Korean-inspired Meal Prep
Well, hello there! It's Monday again, and you know what that means - another Meal Prep Monday! Today's meal prep is inspired by Korean flavours. We have a base of brown rice, with marinated steak, broccolini namul, julienned carrots and finely shaved cucumber. Plus a little garnish of extra sesame seeds, fresh coriander, chilli and spring onions.
Recipes are down the bottom of this post, but let me talk you through the elements right now. The beef was two beautiful steaks, marinated in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, spring onions and chilli.
Steak marinade
Frying the steaks
Normally I like my steaks very rare, but because I was planning to eat it over four days, I decided to cook it through.
The marinade was based on Nigella's black and blue beef (from Forever Summer), and is really delicious. Knowing that brown rice is kinda a black hole for flavour, I decided to cook the marinade and use it as a sauce. Bonus!
Marinade being cooked
Ok, broccolini namul. I don't know a lot about Korean food, but as far as I can tell, "namul" is the general term for vegetables in a seasoned sauce. After Googling dozens of recipes, I decided to toss the cooked broccolini in a mixture of sesame seeds, sesame oil, garlic, soy sauce, sugar and salt. And boom - broccolini namul!
Namul mixture
All the ingredients
Of course, kimchi would be an obvious addition to this meal prep, but I had the cucumber and carrot sitting in the fridge, and wanted to use them up. Lots of crunchy freshness there! I'm also not always in the mood for punchy flavours of kimchi, so wasn't sure if I'd handle it for four days in a row.
Brown rice
I used brown rice for this, which was wonderfully hearty, but my preferred rice for this meal prep would have been Korean purple rice. I had a few packets in the pantry, but unfortunately they were out of date. D'oh! Next time, next time.
This was such a great meal prep! Lots of different vegetables and textures, and it kept really well throughout the week. I ate it cold, straight from the container, but you could always keep the raw veggies separately and heat the rest up.
Speaking of which, on the Thursday, I felt like something else for lunch (the nasi lemak craving was strong that day), so took the last lunchbox home. I picked out the cucumber and carrot, microwaved the beef, rice and broccolini, then reunited it all in a bowl and topped it with a fried egg. Delicious!
Korean rice bowl with a fried egg
Seared Beef
Adapted from Nigella's Black and Blue Beef, Forever Summer
Mix together 2.5 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 teaspoon caster sugar, a grinding of black pepper, 2 chopped spring onions and 1 chopped red chilli. Place in a shallow non-reactive bowl. Place 2 scotch fillet steaks into the bowl, and flip them to coat in the marinade. Leave for an hour at room temperature. Heat a frying pan until hot. Cook the steaks for approx. 5-10 minutes per side, until cooked to your liking. (I generally prefer steak rare, but for meal-prep purposes I cook the meat through). Remove from the heat and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes, before slicing thinly.
Meanwhile, place the marinade into the frying pan and heat until it comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
Broccolini Namul
Cut 4 stalks of broccolini into quarters. Cook in boiling salted water for 1 minute, or until tender crisp and bright green. Drain the broccolini and run under cold water to arrest the cooking.
Mix together 1/4 teaspoon crushed garlic, 1/4 teaspoon soy sauce, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds, 1/4 teaspoon caster sugar and 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Toss through the broccolini pieces.
Brown Rice
Method from Bill Granger's Everyday Asian
Place 1 cup brown rice and 2 cups water into a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. (You're supposed to rinse rice before you cook it, but I never do). Bring to the boil over a high heat, then turn the heat to low and clamp on the lid. Cook for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to sit, covered, for 15 minutes. Remove the lid and stir the rice to fluff it up.