A delicious combination of smoked salmon, yellow radish, cucumber and avocado rolled up in a sesame flavoured rice roll.
I was going through the fridge looking for some inspiration and lo and behold I found all the ingredients for a fabulous kimbap! My brother-in-law had smoked me some salmon, my mom had given me avocados before they left on a trip and I always have yellow Korean radish and cucumber on hand. Lucky for my yobo, since if I ever ask what he wants for dinner he always says “kimbap!”
Now you might be thinking, “aren’t these sushi rolls?” They obviously are very similar with a few distinct differences. One of them being the seasoning for the rice; kimbap utilizes sesame oil and salt to flavour the rice while Japanese rolls use sushi vinegar. Another distinction is the ingredients; kimbap tends to have more ‘stuff’ in them and they usually include of pickled yellow radish. I must admit though that the avocado is not very authentically Korean 🙂
So if you haven’t given kimbap a try, here is your chance!
Yield: 10 rolls
The things you need:
- 8 cups cooked sticky rice (4 cups uncooked = 8 cups cooked)
- a package of kim, seaweed or nori sheets (10 pieces) I just buy what is on sale. I am not too picky!
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 a cucumber
- Korean pickled yellow radish (see pic… available at Asian markets)
- 1 avocado
- 1 fillet of smoked salmon
The prep:
- cook the rice. I used 2 cups white and 1 cup brown this time (trying to be healthy!) For a step by step on rice, see here
- once the rice is made, allow it to cool for a few minutes, add the sesame oil and salt and mix well
- cut the radish into 10 long thin pieces (6 inches)
- cut the cucumber into 4 long pieces (6 inches), give the column of seeds to one of your helpers to gnaw on and slice the outside chunks into 10 long pieces
- peel the avocado, take out the seed and slice thinly
- break the salmon fillet into smallish pieces
The assembly:
- put the sheet of kim, seaweed, on a bamboo roller
- scoop 3/4c + a little smidge rice onto the seaweed
- nicely spread out the rice on the top 2/3 of the seaweed
- place the ingredients on the bottom end of the rice
- carefully make one roll from the rice side to cover the ingredients and pinch it nice and tight
- roll the roll over the rest of the seaweed nice and tight
- take a few little grains of rice to act as glue and place them on the loose end of the seaweed and squeeze roll tightly
- let the roll sit a few minutes before cutting
- cut with a sharp clean knife into small bite size pieces (this way it looks like more and you can eat it gracefully!)
Kimbap kids in the kitchen!