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Kimbap
Ingredients
1 tbsp light sesame oil
2 cups steamed glutinous (or sushi) rice, cooled
3 eggs
salt
cooking oil
2 carrots, peeled
1 cucumber
1/4 sushi takuan*
2 cups pork floss*
4 nori (dried seaweed) sheets
* Available at Asian supermarkets.
This is a classic Korean snack – kim meaning ‘seaweed’ and bap meaning ‘rice’. My mama made kimbap for us to take to school. I’d sit and watch while she rolled them and cut them, and eagerly wait for the ‘ugly’ edges that needed to be disposed of immediately (into my mouth).
Cooking Instructions
- Gently mix the sesame oil into the rice without breaking the individual grains.
- Beat the eggs, adding salt to taste.
- On a low heat, cook the egg in an oiled frying pan as a sheet (don’t flip it).
- Remove from the pan and cut the egg into strips.
- Slice the carrot and cucumber into strips.
- Place a nori sheet over a bamboo sushi roller.
- Spoon a quarter of the rice onto the nori sheet. Oil a spatula and use it to spread the rice out evenly.
- Place a quarter of the carrot, cucumber, sushi takuan, pork floss and egg strips on the edge of the nori, and roll tightly.
- Use a lekker sharp and oiled knife to slice them. Gently place the knife on top and slice forward until halfway through the roll, then quickly reverse-slice towards yourself. This will help maintain its shape.
Tip: Sushi takuan is a sun-dried pickled daikon. It’s bright yellow (almost neon) and gets its colour from the peel of the orange persimmon. Itʼs crunchy, sweet, sour and salty at the same time. Substitute with sweet-and-sour dill gherkins if you can’t get your hands on sushi takuan.
About the Author
Ming-Cheau Lin was born in Tainan, Taiwan and immigrated to South Africa when she was three years old in the early 90s, growing up in Bloemfontein. Now based in Cape Town, she is a freelance copywriter and runs a food blog butterfingers.co.za as a platform to share insights into Taiwanese culture through recipes and stories – her work has been featured in local food, lifestyle and opinion spaces, and won a Getaway Blog Award in 2012. She’s a social activist – offering talks on embracing empowerment as a woman of colour, being mindful in a multicultural environment with a focus on the harms of cultural appropriation and stereotyping.
“It is important to normalise our culture, our traditions of food, to stop exoticising (thus othering) our norms so we can stop being seen as foreigners in South Africa.”
She also has an international City & Guilds diploma in patisserie and worked for the late master of preserving Oded Schwartz at Oded’s Kitchen (in the kitchen, at food markets, admin and marketing).
Ming-Cheau has a BA in creative brand communications, specialising in copywriting and has worked in well-known advertising agencies as a copywriter for seven years. She also co-founded, volunteered and skated for the Cape Town Rollergirls NPO (a women’s roller derby league) as its Marketing and PR Chair for four years till early 2016.
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