Frozen Gimbap Alternative
For dieters, vegetarians, and cucumber lovers 😋
안녕, it’s Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder. 🎉 It’s been a while! I took a break due to COVID. 😷 Since I’ve been seeing doctors often lately, 🫠 I’m thinking of writing an article about healthcare in South Korea. I will write about it as soon as I fully recover.
Today’s newsletter is shorter than usual, it’s about a healthy gimbap recipe which recently went viral in my country and a tip for travelers. Let’s start!
Frozen Gimbap Alternative
Although you can easily buy frozen gimbap at Costco or Trader Joe’s, it can’t match the taste of homemade gimbap. Traditionally, making gimbap at home requires a lot of time, effort, and ingredients. However, a recent viral gimbap recipe has changed everything.
Choi Hwa Jung, a 63-year-old Korean celebrity who shares her single lifestyle on YouTube, recently introduced cucumber gimbap that is super easy to make, delicious, and low in calories. She mentioned that she easily lost 2 kg while enjoying this dish. Her gimbap is special because it uses a whole cucumber, not the chopped one typically found in traditional gimbap. Plus, you only need four ingredients: gim (seaweed), cooked and seasoned rice, sesame oil, and a cucumber.
Making it is incredibly simple. First, mix cooked rice with vinegar, sugar, and salt (details below). Thinly spread the seasoned rice on a sheet of gim. Then, take a whole cucumber that is cleaned and scored on the surface, and roll it up in the gim. Brush the gim with sesame oil and then cut the gimbap into bite-sized pieces. That’s it!
You can enjoy it with spicy doenjang (soybean paste) sauce like Choi did, or get creative and pair it with any sauce you think complements the cucumber. Check out the rice seasoning and the doenjang sauce recipes below and watch the cooking video to try it for yourself. It’ll make a refreshing and healthy lunch for your weekend! 😋
Rice Seasoning Recipe
You can just use sushi vinegar or mix 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of salt for 2 servings (400g of cooked rice).
Spicy Doenjang Sauce Recipe
Mix 1.5 tablespoons of doenjang, 3 tablespoons of finely-chopped spicy pepper, 1 tablespoon of oligo syrup or maesil drink, 0.5 tablespoon of sesame seeds, and 0.5 tablespoon of sesame oil.
One last thing to share is a money-saving tip for travelers. This month is a special travel month in South Korea, so many discount offers are available for travelers. If you’re interested in Templestay, which is a popular program for those who want to experience staying in Korea’s temples, you can enjoy it at a discounted price as low as 15,000 KRW or 11 USD per night. The offer is only for foreigners (For Koreans, it’s more expensive 🫠) and is available at 100 temples across the country until the end of this month. Check out the details and make a reservation here.
Thanks for reading, comments, and likes! ❤️ Don’t forget to ☕️ buy me a coffee ☕️ to support my work. It’ll help me keep writing! I will be back next week. 안녕!