Two weeks ago I cooked the Bibimbap recipe from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook.

The only unusual ingredient is the “Kirby or Japanese cucumber,” which I had never heard of nor seen at the store. Alternatively, the ingredients list “1/2 American cucumber,” which was easy to find.

The process was easy and reminded me a lot of the Woks of Life japchae recipe (which we love): stir fry a bunch of ingredients separately, then combine together at the end. In this case, you put them on top of a bowl of rice and let each person combine together.

I thought it was delicious and very similar to the bibimbap I’ve had in restaurants. Megan’s never had bibimbap out before, so had no previous experience, but she didn’t care for this dish. She thought maybe it was the bibimbap sauce, but when she tried it without the sauce she thought it lacked seasoning. It’s possible she doesn’t like gochujang (how does anyone not like gochujang??), because she didn’t care for the gireum tteobokki either.

My son enjoyed the beef, and my daughter had some of the carrots, but really they ate mostly rice and fried egg.

Unfortunately, I don’t see myself making this again since I’m the only one that liked it, and there’s no efficiency gained with less ingredient volume to be worthwhile making it just for myself.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.