Recipe: Bulgogi Rice Balls
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Korean rice balls, or jumeokbap (translation: “fist rice”), are typically a pretty humble food, served as a snack or as a common component in a dosirak, or packed lunch box. They get compared to their fancier-looking Japanese onigiri or temari sushi counterparts, but I think there is a lot to love about the Korean version. They are super easy to make (as easy as mixing some fun seasonings and cooked rice together and forming them into golf ball sized balls), really kid-friendly and picky-eater-friendly what with the lack of raw fish and with cute portions, and they are a visually interesting way to present a staple side dish without a whole lot of extra effort. The rice balls here feature bulgogi beef in two ways: some of them have strips of steak placed on top, while others have flavorsome ground beef mixed into the rice itself. You can make them as simple or as complicated as you’d like, and the garnishes that you see here are entirely optional (but I personally had a lot of fun decorating them).
I will seize any opportunity to decorate my food with edible flowers from my garden. I am sure among professional circles there is some culinary school of thought that garnishing food in this manner is superfluous. But you know what?—I am not planning on opening a restaurant any time soon and my objective is to help you, the home cook, make something that brings joy to your dinner table. I think that a little edible flower magic is an easy cheat to accomplish that. So, when Bibigo USA asked me to develop a bulgogi rice ball recipe for them, I bugged them to let me exercise some creative license with the garnishing. I encourage you to get creative with your own versions, too! Don’t worry about having the exact same ingredients that are listed in the recipe; those are meant to be guidelines, and to clarify what it is that you see used in the photos. Use what you have handy. For example, sometimes on stemmed herbs like basil, the large leaves wilt and break down first but there are still teeny leaves clinging on in relatively good shape; this would be a great way to let those shine instead of going to waste. If you don’t have access to edible flowers, cutting slices of carrot or radish into flowers are a great (and honestly more functional) alternative. Jumeokbap are so fun to eat, so I hope you have fun making them as well!
Here’s a before and after of these bulgogi rice balls before and after garnishing:
How to Make Bulgogi Rice Balls
Ingredients
4–5 oz ground beef
1–2 oz sirloin steak, sliced thinly against the grain
4 tbsp Bibigo Original Korean BBQ Sauce, divided
1 cup uncooked rice, washed and drained
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup Korean crushed seasoned seaweed snack*
1/2 tsp salt
3 perilla leaves, thinly sliced (optional)
1/2 tsp soy sauce
Sesame oil
Cooking oil
For Garnishing
Chives, chopped
Scallions, sliced thinly
Radish shoots
Pickled daikon, sliced thinly
Edible flowers
Sesame seeds, toasted
*I found this at a Korean grocery store and it’s specifically for jumeokbap, but if you don’t have it, feel free to substitute with furikake or crush up seaweed sheets and mix with a little salt.
Procedure
Soak rice in some water for 5 minutes, then drain. Combine rice and 1 1/2 cups water in rice cooker and set to cook.
Combine steak with 2 tablespoons Bibigo sauce and set aside to marinade.
In a separate bowl, mix together ground beef and the remaining sauce, making sure to break down any clumps of beef. Pour mixture into a small pan on medium heat and simmer until cooked, about 3 minutes. Set aside.
Add enough cooking oil to coat the pan, turn up to medium-high heat, and sear the pieces of steak in a single layer for about 30 seconds on each side. Remove from pan and set aside.
When rice is cooked and slightly cooled, divide into two portions. For one of the portions, combine rice, cooked ground beef, seaweed, perilla, and salt into a bowl and gently mix to combine. For the other portion, combine rice with soy sauce.
Pour some sesame oil into a small bowl. Dip clean hands into the oil and lightly coat them to prevent sticking. Use hands to form the ground beef and rice mixture into small balls, about 1 to 1 1/4-inches in diameter. Repeat the process with the soy sauce rice, continuing to dip hands in sesame oil as needed to prevent rice from sticking.
Plate rice balls. Top soy sauce rice balls with pieces of steak. Then garnish all the rice balls as desired.
Thank you so much to Bibigo USA for sponsoring this recipe! For more recipe ideas and to learn more about their products, visit their website!