This grilled cheese is sweet, savoury, salty, and sour; just like the dish that inspired it; dolsot bibimbap! Bibmbap is a Korean rice dish cooked in a stone bowl with sautéd vegetables, topped with pickled vegetables, an egg, and some gochujang sauce. This sandwich includes bread that is grilled on both sides, mimicking the crispy texture of the bottom layer of rice in bibmbap. It includes carrots and spinach to represent the sauteed vegetables, some pickled bean sprouts and cucumber, and it's topped with an egg and gochujang. Bibimbap in a sandiwch form; pure bliss!
Pickled Cucumber and Bean Sprouts (If You Own a Vacuum Chamber)
Place cucumber, bean sprouts, and apple cider vinegar into a vacuum pouch. Place pouch in vacuum chamber and run a vacuum cycle. Once the cycle is complete, you can use the pickles immediately or refrigerate them sealed for up to 24 hours.
Pickled Cucumber and Bean Sprouts (If You Don't Own a Vacuum Chamber)
Instead of placing the apple cider vinegar, cucumber, and bean sprouts in a vacuum chamber bag, you can place them in a bowl. Let them pickle overnight in the fridge.
Cheese and Gochujang
Mix together aged white cheddar, gruyère, and gochujang in a small bowl.
Browning the Bread
Preheat cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.
Spread mayo on one side of each of the slices of sourdough bread.
Place two slices of sourdough bread into the frying pan, mayo-side down. Push bread down with spatula to ensure it makes good contact with the skillet.
While bread is browning, spread mayo over the top-facing side of the sourdough bread.
Once bottom side of sourdough bread is browned (~3 minutes), flip the bread over and brown the other side for about 3 minutes, then remove bread from pan.
Cooking the Egg
Add 1/2 tbsp butter to nonstick skillet and heat over low heat.
Crack an egg into the skillet and cook until whites are set. Flip egg and cook briefly. You are going for an over-easy texture with a yolk that will run when broken.
Assembling and Cooking the Sandwich
Meanwhile, spread cheese and gochujang mixture over both pieces of toasted bread.
Layer shredded carrot, pickled cucumbers and beansprouts, and spinach onto one slice of toasted bread.
Return slice of the toasted bread with layered ingredients to the cast-iron pan over medium-high heat.
Cut the egg in half and quickly layer onto the toasted bread inside the skillet.
Complete the sandwich by adding the other slice of bread, face-down, to the slice inside the skillet.
Push sandwich down with hand or spatula, and cook each side of the sandiwch for a couple minutes to allow cheese to melt.
Remove sandwich from skillet, cut in half, and enjoy!
Repeat sandwich assembly instructions for the second sandwich.