Carrot-Oil Gimbap (Namseon Gimbap) · Ryu Soo-young

Rinse the white rice and black rice together gently — a few soft swirls, not scrubbing — then cook them with the 900 ml of water, about 10% less than you would normally use.

💡 Gimbap rice must be drier than table rice. Normal water makes rice that smears when you spread it and bursts the roll.

Julienne all 600 g of carrot. Yes, it is about twice what a normal gimbap uses — that is the recipe.

Pour the 50 ml of oil into a wide pan over medium heat and add all the carrot at once.

Fry, stirring, for 7–10 minutes — until the carrot is limp and, crucially, until the oil in the pan has stained bright orange.

💡 The colour leaving the carrot and entering the oil IS the technique. Stop early and you have carrots and plain oil, which is just ordinary gimbap.

Tip the carrots into a sieve set over a bowl and press them firmly to squeeze the orange oil out. Keep BOTH the carrots and the oil — season the carrots with a little seasoned salt.

Slice the cucumber thin and toss it with the sugar, the vinegar and a pinch of seasoned salt. Leave it to pickle while you cook the eggs.

Beat the 13 eggs with seasoned salt.

Heat a pan, coat it with some of the reserved carrot oil, pour in the egg and drizzle a little more carrot oil over the top.

Cover and cook on LOW until the egg is set into one thick slab, 10–15 minutes. Do not chase colour — it should stay pale yellow.

💡 Beginner warning: high heat browns and toughens the egg slab and it cracks when you roll it. Low and slow, lid on, is the only way.

Slide the egg slab out, let it cool, then cut it into long strips.

Cut the Spam into long sticks and fry them in the last of the carrot oil until the edges are golden.

Tip the hot rice into a wide bowl, add about half a cup of sesame oil and a generous amount of seasoned salt, and fold it through with a cutting motion — never mash or stir in circles.

💡 Crushed grains turn the rice to paste. Cut and lift, cut and lift.

Lay a sheet of foil down, put a sheet of gim on it, and spread about 150 g of the seasoned rice in a thin, even layer — thinner than feels right, leaving the far edge bare.

Line up the carrot, egg, Spam, cucumber, crab stick, burdock and pickled radish across the rice — be generous, the fillings should outbulk the rice.

Roll it up tightly using the foil to press as you go, seal the bare edge with a smear of water, and let it rest seam-down for a minute before slicing with a very sharp knife.