Kongnamul Bap (Soybean Sprout Rice Bowl) | 콩나물밥

Pronounced: Kohng-Nah-MOOR-Bap

What: Traditional rice bowl dish that features a pound of soybean sprouts that is directly cooked in the rice cooker with the rice. Then topped with seasoned ground beef and Umma’s chive’s soy sauce blend.

Taste: Savory, comforting taste from the tender soybean sprouts (these are bit nutty) and rice that is cooked in an umami rich broth. The beef and chive soy sauce blend is seasoned to perfection — with balanced notes of sweetness and savoriness from soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, and sesame seeds that complement the cooked rice and soybeans.

How It’s Made: Add broth, rice, and soybean sprouts to cook and do all the heavy lifting. Meanwhile, quickly grind beef and make chive soy sauce blend while the rice is cooking. Assemble bowls and enjoy once the rice is done cooking.

What to Serve it With: Enjoy with kimchi. That’s a must! See picture below to see set up. But it’s just served with kimchi for us on mosy days.

Tips:

• We use Korean soup tablets in this recipe, particularly to flavor the rice and soybeans which we highly, highly recommend! It adds an umami taste to the entire dish and speeds up the entire process as opposed to having to make an anchovy broth from scratch.

• We grind the beef in this recipe, and highly recommend doing so. Store-bought ground beef tends to be tougher because it is usually ground multiple times. This increases the development of myosin, a protein that tightens up upon cooking, resulting in a tougher texture. Home-ground beef is only ground once, which develops less myosin and leads to a more tender texture. (source: Cook’s Illustrated)

• There are two stars in this dish — it’s not just the rice and soybeans! It’s the chive soy sauce blend (below). This dish would be incomplete without these chives. Chives pair exceptionally well with meat, no less in this recipe! Use this blend in many other recipes as well that feature gim and meat.

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Yield: 4

Author: Sarah Ahn

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Kongnamul Bap (Soybean Sprout Rice Bowl) | 콩나물밥

A traditional Korean rice bowl that packs in a pound of soybean sprouts and umami flavors in cooked rice.

Cook time: 1 H & 30 MTotal time: 1 H & 30 M

Ingredients

For the rice

• 2 cups water, divided
• 2 instant Korean soup tablets (We use Sound of Seoul)
• 1 ½ cup (315g) white rice, short or medium-grain, washed and drained (we use Shirakiku rice)
• 1 pound (454g) soybean sprouts, washed and drained

For the beef

• 12 ounce (340g) beef loin flap meat steak (from Costco)
• 1 ½ tablespoons + 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce (we use regular Kikkoman)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

For the chive soy sauce blend

• 4 tablespoons soy sauce (we use regular Kikkoman)
• 3 tablespoons maesil cheong (plum extract syrup; we use Beksul CJ)
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil (we use Ottogi)
• 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seed, toasted and coarsely ground
• 3 ounce (85g) Chinese chives, chopped

Instructions

1. Freeze steak until very firm and starting to harden around edges but still pliable, about 35 minutes. (or opposite: defrost steak until very firm and starting to harden around edges but still pliable)
2. Meanwhile, boil 1 cup of water in a small pot and add 2 instant Korean soup tablets. Mix until the tablets melt and set aside to cool down (we transferred it to a measuring cup to speed up cool down, if in rush, add the remaining water to this)
3. Add washed rice to rice cooker pot along with the cooled-down soup broth and remaining water. Gently mix and add soybean sprouts on top. Cook in rice cooker.
4. Meanwhile, prepare chive soy sauce blend by adding all ingredients but the chives. The chives will be added towards the end when we are about to serve (otherwise, they will all sink to the bottom and look less presentable). Cover and set aside.
5. Meanwhile, cut meat into 1/2-inch chunks. Place steak in food processor and pulse until finely ground, stopping to redistribute around bowl as necessary to ensure meat is evenly ground. Transfer meat to baking sheet. Spread meat over sheet and set aside.
6. Last 10 minutes of the rice cooking (as indicated by the rice cooker), add ground beef in wok over high heat, breaking meat up with a wooden spoon, until beef is just about no longer pink (we still had some pink; don’t want to overcook it), about 2 minutes. Using a paper towel, tilt the wok by grabbing the handle and lifting it up to absorb excess water. Once absorbed, use another paper towel to wipe away any remaining excess water throughout the wok (it’s okay if there are some remaining water droplets tho)
7. Once the water has been absorbed, and all beef is no longer pink, add sugar and mix to thoroughly coat. Add soy sauce and mix until just absorbed. Add black pepper and mix. Remove from heat immediately (do not want to overcook and dry out meat)
8. Add chives to soy sauce blend and mix. When the rice is done cooking, mix thoroughly so the soybeans are evenly distributed throughout the rice.
9. To serve, divide rice to serving bowls and top with beef. Place chive soy sauce blend at center of the table with a spoon. Have each person spoon their serving of chive soy sauce blend per bite (you add the sauce for every 1-3 bites — you do not add the entire sauce and mix the rice with it like you do in bibimbap — you add the sauce for every bite or so!) Enjoy with kimchi.

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @ahnestkitchen on instagram and hashtag it #ahnestkitchen

Hope you all enjoy it! This is a regular dish in our rotation. It’s very easy to make — don’t let the number of steps fool you.

Eat Well,

Sarah