Kiddy Kimbap - 꼬마 김밥

I'm finally doing a kimbap post, but only because my mum is here helping me make them. My little brother's at camp and we decided to make it for his lunch and ours too! It's a perfect picnic recipe and my mum and I enjoyed these under the LA sun. The weather is to die for :)

Have short intestines? Addicted to Alcohol?
I guess you can't really tell if your intestines are short or not... But if you're older and have undergone gastric bypass surgery (stapling stomachs!), you're more likely to become addicted to alcohol! For people with short or damaged intestines, the alcohol goes straight into the intestine and is absorbed rapidly. That higher absorption rate makes alcohol oh-so-enticing, says research team from the University of Pittsburg Medical Center.

There are obese testimonials who developed alcoholism and were treated for their alcohol addiction. What would you rather have? A trimmer figure swapped for alcoholism? Well...both (as in gastric bypass and alcoholism) are avoidable if you get off your lazy butt, exercise and eat healthy!

Kid's Kimbap - 꼬마 김밥 (Ggoma kim bap)
Makes 3-5 servings 

Here's a jumpstart to a healthy lunch! KOREAN SUSHI.
Since we had to be out of the house early the next day, we prepped all the ingredients the night before and kept them in the fridge after letting them cool. Then we made fresh rice that day and rolled the kim bap straight away. If you're making it all in a day, make the rice as your rice cooker says first so that it can cool.



Ingredients
1 cup white rice (or brown and white mix if you like)
5 sheets of nori-seaweed
1 cup julienned carrots (matchstick size length 2 inch)
1/2 cup pickled radish/ daikon
1/4 cup blanched spinach (about a cup uncooked)
Sesame oil
Roasted sesame seeds

1/4 lb Ground beef
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin or any sweet cooking wine (like sake) or skip it

Special tools: Bamboo sushi rolling mat

Prepping the Filling
Peel and julienne carrots and the pickled radish (no peeling here).
Bring to boil about 2-3 cups of water in a sauce pan. Add a pinch of salt (this makes spinach greener when blanching!). Woa my mum's tip of the day! Add the spinach for about 45sec-1min. Rinse with cold water and squeeze out all the water from the spinach. Season with a pinch of salt and 1 tsp of sesame oil.

In a frying pan up carrots first in a sauce pan with 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and fry for about 30sec. Because you want some crunch factor and no mushy carrot in your kimbap. But remember to taste test!  Next, fry up the ground beef...
In the same frying pan add some sesame oil and when its hot, add your beef. When it is slightly pink, add the soy sauce and mirin.

Rolling it out
This kimbap is thinner and taller than your usual kimbap because you add less rice and more veggies so cut out about an inch from the length of the seaweed sheet. Or make your kimbap fatter.
To the cooled down/warm-ish rice add about 1 tsp sesame oil and 2 tsp sesame seeds and fluff up the rice with a paddle. Don't mush it or overwork it. The oil helps the rice be not to sticky.

On a sheet of seaweed placed on a sushi mat, add a thin layer of rice (2-3 grains thick) and leave about 1 cm at the top. Add the spinach and carrot in equal parts and a little less of the pickled radish and ground beef.

Roll the kimbap to tuck in all the filling (away from you) and quickly roll it to let the rice stick on the seaweed. Using the sushi mat, knead lightly and roll a little to keep the kimbap in place. Repeat until no more ingredients to work with!






To cut the kimbap, lightly oil your hands with sesame oil and run along the roll of kimbap. Sprinkle some sesame seeds too. Then using a sharp knife, cut them into 1 inch height.



Time to go on a picnic :)