Kimbap: a.k.a. Mini Sushirritos!

The road to recovery from this ridiculously persistent virus is near complete, minus the intermittent hacking that hasn't quite left yet. But! My appetite has definitely picked back up within the last week, and for some odd reason, I was really craving some kind of sushi the other day... but too bad sushi has raw fish in it, so that's a big no-no! Then I remembered that I got some dried seaweed sheets from a Korean supermarket in my last grocery shopping trip, which gave me the idea to make Kimbap.

Before I even jump into what Kimbap is, let me back-track a few steps on that last sentence. When you hear "dried seaweed sheets", you may find it confusing, odd, and maybe even unappetizing? To the untrained palate, it may not be too appealing, since it is black in color and the texture as well as the taste is not what most people are used to. However, this food item is considered to be quite nutritious with an abundance of minerals and vitamins, some of them being B12, iron, calcium, fiber, iodine, and even protein! All of these nutritional benefits help to lower cholesterol and cancer risk as well. It comes in many names-- gim (or spelled as kim) in Korean, nori in Japanese, and it is also referred to as laver in English. 

*Further research into why laver is a separate term used in English-speaking countries had me discover that seaweed (which I thought was mostly exclusive to East Asian cuisines this whole time) is used to make laverbread in Wales, which is a traditional Welsh dish... who knew?*

Anyways, since I'm Korean, I'm going to refer to this as gim! Gim can be eaten on the side with a meal (or apparently as a snack-- I've seen these on the shelves at TJ's), and for quick meals, it is usually eaten out of these small individual packs like the one pictured below:

The most common way to eat gim in a meal is to place a spoonful of rice on top and make a mini wrap out of it. Korean gim is especially tasty eaten this way because the gim is seasoned with plenty of sesame oil and sprinkled with salt before it is toasted in the making process, so eating it with just plain rice like this makes for a nice savory food by itself. Contrarily, the Japanese nori tends to be more subtle in flavor and thicker (I personally think nori is too bland and prefer the thinner and crisp/crunchy texture that gim has).

Most Koreans also like to top the gim and rice with another ingredient of some kind, and pictured below is a kimchi radish as an example.

Interestingly, if you put together the words "gim" and "bap" (which means rice), you get kimbap! Which is exactly what I tried making... yes, you can thank me for taking forever to get to the main part of my post. 

So since I am vegan and the whole point of this blog is to prove that you can still eat what you want and not have any animal food products in it, I made an all veggie version! Look below for the deliciousness before you:

Kimbap is known for being a great portable food that is easy to pack and eat right away, so while the American picnic food is typically sandwiches, fried chicken, and pasta salads, Kimbap would be the Korean equivalent to those at a picnic. The version I made above was made with rice seasoned with sesame oil, salt, sesame seeds, a dash of apple cider vinegar, and some veggie flakes (Korean seasoning that is used to make rice balls). Inside the rice is avocado, carrots, caramelized onion, and edamame. Note to self: ingredients that refuse to line up perfectly, like edamame, will make the rolling/wrapping part hard! But I still think this came out pretty good :) I also made some more veggies to have on the side, and garnished the plate with a few more slices of avocado that were leftover. Mmmmmm, it was so yummy... I was so excited to eat that I didn't even bother cutting these up into small pieces and just ate the rolls as is... hence the name, Mini Sushirritos! I can see some people saying that this isn't proper kimbap, but hey, you make do with what you have when you don't live near a Korean grocery food store *shrugs*.

But while I was eating, I had a thought/question that I didn't come across before... what exactly is the origin of kimbap? Most people confuse kimbap to be the Korean version of sushi or futomaki, but I like to think that can't be entirely true (it's also kind of insulting; Korean cuisine is unique, as the country itself has over 4,000 years of history with a rich cuisine to match). So I did some searching around and found that sadly, there is no record or solid source of any kind that explains how exactly kimbap has come about. There are some speculations that say kimbap may have descended from the traditional Korean dish of rice and veggies wrapped in seaweed (called bokssam, meaning "wrapped with good fortune"), but many articles say that kimbap as an actual dish was not around until the 1950s, which would be not too long after Korea broke free from Japanese occupation. So... maybe it's a mix of both traditional Korean and some Japanese influences? Honestly, Korea, Japan, and China have had intertwining history with one another over so many years, it isn't surprising that there are similar foods with variations.

Well, there's a mix of nutrition, culture, and history lesson, if I ever gave one! Next time, I'll include a proper step-by-step on how to make whatever it is I'm making and also include a detailed recipe. More to come! :)