VYu Style BiBimbap!

My love for this dish along with my lack of time has inspired me to create this easy to cook dish where most of the components can be prepared ahead of time!

Ingredients:

• 1 small zucchini
• 1 small yellow squash
• 1 small carrot
• 1/4 lb of chicken
• 1 cup of rice (left over rice if you want to do it "Okdul" style)
• Couple of table-spoons of some non-authentic VYu style Korean BBQ marinade
• 1 Tbsp Gochujang (Korean red pepper paste- slightly spicy and kind of sweet)
• 1 egg (optional)

Things that can be prepped ahead:
1. Julienne the zucchini, squash, and carrot and mix them up and toss them in a ziploc bag so they're ready to use whenever you are ready to cook. I find the easiest way to julienne them is to do the following:

2. Marinate your meat. First, cut the chicken into strips (similar to how the veggies were cut) and then toss them in with a combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, garlic powder (or minced garlic) and applesauce. You'll have to play around with the ratios to adjust it to your taste, but I like to go with about 3 Tbsps of soy sauce, 1/4 tsp sesame oil, 1 Tbsp brown sugar, 1/2 Tbsp garlic powder (or minced garlic) and about 1 Tbsp of applesauce (to sort of substitute the pear flavor that many Korean BBQ marinades have). Once the meat is cut and marinating, it can actually be thrown into the freezer and defrosted when needed.

To cook:

1. Defrost your meat and then saute it in a little bit of sesame oil on medium heat until cooked through and remove from pan.

2. Using the same pan saute your veggies until they're cooked through as well.

If you've just cooked your rice you can serve your chicken and veggies on top of the rice with a dab of gochujang paste. If you're feeling some extra protein, add a fried egg to finish it off.

Now if you're looking for that "Okdol" or Stone Bowl feel to your Bibimbap, once you remove the veggies from pan put about a Tbsp of cooking oil in your pan along with your day old rice. Let the rice slowly heat up while breaking up any chunks. As it starts to separate into individual grains add back your veggies and stir fry it all together. Finally, when the rice has heated through, add in your chicken, a raw egg yolk (if you'd like) and some gochujang and mix and stirfry until the egg is cooked through. 

The rest is based on preference. If you like it extra crispy, leave it on the stove for a little longer without touching it so the bottom will develop that nice crust. If you don't like the crispy rice, then just serve it when it's heated through.

This is quick and easy meal, great for a weekday and you can prep over the weekend.

Note: The reason I would use day-old rice if you want to cook it "Okdol" style is that if you stir fry just cooked rice it often gets really mushy. Day old rice will be able to absorb some liquid and keep its bite throughout the stir fry.

As a final note my dear readers- please make recipe requests. Anything I've made that you want the recipe for or anything you're interested in making but don't want to test out the recipe for- I'll test it out for you.