top of page
Search
Lynds
Apr 3, 20213 min read

Korean Rice Balls - Joomukbap

This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a small commission if you purchase through them.


It's #homecookbattle time again and April was a version of last month where instead of a specific ingredient we have all explored our creativity within a culinary origin. April explores food from Korea! I was excited because I had never tried to recreate Korean food and this was am amazing opportunity to step into a new comfort zone. When I came across Joomukbap, I knew I had to make them, I found it super interesting how versions of these tasty stuffed balls show up in several cultures, such as Italian Arancini as an example! When it occurred to me that I could incorporate kimchi, well it was a done deal!



I started with an organic sticky rice and cooked it in my Instapot. Once cooked I transferred it to a glass bowl while still warm and added 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar 1 Tbsp of rice vinegar and 1 Tbsp of Now Brand Better Stevia. You can't believe the flavour this gives the rice. I especially loved the guilt free sweetness without sugar because of the Now Brand Better Stevia.. And it doesn't hurt that it has zero calories given the rest of the dish!!





I took some ground beef and sautéed it on the stove with some salt pepper, rice vinegar, soy sauce and sesame oil. I also added some of the fried garlic flakes I'll show you in a minute. Now I like mine rice vinegar heavy... especially since the rice is sweet because of the stevia. But this is your choice, play around with the ratio, it's hard to go wrong unless you simply add too much soy sauce and make it too salty. You can always add more soya to it once cooked. If you are really unsure I would say start with 1/4 cup of rice vinegar, 3 Tbps of sesame oil, 2 Tbps of soy sauce and just a dash of both salt and pepper.




Now time to wash up those hands (well you should have before but definitely do it now) It's time to start molding the rice balls. With your hand grab some sticky rice. I flattened it out between my two hands to make almost a round sheet of packed rice. From there I took a small portion of ground beef and placed in the middle... grab some more rice and place it on top and start pressing it into a ball. The goal should be concealing the beef entirely with the rice, but some sneaks out at times... what are you gonna do?



To add some fun variety, I also stuffed some of these with kimchi. Follow the same process, but I would recommend you drain off your kimchi first or pat it dry with a paper towel as you do not want to add additional liquid to the mix.





So now that your balls are formed, I set myself up with three different bowls to roll the coating from. See, these rice balls enjoy an additional fun flavour profile, so I used toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic and roasted seaweed. I suppose you could roll you rice balls in more than one each but I opted to just pick one topping per rice ball. The rice is sticky so this is honestly easy, to just dip and roll and they coat up nicely.









The presentation of them is pretty cool in my opinion... each looks slightly different... the reddish colour from the kimchi comes through on those ones making it easy to tell your contents to pick and choose which ones you want. That sweetness of the rice really added to the flavour. I have enjoyed experimenting with this Now brand Better Stevia and really appreciate that it is organic as my rice was organic and my beef was antibiotic and steroid free as well.







They were a meal in and of themselves, but they are traditionally a form of Korean street food as I understand it! I can only imagine the varieties you can find there and when travels open back up! It would be amazing to see for myself! In the mean time, I've enjoyed the more recent #homecookbattles as we try our hand at creating food from different origins of the world... I think this one turned out pretty well and the kids loved it too.




0 comments

Comments

bottom of page