In an effort to eat healthier, the latest project the hubs and I are doing is cooking our way through a comic book of Korean recipes by graphic artist Robin Ha. So far we’ve successfully done dubu buchim, panfried tofu in soy sesame sauce and jangjorim, beef braised in soy sauce with eggs. Most recently we made one of my most favorite Korean dishes of all time: hoedeopbap, which is a raw fish salad.
The first time I had hoedeopbap was the starting point of expanding my experience with Korean food beyond soondubu. Besides that and Korean BBQ, there weren’t that many options in my suburb at the time (that’s drastically changed now). So when I went to school in Boston, I discovered a mini Koreatown of sorts in Brookline, and that’s where I tried hoedeopbap for the first time along with other staples like jiajangmyeon and Korean fried chicken.
We made hoedeopbap at home following Robin’s book, even our own dressing. Here are a couple of time-saving shortcuts I wanted to share from our experience:
- You can cook a batch of rice the day before. Since the recipe is mostly assembly besides the dressing, this can be a key time saver.
- You don’t have to make your own dressing, the one’s at the grocery store are really good too, and remind me of the restaurant versions. Robin’s sauce is also good, it’s thinner and has a tang from the Korean pear and lemon juice.
- Buy pre-sliced sashimi if you aren’t good at cutting raw fish. (I’m not).
- Buy sashimi from a fish market, prep all your vegetables and keep everything in the fridge. You can then enjoy hoedeopbap for the next 2 days easily. That’s what I’m planning to do next time from Ocean Plus 🙂
JULIENNE CARROTS 