Quick & Easy Bibim Bap (Korean)

So before I start, you might look at all these steps and think WHAT DO YOU MEAN - QUICK & EASY??? Trust me - it's way quicker and easier than the traditional way. ;)

Put your rice on to cook per your usual method, whether that be stovetop or rice cooker.

Make your seasoned gochujang. (Or, if you like it plain, don't season it and save yourself yet more time! :D)

Do the knifework on your veg.

In a large saute pan or wok, bring 1.5 Tablespoons of oil up to high heat, then put in your cabbage, carrots, zucchini, salt, 1 Tablespoon minced garlic, and 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil and toss just to evenly distribute the seasoning and oil throughout the veg and no longer. You want the veg to retain a lot of crunch. (Or, as I suggested earlier, just chop it up slightly finer and go raw with it.) Set the veg aside on a platter, spreading it out in a thin single layer to cool.

In the same pan or wok, add a Tablespoon of oil, bring it back up to temp, and put your ground beef in, breaking it up with a spoon or spatula as you go. When you've thoroughly broken up the ground beef, add in 1 Tablespoon minced garlic, 2.5 Tablespoons soy sauce, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil, and the green onions and toss all ingredients until the seasoning is evenly distributed. Let the beef continue to cook and soak up the seasoning for another 2 or 3 minutes.

If you're using mushrooms, saute them until they begin to brown and then add the same seasonings as with the ground beef. That combination of ingredients, BTW, is your most basic beef bulgogi seasoning. Set aside. At this point, your rice is probably cooked through and should be fluffed so it doesn't get sticky.

In a separate well oiled pan, fry up as many sunny side up eggs as bowls of bibim bap you're planning to serve. I find that starting off with a not quite fully preheated medium heat and not higher greatly increases your chance of thoroughly cooked whites without cooking the yolk, which you don't want for this dish. Unless you're runny yolk averse, in which case, cook the yolk as much as you need not to gross yourself out.

While your eggs are cooking, begin to assemble your bibim bap. Layering 1 to 1.5 cups cooked rice (depending on your appetite), followed by 1/6 to 1/4 of the veg that you've cooked, followed by 1/6 to 1/4 of the meat or mushrooms you've cooked, followed by a fried egg, and then followed by a gently placed big pinch of julienned cucumber if you like right on top.

Drizzle with a little bit of toasted sesame oil and serve with the gochujang on the side so each diner can season their bibim bap to taste. If you're new to gochujang, I recommend starting off with a teaspoon or so. I usually find about a Tablespoon or so to my liking - hot enough without making the dish too salty. And then, because the name of the dish requires it, MIX everything together - as you would gently toss a salad - so you get some of each component of the dish in every bite.