Korean Rice Triangles (Jumeokbap)

Wash and drain both regular white rice and sweet rice. Repeat washing, rinsing and draining - 3 times total.

If you have a pressurized rice cooker, you can use the Multi-grain rice function and add water to 2 1/2 cup mark. If using regular rice cooker or stove top, it works best if you soak the rice for 30 min. and then cook using your usual method. For Jumeokbap, it is best that you make the rice more on the dry side than wet.

If all else fails, a Korean way to roughly measure water level is to lay your hand on top of the rice and see if the water reaches your knuckle area. The picture below is the water level for cooking regular rice. For Joomukbap or Kimbap, the water level should be a little lower – about 1/2 inch below the knuckle.

Cook 3 oz of ground beef in a pan with soy sauce, sugar, mirin (rice wine), garlic powder (or fresh chopped garlic), sprinkling of black pepper and toasted sesame seeds. Stir fry while breaking up the beef to ensure even cooking and seasoning. Beef can be cooked the night before and kept outside for next morning. To keep it over a day, keep it in the fridge but be sure to heat it up in a pan before you use it.

Cut spam into 1/2 in thick slice and then into strips or squares depending on the size of your rice triangle. Fry and brown spam in the pan while sprinkling about 1/4 tsp of soy sauce and Korean chili powder(gochoogaroo) per each slice (1 slice makes up about 1/3 C). Unfortunately, spam doesn’t do too well when kept overnight so it’s best to cook it fresh at the time of making the rice balls.

Mix 4 tsp of Mayonnaise with 1/2 can of 6.5 oz canned Tuna meat. Sprinkle some black pepper. Tuna (just like tuna salad) can be made ahead and kept in fridge to be used straight as the filling.

American Processed Cheese – strange as this may sound, processed cheese goes really well with rice so try it! Just cut it into pieces and put inside the rice.

When rice is cooked, cool the rice by spreading it out on a plate. Rice should not be too hot when making Jumeokbap. While the rice cools, season rice by sprinkling 1 T sesame oil and 1 tsp salt. Use good quality sea salt if you can. Mix gently with a spatula to season the rice. Taste the rice and adjust seasoning.

Wear plastic gloves (this stops the rice from sticking to your hands) and pick up a handful of rice and shape it into a triangle. Then make a well in the center and put your filling in. You can also use a triangle jumeokbap mould if you have one - follow instructions on the package.

Cover the filling with more rice and form it into a triangle as shown below:

Now you can cover the Joomukbap with a strip of seaweed. You can use a strip of roasted seaweed (Chosun Kim 조선김) or unroasted seaweed for Kimbap (Kimbap Kim김밥김 or Nori for Sushi) and wrap it around the middle part of the rice triangle.