Recipe Pyramid: Bibimbap

Balancing flavor is the key to good eating, and at the heart of good cooking. Bibimbap, a Korean rice dish with mixed sauteed and seasoned vegetables, is a great way to practice this skill. Bibim (to mix) Bap (rice) can be made with a variety of ingredients but unlike other grain bowls, it’s important to mix the components together very well. It’s a dish that asks you to pay attention, to taste how synchronicity happens when the right ingredients come together.

One version of its origin story suggests this Korean dish was a way to create a new meal by combining leftover prepared vegetables over a bed of rice. As a concept, it’s easy to lose sight of the reason behind the choice of ingredients (especially when you go down the substitution rabbit hole), and result in a chaotic sampler bowl. So instead of a recipe with specific ingredients, I created a recipe pyramid to illustrate how I built my latest bibimbap bowl.

A recipe pyramid that categorizes bibimbap ingredients into base, middle, and top notes along with words that illustrate their purpose.

There is a lot of room for experimentation and other considerations that are not listed (i.e. cook time, cooking techniques, visual aesthetic), but I’m curious if this is helpful as a way to start analyzing how a recipe or dish works, and confidentally adapt and make substitutions without scrolling to the bottom, and hoping their subsitution is in the fridge. I’m not 100% sure where to take it from here, but looking forward to any thoughts, and hopefully make more of these!

Basic: you’ll need a minimum of 3 ingredients, one from each note.

rice + fried egg + soy sauce. Add a knob of butter and it’s magic.

Intermediate: if an egg is not your choice, choose 2 vegetables that offset eachother to pair with a base of grains.

farro + [earthy mushrooms + cold acidic sauerkraut] + whipped goat cheese

rice + [sauteed garlicky kale + sweet roasted carrots] + dollop of tahini yogurt

rice + [sweet roasted carrots + cold acidic sauerkraut] = too lean, too sweet

Guardrails more so than rules, it’s a helpful start to becoming a better cook, and avoid becoming a weekly human garbage disposal.

Seasoning the Gochujang Sauce

Use the same methodology to build the sauce. The classic bibimbap sauce uses gochujang, a concentrated Korean red pepper paste, as the base. Because the paste is plenty salty and spicy, I’m considering the other elements that either do not exist or need a boost (umami, fat, texture, acid, and sweet). I continue rounding out the base note with more umami and fat by adding sesame oil (enough to punch through the paste, but not too much so that it becomes oily). I follow this with vinegar for acid (noting both the sweetness and acidity of the vinegar being used), then sweetness (I reach for maple syrup because it has a more neutral flavor and is less sweet than honey, and is a syrup instead of sugar granules that I would have to dissolve) at the very end. After an initial taste, I go back and forth to make adjustments.

How to create balance

  • When the sauce is too umami forward (which is different from being too salty), consider adding more acid to combat the earthiness. 

  • Strong spicy flavors benefit greatly from the balancing role of sweet.

  • When the sauce tastes equally salty and sour, add a little sweet to pull these two flavors together.

  • When a sauce’s flavors finally feel in harmony, remember to consider texture as another element of the eating experience - is it too thick? Is it pourable? Add water. 

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The Importance of Being Korean