Quick Korean Beef Rice Bowl | WEEKNIGHTING

Hey, what's up? In my house, bibimbap, or some version of kimchi and eggs on rice, is on the menu every week. Today, I'm going to show you how to make my not-very-authentic-but-very-delicious version of it that only takes about 25 minutes. This is Week 9. To get started, I'll need to make some pickles. Or more specifically, I'll need to cut up and quickly marinate some vegetables. The first veggie that I'll marinate is cucumber. I usually have a pack of these baby ones in the refrigerator because they make for great salading and they don't need any seeding or peeling to be ready to eat. I'll lose the end first and then I'll cut them into semi-thin coins. In total, for a weeknight supper and some leftovers, I'll cut down four of these baby cukes. That should yield about two cups of product in total. And once I've got them all sliced, I'll scoot them into the bowl and add a very generous pinch of salt. Let's say a heaping tablespoon, then the same amount of sugar, and then roughly two tablespoons of rice vinegar. Then I'll jump into the bowl to stir and macerate these cucumbers until they've released a little bit of their liquid. The salt and sugar will draw out a lot of water that will help keep the two tablespoons of vinegar in balance. Now, I'll give it a taste and it should be very bright with salt and sweet and acid. And basically it should buzz your entire mouth and taste super vibrant. And these taste great. I'll set them aside and after the cucumbers into the same bowl, I'll add two cups of bean sprouts. Feel free to skip these if you don't have easy access to them. These cost me like a dollar and were right next to where I got the kimchi, so I went for it. Now, just like for the cukes, I'll add in a heavy tablespoon of salt, then sugar, and then two tables of rice vinegar. In addition, I'll add in a bunch of sesame seeds here as well. I'll stir to break the sprouts up with everything else to get things macerated. And there we go. Marinated bean sprouts. Lastly, I'll repeat this same move for some carrots. I've got a thicken here with my julienne peeler and I'll shred that down. No julienne peeler, no problem. Just cut these into whatever very thin shape is easiest for you. Again, for two cups of vegetables, I'll add in one heaping tablespoon of salt. The same of sugar and then two tables of rice vinegar. I'll toss toss that to combine and there we go. I'll let all three of these pickles marinate for 20 minutes while I prep everything else. Next, I'll drop a medium nonstick pan over medium high heat to make something that's comparable to Korean bulgogi. Once the pan is hot, I'll add in one pound of 80-20 ground beef. Right away, I'll work to get that beef spread out in the pan and to break it down so that it doesn't cook into dry meatball sized chunks. And if you're wondering, hey Bry, isn't bulgogi usually made from shaved beef instead of ground? Well, yes, as far as I know, that's true. But the trouble is that getting shaved beef can be kind of tricky. If you did get it, you would still probably need some marination time to make it tender. So since this is a weeknight recipe and I want to eliminate as many steps as possible, including lengthy marination, I just tried the ground beef to see if it would work. And to my surprise, it hit very right. And I think you guys will see what I'm talking about once this meat is all seared up and sauced up. After four to five minutes of smashing and sautéing this beef, it should be crumbled down into one inch or smaller chunks and should have a brown, crusty sear on the outside like this. Now to turn this beef into something bulgogi-like, I'll add in all of my bulgogi marinade. To make that into a container, I combine 100 grams of soy sauce, 15 grams of sesame oil, 25 grams of rice vinegar, 25 grams of brown sugar, 20 grams of grated ginger, 10 grams of grated garlic. And by the way, I hit both of these on my microplane. And I say skip peeling the ginger because it doesn't need it when you grate it. Lastly, in goes 15 grams of gochujang sauce. If you don't have it, sub in sriracha or sambal paste, and if you don't know what it is, more on that in a second. For now, I'll stir this to combine and that's it. This marinade is perfect for pretty much any meat that you want to taste vaguely Korean, especially beef. Back over at the stove, I'm going to cook this marinade down until it's just short of a syrupy glaze. I want the brown sugar in there to use all of its powers of thickening to grip the meat in a very similar way to Korean barbecue. The reduction should only take about 60 seconds or so in total, which happens to be the perfect amount of time for me to quickly thank the sponsor of this video, ButcherBox. ButcherBox sources grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, crate-free pork, and wild seafood from farmers and fishermen who meet only the highest standards of quality. The way it works is really simple too. You go online and choose one of their five box options and your delivery frequency. Then ButcherBox packs it up and ships that box directly to your door. Right now, ButcherBox has an amazing promotion where new members get one pound of raw, wild-caught US Gulf Shrimp in every box for a year. My wife Lauren loves shrimp and is basically demanding that I use my shrimp to make her scampi as soon as possible. To do that, I'll just thaw and cook the Gulf Shrimp that came in my box. I'll set those aside, then add some shallots and garlic and saute that up. I'll whisk in a little bit of flour, then some white wine to deglaze, then clam juice and reduce. Finish it with some butter, some lemon zest, some parsley, and salt. I'll throw it on some pasta and serve it with a chilled white wine and now my babe is as happy as can be. So to get your loved ones