oil.
6. Cut the squash into thin round slices. Mix the grape seeds oil and sesame oil in a pan and once it has been heated, add the squash and gently stir-fry with a little salt.
7. After mixing a small amount of sesame oil into the steamed rice, place the rice in a bowl or plate together with the other ingredients and serve with the red chili pepper paste on a separate dish.

 

 

Brick By Brick

By Phyllis Odessey

Eunyoung and I are going to the Urban Agriculture Summit in Toronto, Canada.  Our proposal, Yes, You Can Grow Rice in NYC has been accepted by the programming committee.  The summit is sponsored by Food Share and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and will take place August 15-August 18.

By the time we arrive in Toronto, our second rice paddy will be in full swing.  Last Thursday, volunteers from Goldman Sachs Community Teamworks built a new section of The Learning Garden, which included the second rice paddy, under the direction of James Burns, our horticulture crew member and paddy builder extraordinaire.

The first row of bricks was the most taxing.  The ground is uneven and leveling it was a job.
James demonstrates how to lay the bricks.  He is kind of a precise guy and that is good thing.  The bricks are not exactly bricks; they fall somewhere between bricks and cinder blocks.  They are heavier than the usual brick. The extra weight is extremely important in holding the water within the plastic liner.
Getting the liner in the completed paddy was a little like shaking a sheet after its been in the dryer.
Eunyoung stomps the  one foot depth of  soil. The soil was an organic mix of compost, sand and loom.
PART II – propagating rice with small plastic cups.  Each cup has holes punched in the top in.  The cups are filled with soil 3/4 to the top.  water is added and the rice seeds.  We wait and see what happens.  But there isn’t too much waiting, the rice propagates fairly quickly and what looks like thin blades of grass start showing.  By the time we get to the Urban Agriculture Summit, we will be able to report on the first and second rice paddy.

the Koshihikari rice

By EunYoung Sebazco

Horticulture Manager

My old Japanese friend taught me how to wash and cook rice. She also taught me how to distinguish between good quality of rice. After the excellent training from her, I was able to find the beauty in the shiny surface of cooked rice and the sweetness from its chewy texture. I found the Koshihikari rice ( Oryza sativa ) from Kitazawa Seed Company a few years back and we planted them on our ricepaddy last year. The Koshihikari is a well known the expensive rice in Japan. The firm, short and sticky grains are perfect for traditional Japanese dishes. It uses a popular variety of sushi rice as well. It was first created in 1956 in Japan and has been grown in US since 1991. Also, it was first planted in New York City at Randall’s Island in 2011!

How to make Sushi

By Yoshihiko Kousaka

Executive Chef at Jewel Bako, NYC

In 2010, I was featured as one of the best chefs in New York City as a sushi chef on France Chef TV. It was honor to be in with Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Daniel Humm, Ben Pollinger, Michael Anthony and Ed Brown. I also introduced some of my recipes on the episode. I would like to share one of them as a basic building block in how to make sushi.
Prep time: 4h     Ingredients for 10 persons

20 oz of Japanese (Koshihikari) rice
20 oz of water
1/4 filet of golden eye snapper
1/4 ocean trout
1/4 filet of tuna rim
1/4 filet of tuna toro
1/4 filet of amberjack(yellowtail)
1/4 filet of baby red snapper
1/4 filet of octopus rack
1 wasabi root
Salt
Sushi vinegar: 1 oz sugar, 1/3 of salt, 1 cup of rice vinegar

Wash the rice a few times with a little bit of water with a gentle rubbing motion until the water isn’t white any more. Let it dry in the chinois for 25 minutes. Put the rice in a towel and cook it in a pan with water during 20 minutes. Then turn off the heat and let it rest in the towel for 20 minutes adding sushi vinegar. While it is draped in the towel, the rice will continue to steam. Let the rice and cool for 15 minutes.

Filet and remove the bones from the fish. Remove the skin/scales by slicing length-way. Cut the slices against the grain of the fish.

Peel and grate the wasabi root on shark skin rasp. Make a paste with the root.

