Our kimbap adventure...

Last night, Rachel's friend Anthony showed us how to make kimbap (pronounced "gimbap"-kim means seaweed, bap means rice). We went to Lotte Mart at Seoul Station to shop for the groceries, and to get a rice cooker. I was pretty tired of burning rice on our gas stove! We bought all the ingredients, and some shoes for Rachel-she has to shop in the guys section because her feet are so big! Kimbap is similar to Japanese sushi rolls. It is made with seaweed wrapped around a thin layer of rice, and filled with egg, crab meat, pickled radish, and carrots. There's another type of radish, which you can see in the pictures, that Anthony didn't know the name of in English (thin brown strips). Sometimes instead of crab meat they use ham, and add cucumber-there are a million variations...all tasty! This is something that I have had cravings for very often, so I was so happy Anthony was willing to teach us. First you cook the rice, then scramble eggs, turning them like an omelet. Then you cut the eggs and the vegetables and crab meat into long, thin strips. We cheated and bought the already sliced crab and radish. You have to use a "kimpal" to roll everything up, so you lay that down first and set the seaweed down on it. Then you spread the rice very thinly up to about an inch from the edge. Then you pile the ingredients in the middle, one of everything except the carrot and the brown radish-use two of each of those. Then you carefully roll everything up, and finish the ends by stuffing some rice in any gaps. Then slice and serve! We ate about 5 or 6 rolls between the three of us, plus some kimchi we bought to keep us from starving while we were cooking! We bought the already cut kimchi that was a combination of cabbage, cucumber, and radish. Wow, I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it. Yummmm! Rachel and I are planning on making some for Chris when he gets home next Sunday. I'm sure we'll practice a few times in between...