How to make delicious gimbap suitable for spring picnic lunch boxes... Making gimbap isn't hard!

When spring arrives, people usually pack lunch boxes and head to scenic locations for spring picnics with their beloved family, partners, or friends. Along with this, interest is also surging in 'how to make delicious gimbap,' a staple menu item for spring picnic lunch boxes.

Shall we learn how to make delicious gimbap?

Before making gimbap, you must first prepare the ingredients. Basic gimbap ingredients include steamed rice, dried seaweed for gimbap, pickled radish, fish cakes, eggs, ham for gimbap, crab sticks, carrots, and cucumbers. Once all ingredients are ready, let's try making gimbap.

1. First, you need to season the gimbap rice; add savory sesame oil and ground toasted sesame seeds to warm rice, and season appropriately with salt. Adding plum syrup, flavored salt, or perilla seed oil according to your preference can make it even more savory and delicious. The rice for gimbap should be slightly firmer than usual. If you add a 5cm piece of kelp when cooking the rice, it will provide more umami and help absorb moisture.

2. Lightly add salt to the eggs and whisk well, then once the pan is heated, drizzle with cooking oil and fry thick egg strips (jidan). Use one egg for every two rolls of gimbap.

3. Cut the fish cakes into long strips, sauté them with a small amount of cooking oil and season with oligosaccharide or soy sauce to make them as chewy as possible, and similarly, lightly sauté the gimbap ham and crab sticks.

4. Finely shred the carrots and sauté them with a pinch of salt, and for the cucumbers, scrub the surface with coarse salt and lightly peel the skin with a peeler. Cut the cucumber into four long pieces, remove the seeds, cut them into eight pieces again, and pickle them in salt for 20 minutes. After rinsing the pickled radish with water, remove as much moisture as possible with a paper towel.

5. Shape the seasoned rice into balls the size of a baseball. Place the roasted seaweed on a bamboo mat and spread the baseball-sized rice evenly up to two-thirds of the seaweed.

6. Next, place the prepared ingredients on top and roll it up. The order of ingredients doesn't matter, but as a tip, placing firm ingredients like pickled radish or cucumber at the bottom and ingredients like eggs or fish cakes at the top will make rolling easier. If you add plenty of cucumber, it becomes cucumber gimbap, and if you fill it with carrots, a sweet and different kind of gimbap is completed.

Is there anything special about rolling gimbap beautifully?

In a previously aired episode of the tvN variety program 'Jipbap Baek Seonsaeng 3,' culinary expert Baek Jong-won taught a class about gimbap. Baek explained that when there are many fillings, a larger sheet of seaweed should be used or the rice should be spread thinly. When there are few fillings, he recommended cutting the seaweed because it can roll inward and look unappealing. Rather than rolling the gimbap quickly, press it gently so the rice grains and fillings adhere well. Wetting your hands slightly before placing the rice also keeps the grains from sticking to them. Finally, he advised beginners to spread sesame oil evenly over the gimbap and wet the knife with vinegar before slicing to prevent the sides from bursting.

If you find it difficult to muster the motivation because there are many ingredients to prepare and the cooking process is complicated, try making mini gimbap (kkoma gimbap). Mini gimbap, which fits perfectly in one bite, is easy for anyone to make as it doesn't require separate slicing. Also, mini gimbap is a great way to cleanly and deliciously use up leftover side dishes. Since mini gimbap doesn't require many types of ingredients, use seaweed cut in half horizontally. After seasoning the rice with sesame oil and salt, add ingredients such as stir-fried kimchi, stir-fried anchovies, seasoned bulgogi, or tuna mixed with mayonnaise, and roll it up. You can also enhance the color by adding finely powdered egg yolk or crushed black sesame seeds. Adding Cheongyang chili peppers or pickled radish according to preference is also good.

[Fam Times = Reporter Lee Hyun-ju]