Samgak Kimbap (Korean Triangle-Shaped Rice) [Recipe]

This one's especially dedicated by students living alone.

Samgak kimbap (Korean triangle-shaped rice wrapped in dried seaweed)

You might want to bookmark this page, but then again, this recipe is too easy you will probably remember all the steps in one read.

Don't we all love easy peasy and tasty lunch from home, that can be made with no fuss and save us some bucks too? As a uni student who currently has no own income source yet, I'm always trying to bring my own lunch, so that the extra money can go to the expensive train ticket. For this reason too, I reckon that my purchase of triangle rice mold from Plus Living is a great investment.

Samgak kimbap (삼각김밥) is Korean triangle-shaped rice wrapped in dried seaweed, which is popular with the name onigiri in Japan. It's usually available in Asian grocery stores; I often grab one or two of these for a quick lunch. This time, I decided to make it myself, with a super easy recipe from Maangchi. Hwowever, I only used the recipe for the rice, because you can make everything for the filling, really.

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Samgak kimbap (삼각김밥) - partial
Recipe taken from Maangchi

Ingredients:

• 4 cups cooked rice (or as desired)
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsp white sugar
• ¼ tsp salt

Method:

1. Mix 1 tbsp vinegar, 2 tsp of white sugar, ¼ tsp of salt in a small bowl until the mixture of liquid looks clear.

2. In a large bowl, put 4-5 cups of fresh made warm rice and pour the clear liquid into the rice and mix it and cool down.

3. To assemble the rice and the filling:

• Fill the mold about 2/3 full with cooked rice.
• Place your filling in the center.
• Top up the mold with rice, put on the lid, and press it down.

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That is what I did for the rice.

The filling, was easy. There was some pork belly in the fridge and I still have my tub of gochujang (Korean chilli paste), so I trotted to the kitchen and made a bowl of very simple stir fried pork with gochujang.

Clockwise from top left: chopped onion, pork belly, gochujang (chilli paste), the rice

All I needed was chopped pork belly, spoonfuls of gochujang, chopped onion, and pinches of salt and pepper. You won't really need oil because the pork belly is already fatty.

The result is savoury and addictive dish that is perfect with warm rice.

You can make anything for the filling though, canned tuna, chicken, seafood; anything's possible.

Stir fried pork with gochujang

And then came the funnest part: molding.

Here is where the mess started getting worse. Rice sticking here and there, and my fingers were red due to the gochujang pork. To assemble is simple: a layer of rice, not too much filling layer next, and another layer of rice to finish. Press them all together until it's compact enough.

Molding samgak kimbap

Actually, it may be better to use the packaged seaweed especially prepared for samgak kimbap, but I didn't have any, so I resorted to manual process.

Wrapping with dried seaweed sheet

The result is a bit messy, but I wasn't going to impress anybody, so that's okay.

Flavour wise, my lunch box the next day was probably one of the tastiest and most convenient I've had. The rice isn't as bland as usual, thanks to the sugar, salt, and vinegar, but it's the superb filling that makes most of the difference. The seaweed adds crispy element, although it was already quite soggy by lunch time. Doesn't really matter, though.

Innards

You can also eat these as snacks, I think they'll be great filler for a few hours.

Do you have your fav recipe for your lunch boxes? Do share, I kinda need new inspirations now.


Cheers!