Ssam dinner

We have been on a crazy Korean kick lately, which of course I love. We’ve been venturing out to new spots on BuHi as well as grabbing takeout from the shiny new Super H mart on P’tree Industrial. You can read my yelp reviews of various joints if so inclined. I already knew it was healthy stuff but as I debated what to cook for dinner tonight (should I try to attempt to make dumplings like Cracker Barrel’s? or Chicken fried steak???) I realized that Korean is way healthier than anything I would cook for Sunday dinner.

We flipped through one of the Korean cookbooks for inspiration. One of the pages caught my eye and I declared we should make Ssam bap tonight.  Bap in korean is rice and ssam means to wrap or something. It’s basically big leafs of lettuce, a little hot chili paste/soy paste (ssamjang), rice and whatever else you want to throw on it. You unhinge your jaw, open wide and shove this fist size ball of goodness into your pie-hole, try to chew and give the thumbs up to your friends.

Ssam is pretty common at the Korean dinner table. bossam is not. In fact, there’s a fancy pants restaurant in New York called Ssam bar that only serves this large meal

So, to get pumped up to make this dinner, we checked out Maangchi’s video here and then got even more excited. Because I can’t get enough Kalbi, I decided to make that as our meet. We made the green onion salad, I whipped up a kimchi pancake, pan fried some kalbi, wrapped our bap (rice) in lettuce and dipped into the pre made assortment of banchan we picked up at Super H. There was bean sprouts, cucumber and radish kimchi, potato stems, and spinach. Omnomnomnomnomnomnom. Probably a bit better for us than the country fried steak I originally set out to make…

 

Kalbi from marinade in mom's big red pot to the pan

Ssam goodness and kimchi pancake

I love you, kalbi

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