Bibimbap - Korean leftovers
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
"The term comfort food doesn't quite suffice; therapy food is more like it, which makes sense, given that the notion of food as medicine is a fundamental one in Korean cooking." National Geographic
I was flicking through my Ideas pages and came across Bibimbap, as originally mentioned in a Melbourne Food and Wine Festival review of a restaurant - Moon Mart - and decided to go ahead with this topic, because it had cropped up here and there recently. In fact it cropped up somewhere unlikely in the last few days, but very frustratingly I cannot now remember where this was. Was it Nigella? - no apparently not - or Rick Stein? ditto. Nor NIgel either. Maybe Neil Perry - I have one of his books on my sofa waiting to be thought about - it was a Readings bargain book - and there is a recipe in there, but no picture, and my memory of the possibly imaginary bibimbap definitely had a photograph.
The above version is possibly from the most authentic of the sites I have explored for this post - the My Korean Kitchen website, which I'm guessing may be the internet authority on Korean food - in terms of popularity anyway. The above is a picture of her - the author's Bibimbap (Korean mixed rice with meat and assorted vegetables) - a much fancier version than the one she grew up with as cooked by her mother who:
"used [to] make bibimbap to get rid of vegetable side dishes (banchan) that are getting a few days old (less fresh) or when she didn’t want to put much effort into a meal, she would just take out a few sautéed and seasoned vegetables and kimchi from the fridge, add a sprinkle of seasoned seaweed strips and made simple vegetarian bibimbap."
I have now found various recipes and read various articles about it all, and have come to the conclusion that this is one of those "most delicious meals ... eaten by the poorest people in the world." as Jamie Oliver tells us - so true. It is also one of those meals initially made with the scraps at hand, which was subsequently tarted up, for special occasions initially, and now to make a splash in a restaurant or on Instagram and TikTok. According to Google AI in 2026 there are "2.8 million posts on Instagram using the hashtag #bibimbap". Which is kind of mind-blowing. Nevertheless I'm remembering NIgella's comment that I came across yesterday:
"Could smoothie bowls ever have been a Thing without Instagram? Are they even a Thing off it? I have never knowingly met anyone who’s eaten one."
So Okay she was talking about a different dish - smoothie bowls - but maybe the same thought applies to bibimbap. Not in Korea obviously - but maybe here. Somehow I don't think so, judging by the regular appearance of recipes for bibimbap in the supermarket magazines.
There are a few other main things that I have got from my internet rambling. First it is very old although nobody knows how it originated - in palaces, or in poor farmer's homes. Probably both - with the royal version being the 'dolsot'. The National Geographic website tells us how this particular version came to be. The idea here is to finish up with crispy rice on the bottom of the pan to which the various elements - some cooked, some raw are added and then topped with a raw egg which cooks from the heat of the ingredients, when it's all mixed together. 'Bibim' means mixed and 'bap' means rice.
"Bibimbap is usually served in a metal bowl, although the ‘dolsot’ version is named after the — heated — stone pot it’s served in. Originating during the Three Kingdom period (57 BC to AD 668) from the pot used to cook rice over charcoal in centuries past, particularly for royalty, this style of bibimbap is more of a restaurant speciality than a home dish. The technique came close to disappearing during the Japanese occupation (1910-1945), but was reintroduced in restaurants in the 1960s. Repackaging bibimbap in this way was seen as a way to reverse a decline in customer numbers following the Korean War." National Geographic
How to make Korean bibimbap with a stone bowl on the website Global Food: Japan has many pictures that show the whole process.
And no it is not made like this at home, as Jimmy Cho, a Korean, showing a Saveur reporter around Seoul's restaurants confirms:
"Dolsot is something you see only in restaurants. We never make it that way at home."
It's a long and complicated process because every element has its own preparation process. Mind you Nagi Maehashi of Recipe Tin Eats, has a red hot go at doing the same thing, in her recipe for Bibimbap! (Korean Rice Bowl) although not in a stone bowl.
Being an Asian dish, it also has its own philosophical background:
"The dish incorporates the five flavours that create balance in a traditional meal: salty, sweet, hot, sour and bitter, as well as the idea of obangsaek. The latter entails the five representative colours of Korean cuisine: red, green or blue, yellow, white and black. These signify the five elements (fire, wood, earth, metal and water) and the five main positions relating to a compass (south, east, centre, west and north). They’re also said to correspond to the five main organs of the body: heart, liver, stomach, lungs and kidneys. " National Geographic
Essentially though, as I said at the beginning, it's a leftovers dish. On Facebook, Adam Liaw presented this lunch he made for himself with leftover bulgogi. Mind you he did do the hot stone bowl thing, So a little bit fancy.
But really you don't even need to be that fancy says Jamie:
"You don’t need a stone bowl and you don’t need a recipe – just a frying pan, some sesame oil, chilli sauce and lots of shredded veg and cooked rice. Play with the flavours, play with the vegetables, add some meat for some protein, and add the egg at the last minute."
Indeed those ingredients vary as to what you have in your fridge, and how much time you have to make this. Is it to be a very quick and easy stir fry with ready or easily prepped ingredients, or is it something you can linger over whilst cooking the meat - in spices, aromatics and sauces and oils; carefully shredding vegetables; maybe even cooking some of them and then carefully arranging them in a carefully chosen bowl. Need it even be a bowl? Jamie's My kind of bibimbap bowl is even served on a plate, and the egg looks to be a scotch egg. It also looks to be a cold dish - and that's alright too, because the homely version of bibimbap is generally served warm, sometimes cold, depending a bit on the season.
Besides bear in mind that this is a dish whose name includes 'mixed', because whilst the dish whether in a hot bowl, a metal bowl or on a plate may be carefully arranged to show those colours, the idea is to immediately mix it all up together. As shown here. Sometimes the hot sauce - usually gochujang, which is sometimes mixed with other things - is placed on top or drizzled over the selection, sometimes it is served separately so that each person can add as much as they want.
One last word on the ingredients. There seemed to be some that were always, or almost always used - shredded carrots, shiitake mushrooms, bean sprouts, sesame seeds, although the something green varied, and the meat was not always added. Well if you are a poor peasant you might not have any.
Whatever ingredients you use, however, it seems to me that each one is prepared separately - this is not a throw everything in a wok and mix together kind of thing. The mixing is done in the finished arranged bowl.
A few examples - there are probably millions on the web. Well it's a kind of choose your own adventure kind of dish: Bibimbap - Heather Jeong/Adam Liaw - The Cook Up/SBS; Bibimbap - Cornersmith/delicious. - a vegetarian version; Mixed rice with vegetables and beef (Bibimbap) - Jordan Bourke and Rejina Pyo/The Guardian; Bibimbap with beef and onions - Neil Perry
Well it did seem to be a thing - and I was curious as to what it was, and now I know. I don't think it will be making an appearance in this house however. Too hot - well I suppose you could ignore the gochujang - and the fried egg too in David's case. A bit too much like a rabbity salad for me I think. But lots of people seemed to be saying it was the ultimate comfort food. Maybe, but I also think that comfort food really has to be inextricably linked to one's own nostalgic memories. Maybe next time I'm in a Korean restaurant. Well if that ever happens. There are plenty of them.
YEARS GONE BY
March 15 - Happy birthday Max - safe journey home Jenny
2025 - Loose ends
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - The many faces of shiraz
BiBimBap is not for me, well at least until the fried egg is takem away. Just looked it up and the word apparently means litterallky "mixed rice". Oh, and the fried egg is mandatory! 🤪