some free shrimp, try ButcherBox. Use the link in my description right now and you'll get one pound of raw, wild-caught US Gulf Shrimp in every box for a year. Their meat tastes good and the shrimp is free. Thank you, ButcherBox. After about 60 seconds of reduction, the marinade is getting sticky and is glazing up the beef. From here, I'll take it off the heat and move it over to a bowl to cool down. Since Bibimbap isn't really served hot, I'm not worried about keeping it hot. I guess the stone pot Dolsot version is usually served warm, but either way I'm going to let this beef sit here until I have the last couple of items ready to go and we're almost there. The pan goes back on the stove over medium-high heat and I'll give it a very thorough wipe out to remove any of the sugary soy sauce residue. Once it's cleaned up, I'll add in a little drizzle of olive oil and then one pound of cleaned large leaf spinach. Behind that, I'll add in a strong pinch of salt and a whole bunch of sesame seeds. Let's call it two tablespoons. I'll mention that if you guys have seen more than a couple of these weeknight videos, then you know that I make it standard operating procedure to add something green and leafy to pretty much all of my meals. It's controversial at times, people really hated seeing kale in the etouffee and spinach in the pad krapow, but I eat a lot of green things because they make me Popeye strong and probably give me tons of natural powers. If you don't like green stuff, leave them out. I get it. After 90 seconds of stirring, these leaves should have lost some of their moisture and be soft but not mushy. Once they are, I'm going to move this over to a bowl to chill out next to my beef and if you're trying to save on dirty dishes here, don't bowl up the spinach, just put it right on top of the beef. Now, I'll drop this pan back on the stove until it's egg frying time, which is going to be in just a second, but quickly before we get to that, I need to make the sauce for this bibimbap. For that, into a high-sided container, I'll measure 200 grams of gochujang sauce. If you're not familiar with gochujang, it's a fermented chili paste that is pretty ubiquitous in Korean food. It's thick, it's spicy, it's very dense, and I think of it like hot miso in a way. You can get gochujang at pretty much any international grocery store or even in the international section of most higher-end grocery stores. Once opened, this stuff stays good in the fridge for months, so if you think you'll be making Korean-style food even once in a while, it's probably worth the $5 investment. Behind the gochujang, I'll add in 50 grams of water, I've got 75 here, I'll save some of it for if this looks thick, then 15 grams of sugar, 3 grams of salt, 30 grams of sesame oil, 1 clove of garlic that I cut into a few smaller pieces, then 10 to 15 grams of ginger. I cut these into coins, again, I didn't peel it because I'm pureeing it. Next, the immersion blender goes in and I'll spin this until the ginger and garlic are broken down and everything is well combined. If you didn't want to dirty your immersion blender and make that whole mess, I get it, grate the ginger and garlic on the microplane and stir everything to combine. I'll mention now that this is not traditional bibimbap sauce, that stuff tends to be almost purely gochujang, and it's great, but I like something saucier with a little bit more depth of flavor. This sauce in particular can be used for a lot more than just bibimbap. I put it on chicken, roasted vegetables, and anything that I'm going to eat with rice. The gochujang here makes it spicy, but not too spicy, and the sauce has a toasty, warm backbone from all that sesame oil. Back at the stove, I've got a low heat pan here, and into it I'm going to glug a few drips of cooking oil, and then I'll crack in two large eggs. I'll hit both of those generously with some salt, and from there I'll pop on a good-fitting lid to trap in some heat and a little bit of steam, and I'll cook these eggs for about two to two and a half minutes. Two minutes later, when I pop off the lid, you can see that I've got two perfectly cooked The runny yolk is essential, in my opinion, for saucing up the rice in the bibimbap, and all you need to do to achieve it is to cook the eggs covered slowly. Now let's plate this thing up. First, I'll drop about a cup and a half of hot, starchy, medium-grain rice right from the cooker. But, since this is a weeknight, and you might not want to get your rice cooker out, I fully endorse using high-quality frozen rice. See this stuff from Whole Foods? It tastes good, and I use it pretty often. Next, I'll drop in four ounces of my glazed bulgogi ground beef. The one pound we cook should give us about four portions. Behind that, I'll layer in my sautéed sesame spinach, then my salty, sweet, sour, lightly marinated carrots, then my cucumbers, and my bean sprouts. Now, it wouldn't be Korean food without kimchi. At least half a cup in my bowl. I prefer to chop the kimchi down into smaller pieces so that it more easily integrates with the rice when I stir it together. Sometimes kimchi is like a whole leaf of napa cabbage, and eating it is kind of a mess. To garnish, I'll add in my perfectly fried sunny-side up egg, then some scallions for green, and I guess a little bit of fresh onioniness, and then some sesame seeds, and then finally I'll drizzle on a few tablespoons of my gochujang sauce. You guys, this recipe is meant to be a fun, delicious tribute to one of my favorite dishes within one of my favorite cooking traditions. It's crunchy, salty, sweet, sour, funky, spicy, starchy, and eggy, and it's so much more. The ground beef bulgogi here hits kind of different, but I'm obsessed with it, and I think it's delicious, and I think you should try it soon. Let's eat this thing!