Sushi Bowl with Tilapia (Hwe Dup Bap)

This sushi bowl is a very healthy dish composed of fresh vegetables and raw tilapia sashimi also known as "izumi dai" in Japanese. A substitute for tilapia would be red snapper, tuna, yellow tail, or other whitish or reddish colored fish, but probably not salmon. Also a little touch of flying fish roe known as "tobiko" adds extra freshness and vibrance to the dish. When I go to a Korean restaurant or a casual Korean restaurant, I often get this dish when I crave for something fresh. I think a dish similar to this is probably also available at Japanese restaurant but not with the sweet and spicy dressing to mix the bowl with. I don't know the origin of this dish. Apparently, both Koreans and Japanese eat raw fish and due to the fact that overall flavor of this dish is more Korean and how it resembles "bibimbap", I would say that this dish is 100% Korean. But yeah, there are many gray areas between Korean and Japanese food when it comes to certain types of food. Anyways, this dish is something you might want to try because it's yummy.

Ingredients: tilapia fillet, mixed garden vegetables, alfalfa sprouts, tobiko (flying fish roe), carrot, cucumber, dried nori strips, toasted sesame seeds

Spicy dressing ingredients: Korean red pepper paste (2 tablespoons), sesame seeds (1 teaspoon), apple juice (1 tablespoon), vinegar (1 teaspoon), soy sauce (1 teaspoon), sugar (2 teaspoons)
Refer to this direction on my other page but forget garlic, sesame oil, and red pepper powder mentioned on that page for our purpose. Sesame oil will be added separately later.


1. The easy step would be to prepare a bowl of rice first.


2. Then prepare vegetables. Peel and slice carrots, cucumbers, and wash the mixed green vegetables.

3. spread out the greens on top of the rice in the bowl.

4. Place sliced carrots, cucumbers, and alfalfa sprouts.

5. Cut the tilapia sashimi fillet and place them on your bowl.


6. Add a spoonful of tobiko.

7. Add a final touch of dried nori strips and toasted sesame seeds.

Add the spicy dressing. I add a lot of them. Also add a table spoon of sesame oil. It helps the flavor and mixing.

Totally destroy it! Enjoy.

Spicy Shredded Dried Squid

This is another great Korean side dish you have probably encountered at a Korean restaurant. Basically, it's shredded dried squid jerky mixed with hot sauce and sesame oil. Although the hot sauce used for mixing fresh vegetables may include vinegar and excludes sesame oil, this one excludes vinegar and includes sesame oil. It has a very mature and spicy flavor that goes well with the fishy flavor coming from the squid. Whenever I make this side dish, I make my bowl of steamed rice disappear pretty quickly.

1. First, you will need the shredded dried squids from a Korean market. Usually they're already shredded before you buy but make sure you shred some of the bigger and thicker pieces one more time. Thinner they are, easier it is to eat and more flavor of the sauce will be worn on greater surfaces of the shredded squid.



2. This hot sauce contains following ingredients: 1 1/2 tbsp red pepper paste, 1 tbsp corn syrup (or sugar), 1/2 tsp finely minced garlic (or grated), and 1 tbsp of sesame oil.

3. When mixing, sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds as well for better flavor.

It gets a little messy when you mix them. It's better if you use a deeper salad bowl or some sort.

Now you have a bowl of steamed rice ready? Watch it quickly devoured with this spicy shredded dried squid banchan!

Baked File Fish Jerky

Late at night, you want to eat something but you're not really hungry. Or, you're drinking with a friend at home and you don't have anything else for munches except for some lousy pop corns. Try this stuff! This stuff is probably nothing you tried before. Although this is not exactly a typical side dish with a meal like banchan, I still put this under banchan category just because this still is and can be used as a side dish. Anyways, it's very fishy! So, what is file fish? I don't know. But according to my internet image search, this is what it looks like. Ok, now that's weird. Can we eat that? Obvious yes. Geez, I didn't even know it had some weird horn on its head.
Fortunately, you would not need to deal with the ugliness of the fish when you're cooking the jerky because they are all nicely sliced up for you looking like a real jerky. Well it is a jerky. Just bake it on your stove. Flip to the other side after like 6 seconds of cooking one side.




So that's when it's nicely cooked on both sides.

You can cut them up into pieces to make it easier to eat.

And here goes the killer sauce. How about a mix of mayo and sweet and sour red pepper paste (cho gochujang)? You can make it in a separate bowl if you don't have this already made bottle of sweet and spicy red pepper paste. For making the sauce from scratch, use red pepper paste (original), vinegar, sugar, and optionally a touch of 7-up for a little citrus kick to it.

Enjoy!

Vegetable Tuna (canned)

Spiciness:
Quality:
Flavor:
Feature:

Ok, this is another Korean canned tuna with stuff inside. This one is just vegetable tuna and although it has a variety of vegetables on top of the tuna, I thought the overall flavor was somewhat blend. However, I will still take this over a regular tuna can at any given day.