Use the rice at the temperature of your hands. Make the rice balls in your right hand. Take the fish in the left hand and dip into the wasabi paste to smear a little onto the fish. Place the fish and rice together.

Top Ingredient

By Yoshihiko Kousaka

Executive Chef at Jewel Bako, NYC

I was born and raised in Japan. After high school, I worked at Azuma Sushi in Aichi, Japan. In 1985, I moved to New York and I started to work at Kuruma Sushi. A short time later, I owned Daimatu restaurant in New Jersey. After almost 6 years, I was hired by Megu 2003. I got hired by Jewel Bako, which is a beautifully designed hidden treasure in the East Village of Manhattan. I have been working as an executive chef since 2004. I also served The James Beard Foundation Dinner in 2009 introducing modern sushi Japanese cuisine. I always believe that the fish and rice balance as the most important components in my sushi work which is of the Japanese traditional Edomae style.  As you may imagine, I can’t separate myself from rice in my 27 years sushi career. It seems as though my life rotates around rice. When my friend EunYoung was growing rice and offered me to participate the rice event at Randall’s Island, I could not believe that they were growing rice in New York City. I am really excited and honored that I will be a part of the program. I can’t wait to be at the garden and to meet the children. Let’s make rice balls and have some fun!

Lessons from past

By EunYoung Sebazco

Horticulture Manager

I have few books that I have read over and over again for reference. ” Just enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan“ (Written by Azby Brown) is one.  Few years ago, when I had a big questions about sustainable gardening, this book lead me out of the dark tunnel.

The stories about how people lived in Japan a few hundreds years ago during the Edo period just before Japan opened up to western culture. The people of the Edo period intelligently managed their homes, fields, and forests; developed innovative designs for the things they needed, and maintained a sustainable society. While I was reading, I found a few interesting drawings that captured my eye. It was Illustrations of rice cultivation. It tells how to prepared the field, how to sow, transplant, harvest, dry, thresh, hull, winnow, polish, along with the rice cultivation cycle chart for the season. It was based 300 hundreds years ago, but I found out not much has changed these days. Our rice paddy was a miniature man-made pond compared the Edo rice field. We had tried to make an environment as close as what Edo period. As you see the growth illustration during the growing season, natural habitats thrived in the rice paddies. A few examples are the way we created extensive artificial wetlands releasing fish to help insect control and the irrigation system, and planting trumpet-shaped flower Morning glory along the rice paddy to invite birds.

In the book at the end of the rice chapter, it also shows the diagram of how the people of the Edo period utilized every byproduct with food, household, fuel, mulch, compost and so on. The “zero-waste” ideal! As I learned from the book, I am hoping that our rice paddy helps us to understand not only food culture, but also sustainable culture.

The KEY to Winnowing

By EunYoung Sebazco

Horticulture Manager

The rice paddy taught me the wisdom of ancient sustainable agriculture.  I have discovered that a winnowing basket has been one of the tools that is used in a  variety of our households for centuries.

Korean Winnowing Basket: KEY (in Korean = winnowing basket) is a thin, flat wicker and bamboo woven basket. It is flat and wide with a narrow back to create a wind tunnel effect that causes the back of the basket to hold the grain. Using a sweeping motion upward, the grain falls and sits in the back of the basket and the lighter debris, called husks escape into wind. This effect is called ‘winnowing’. This useful basket design is multipurpose: gathering, carrying, and pouring.

What the elders believe in Korea:  During periods of severe drought, a village would have a ceremony for rain. One of female residents from the village would go to a stream with the key and scoop water from the stream; water then drains  from the key simulating rain dropping from the sky.  Historically, people believed reproducing  water falling from the sky would have an effect and make rain.

Traditionally, parents place a key on the head of a child,who is a bed wetter.  The child is then told to go to a neighbors and ask for salt. The neighbors will hit the child  on the top of the basket with a stick and say “Don’t do this again!” This is used to shame a child as punishment so they wont repeat their mistakes.
Key is one of the important tools that separate the rice grain from husk. People wish that children grow like a  grain of rice and not wheat, because the wheat doesn’t contain any interior grain.