Seoul Satisfying: Bulgogi-Korean Grilled Beef
Maybe it’s a way to stay connected to my kid who is living in South Korea and teaching English. My current obsessions are K-Dramas and Korean food. I absolutely adore both. My gateway to K-dramas was Amazon (damn you-Jeff Bezos, just kidding). Suffice to say the rom-com genre is alive and well in South Korea. My favorite show is about an immortal who has been searching for his “bride”, the only person who can actually put him out of misery-I know, ironic. It’s called Goblin or Guardian.
My other obsession is Korean food. Korean cuisine is right up my alley-spicy, flavorful tofu soups, pickled vegetables-Kimchi, Korean barbecue, noodles (Japchae), dumplings (mandu), and bap (rice), the cornerstone. When I was a kid I would always unceremoniously dump my bowl of rice into my soup. I’d swish the rice around to let it absorb the flavors of the soup before eating. Now I find myself enjoying Korean Tofu Soups in the same fashion.
Then there is Korean barbecue. Beef, pork, chicken marinated in soy sauce, garlic, sesame, and onions-grilled over charcoal giving the meat that lovely smokiness, so good.
Like Chinese meals, Korean meals are very communal. Dishes are placed in the center of the table to be shared by all. Parents select choice tidbits to place in each child’s bowl. Teens serve their grandparents. Everyone feeds the babies. Chopsticks constantly moving food from plates and bowls and finally to mouths. Eating is such a connection. For Koreans and Chinese we often greet family and friends not with hello but with “have you eaten yet?”.
Bulgogi is thin strips of beef, marinaded, grilled quickly and wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Nestled in the lettuce along with the beef, is a bite of rice, kimchi, and a dab of ssamjang (bean-chili sauce). Think tacos. So delicious. I adapted a recipe for bulgogi I found in Seoul Food Korean Cookbook (Kindle version for 4.99 right now) by Naomi Imatome-Yun.
The marinade starts with the trifecta of Korean seasonings, soy sauce, garlic, and sesame and builds on this with honey, Asian pear and scallions. So much flavor. Most Asian markets generally have pre-cut thin slices of short rib, pork, or chicken, which makes life easy. If you start with a whole piece of meat, toss it in the freezer for a couple of minutes. Makes cutting thin slices a walk in the park.
It’s not always easy to find Asian pears. Use a combination of finely grated apple (Fuji or Honeycrisp are nice) and pineapple juice in place of the Asian pear. Don’t let it marinate in pineapple juice too long as it will break down the meat. Add pineapple juice no more than a couple of hours before cooking.
Red leaf, Boston, or Gem lettuce, are the perfect shape, size, and texture for a bulgogi wrap. Winner winner, bulgogi dinner-sweet, salty, garlicky, and smokey wraps and you can use your hands, just like tacos! Broke da mouth good.
Don’t forget the kimchi!
Bulgogi
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons chopped garlic CHOPPED, not minced, which would be too much
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 3 tablespoons grated Asian pear include juice substitute any apple, fuji or honerycrisp, grated 1/2 and 1/2 pineapple juice
- 1 tablespoon mirin substitute sake which is not sweet
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 3 scallions finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 pound sirloin steak ribeye or short rib, thinly sliced
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the garlic, soy sauce, sugar, honey, pear juice, mirin, sesame oil, scallions, and pepper and stir until the sugar and honey are dissolved.
- Add the meat and toss to coat thoroughly with the sauce. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. For tougher cuts of meat, marinate the meat longer.
- Grill the beef until well done and caramelized on the outside, about 3 minutes per side. You can also fry the beef in a cast iron pan.
- Serve with rice, ssamjang and lettuce leaf. Garnish with sliced green onions and toasted sesame seeds. Serve hot