Yubuchobap (seasoned fried tofu pockets stuffed with vinegar rice)

Wash, rinse and drain one cup of short grain rice until the water looks clear; drain as much water as possible by tilting the pot.

Add one cup of water, close the lid and soak 30 minutes.

Chop cucumber and carrot into really small pieces, mix with a little pinch of salt, and squeeze.

Chop the optional ingredient into really small pieces.

Cook the soaked rice over medium-high heat; about 8 minutes later, when it boils over, turn it over and stir.

Lower the heat and simmer another 8 minutes; then simmer one more minute.

Stir the squeezed vegetables in a drop of vegetable oil for 10 or 20 seconds.

Use around half of the two cups of cooked rice; scrape it out with a spoon and leave the burnt rice (nurungji) on the bottom of the pot.

Add around one or two cups of water to the burnt rice in the pot and boil, for nurungji tea.

Mix the rice with the vinegar sauce and all the colorful vegetables.

Variation, creepy eyes: cut canned olives in half and use only the domed end; fill the pockets with plain vinegar rice, making room in the centre, and set in the olive to make round or slant eyes.

Fill the pockets with the vegetable rice mixture and dip the exposed rice tops in the dried ingredients.