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.

Sushi Bowl with Seared Salmon

I was inspired by Bibimbap to create a fusion mixing rice bowl recipe. Although sushi bowls like above exist already, I thought the choice of ingredients and the sauce were unique so I felt I should update the blog with this recipe. Basically the dish will create the flavor of sweet and sour seasoned sushi rice with crunches of main flavor through seared salmons, crab meats, and green vegetables. I think adding clover sprouts also brought out the freshness like a feeling of spring (though this is summer...). I forgot to add thinnly sliced nori on top, but even without them, this bowl has some good flavors.

First the sauce is important to this bowl. I mixed with 3tbsp of soy sauce, 1tsp of corn syrup, 1 tsp of mirin, wasabi, 2tsp of vinegar, and 1tsp of lemon juice.


Breaking the chunk of wasabi into the mix requires some thorough stirring.



Preparation of toppings

1. Cut and slice an avocado into long pieces. Refer to cooking tip section for information on how to cut an avocado.

2. Make crabmeat salad by chopping cooked crabmeat and mixing with some mayo like how used in California rolls.



3. Then cut a fillet of salmon and sear them on a frying pan with olive oil.


First heat the pan for 2 minutes in high heat and throw some olive oil on it.
As the hot surface of the pan sizzles outside the salmon, taking only a minute to cook would give you perfectly seared salmon. You just got to flip them once.


Presentation
First put some steamed rice in a bowl.

Organize the toppings nicely on your bowl even though you will completely destroy and devour them later.

Also add some clover sprouts and thinnly sliced cucumber with a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top.

And here comes the sauce! 2-3 full spoons of sauce, which is pretty watery will now do the magic. I hope you will enjoy this recipe!

Fishcake Stir Fry

Fishcake stir fry is one of the main Banchans (side dishes) when you go to a Korean restaurant. Little thin slices of those fishcake with grilled onions and garlic are blending in soy sauce and sesame flavor. I should include more Banchans from now on since they're the first dishes you will see at Korean restaurants when you order main dishes. This one is pretty easy to make and adds a nice savory flavor with your steamed rice. Follow the steps below.

1. Boil sheets of fishcake.



2. Once cooked, take them out and slice them into pieces.


Also cut onions into pieces.
3. These are the ingredients you need before stir frying: minced garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, sugar and toasted sesame seeds.

4. Maybe a tbsp of minced garlic for a full pan fry portion.

5. Add the fishcakes and drizzle soy sauce on top of the mixture.

A touch of red pepper flakes.

Final touch with sesame oil and seeds. Sesame oil flavor will evaporate if put in too early.

Ok now, that was simple!

Crab Meat Jeon

Jeon is a pan fried meat or vegetables with egg batter similar to an omelet. It was commonly eaten in Chosun Dynasty for parties and events. Some of the most popular choice of the inside is pollack, ground beef, zucchini, sweet potato, Korean green pepper, and Leeks. Jeon is the origin of Korean pancakes because if you look at the language, "jeon" is suffix of Pajeon which means green onion Korean pancake. However, usually when people refer to jeon, it means small and flattened omelet typically with a single main ingredient.

This crab meat jeon is my mom's signature dish. It is so delicious and easy to make, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to share with the rest of the world. One day, my mom made tons of this crab meat jeon and invited like 50 people to the house. Below pictures show how much she prepared and I witnessed with my own eyes that they literally dissappeared within 30 minutes so that nothing was available by the time my own friends came by for some grub. I took pictures as she prepared this dish, constantly asking her to stop what she was doing to the point where she got a little annoyed.

Ingredients: finely diced crab meat (1/2 lbs), 1 beat egg, 1 table spoon of corn starch, 1 tsp of clam base, finely diced onions, green onions, carrots, and paprika.

1. You need to mix all the ingredients above together in a bowl like below.




This is a close up shot of the mixture.

2. Oil your pan and take about two spoons of the mixture and flatten out on the pan in a circular shape. Pan fry them for 2 minutes on one side in high heat.
Flip over and heat up another minute on the other side. Flatten it some more with a spatula once you flip them.


Yeah, and you're finished. Enjoy!