Bul Kogi Bowls – With Spooky Purple Rice
Happy Holidays! This playful dish will look spooky but taste amazing. Bul Kogi is a staple dish in my house. My kids LOVE it!
- Prep Time15 min
- Cook Time10 min
- Total Time25 min
- Serves6
Ingredients
- 2 Cups White Rice
- 2 TBS Black Rice (Forbidden Rice)
- 3 Cups Water
- 2 lbs Pork (loin, roast, or shoulder)
- 3 TBS Sesame Oil
- 4 Green Onions
- 2 Inches Fresh Ginger
- 1/2 C Sugar
- 1/2 C Soy Sauce
- 1-2 TBS Gochujang (Optional)
For the Toppings
- 2-4 TBS Cilantro - chopped
- 2 Green Onions - diced
- 4-6 TBS Yum Yum Sauce
- 1-2 tsp Black Sesame Seeds
Method
For the Rice
Combine the white rice and black rice in a rice cooker or pot and stir to mix. Add the water and cook. If cooking on the stove, cover pot, bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20 mins.
Bul Kogi
With a sharp knife, cut your pork into thin slices. The thinner the better! Put in a bowl. **Sometimes having the meat slightly frozen helps to create “shavings” – like the ones you see in Mongolian BBQ’s. Also, some deli’s will slice your meat for you! Just ask them to cut it as thin as they can.
In a blender or food processor, add in the sesame oil, green onions, ginger, sugar, soy sauce and gochujang. Blend on high until smooth.
Pour the blended sauce over the pork and stir to combine, covering all the pork evenly.
Heat up a large skillet to “smoking hot”. The hotter the better! Then, add the pork. Don’t stir! Let it sit and caramelize.
When the liquid around the pork starts to turn darker, then flip the meat over and cook the other side. Do this until all the meat has cooked. While your meat is cooking, dice up your cilantro and green onions for the toppings.
In a bowl, add the cooked rice and bul kogi. Top with some cilantro, green onions, yum yum sauce and black sesame seeds. Enjoy!
See notes below for more information on black rice, gochujang and yum yum sauce.
Halloween Bul Kogi Rice Bowls - With Spooky Purple Rice
Happy Halloween everyone! I love this time of year. It’s the kickoff to all of the holidays and brings me so much joy. As a kid my brother and I would go out trick or treating all night long. We would fill up our pillow cases full of candy while my mother would drive the car next to us as we ran from house to house. Afterwards we would dump out our candy onto the floor and organize it into piles, bartering with each other and swapping favorites. Ah, the memories.
Another part of happy Halloween memories stems from the fun foods that you eat! I hope that these Halloween Bul Kogi Rice Bowls – With Spooky Purple Rice adds some pizazz to your holiday. Not to mention, it’s freakin’ delicious!
Let's talk Purple Rice
Ok, this purple rice makes the dish so fun and super Halloweeny! It’s a must. If you live near an Asian market, or have a good cultural section in your grocery store, the black rice, or as it’s also known, “Forbidden Rice”, shouldn’t be too hard to get. Check your bulk sections too if your store has one.
However, if you are like me and live in a rural town that is lacking in the “cultural diversity” department, then you’ll need to find some online. Thanks to Amazon, that’s super easy! Here’s a link to some decently priced black rice: Forbidden Rice
Gochujang....?
Gochujang at first glance might seem like a scary ingredient. Guess what, it’s super not. And, thanks to Bul Kogi being more and more popular, it’s becoming more available. Even in little towns like mine! All it is is red pepper paste that’s been fermented. It does add a bit of heat to the dish but not an overpowering amount. If you like your food a bit more mild, you can add 1 TBS only, or omit it all together. Find some online here: Gochujang
Yum Yum Sauce
This decadent sauce not only adds some fun Halloween colors to this dish, but also is amazingly delicious! It’s the same sauce they use on sushi and is easily found in most grocery stores. Listen guys, if I can find this in my small town’s Walmart who’s population is 5,000 people, for sure so can you. I did look for a link on Amazon, and they can be found there, but they are a bit over priced. Here’s a Walmart link though that’s a much better deal: Yum Yum Sauce
Let's get Cookin'
First, you’ll want to get your rice prepared and cooking. In a pot or rice cooker, mix the white rice with the black rice. Stir them together for optimal purpling affects. If all the black rice is just sitting on top, you may have pockets of white rice in the mix. Add in your water, and cook!
Next, you’ll want to slice up your pork. It’s important to get the slices as thin as you can. The thinner the better! Have you ever gone to a Mongolian BBQ? Do you recall seeing a bunch of shaved meats? This is the ideal thickness. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t get it super thin, but here are two tips to help.
Tip 1: If your meat is somewhat frozen still (thawed enough to cut through it), then you’ll be able to shave more easily.
Tip 2: Did you know that most deli’s will cut your meats? And I’m not just talking about sandwich slices. You can actually purchase meat from the meat department, and take it over to the deli. Most of them will gladly slice that meat right up at no charge! When they ask you what thickness, say “as thin as you can make it”. They may respond that it will be falling apart, to which you say, “Excellent!”
Blend It LIke Beckham
Once your meat is sliced, place it in a large bowl and set it aside. Next, take your blender or food processor out and add the sesame oil, green onions, fresh ginger, sugar, soy sauce and gochujang. Blend on high until it’s smooth, being sure that there aren’t any clumps that didn’t get pulverized. Pour the mixture over the pork and mix together.
Now, take out a large pan, place it on your stove top burner, and preheat on high. You’ll want your pan to be extremely hot. Wait to add the saucy pork mixture until you start to see smoke swirling off of your pan. This will help the sugar in the bul kogi to caramelize creating an amazing coating to the pork. I’m drooling just thinking about it!
Once the pan is smokin’ hot, add the saucy pork mixture. Hear the sizzle! It may be tempting to stir the pork constantly but try and resist the urge. Let it sizzle and cook for a few minutes until that caramelization occurs. Typically some good indicators on whether or not it’s ready to flip is if the sauce around the pork has turned darker. You can also take out some tongs to take a peek underneath. Once it’s ready, flip the meat as best you can and repeat on the other side.
While your Bul Kogi is cooking to perfection and your rice is steaming away, prepare your green onions and cilantro. You can get super fancy and slice your onions at an angle, or you can go traditional and slice your onions straight on. Chop up your cilantro as well and set them both aside.
Plating
This is the best part, when everything comes together in harmony! Add the rice in a bowl, top it with the caramelized Bul Kogi. Next, take your prepared cilantro and green onions and garnish away! Drizzle some Yum Yum sauce over the top. Now, for the finishing touch, spooky black sesame seeds! Enjoy!
