This is the one I use, Pig. I did find it on the internet, but it's excellent, provided you can find the right ingredients. I'm fortunate to have an Asian market close by.
(Bulgogi – Korean BBQ beef)
Ingredients (to marinate 1kg beef)
1kg thinly sliced beef sirloin (sliced to about 2-3mm thick) *
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 medium-sized brown onion, peeled
1 nashi/Asian pear, peeled
1 sweet apple, such as fuji, grated
2/3 cup Korean soy sauce (‘kanjang’), but you can substitute it with Japanese tamari soy or Chinese light soy sauce in a pinch
2 tbsp toasted sesame seed oil
2-4 tbsp caster sugar (this will depend on the sweetness of your pear)
2 spring onions, washed and finely sliced
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
* – Most Asian butchers will be able to slice the beef for you if you let them know. If not, then the way to do it yourself is to half freeze it so that the piece of beef is almost solid through, then use a sharp kitchen knife to slice pieces, about 2-3mm thick, against the grain. If the beef thaws and becomes soft and hard to slice during this process, just pop it back in the freezer to firm up for an hour or two before continuing.
1. Use your hands to squeeze the juice from the apple over the sliced beef and set aside. Using an extremely fine grater, turn the onion and pear into pulp (alternatively, you can just blend till liquid but this makes the marinade a bit watery), then mix together with the soy sauce and crushed garlic, then taste for sweetness. If it’s not quite sweet enough for your tastes, add all the sugar, but if it’s close, just add 1-2 tbsp of sugar, mix and taste again.
2. Add the sliced meat to the bowl, then pour the marinade over the top, then add the sesame seed oil, sliced spring onion and cracked pepper and massage all the marinade into the meat for about 1-2 minutes, making sure none of the slices of beef are stuck together and that the marinade has been distributed evenly throughout.
3. Pour into an airtight container and store in the fridge for at least a few hours, ideally overnight, and cook over a griddle or in an unoiled non-stick frying pan – the reason for that is that the pan juices are extremely tasty, and can be very nice poured over your bowl of rice!
Though the common translation of this is ‘Korean bbq beef’, a direct translation of the name is actually ‘fire meat’. It really should not be cooked over a traditional Western bbq as the meat is sliced so thin that you’ll lose a lot of it through the grill! Instead, if your bbq has a flat plate then use that or a flat griddle pan, or just use your frying pan in a pinch!
Serving Information
While this is quite tasty, it’s not exactly a dish that you eat on it’s own – it should be served (at the very least) with a bowl of rice and an assortment of kimchi and other banchan.
Bulgogi is extremely tasty to serve cooked together with other ingredients – some of our favourite veggies to add to the pan when cooking bulgogi are enoki mushrooms (about 1-2 bunches with the roots trimmed, washed and patted dry), (mung) bean shoots, grated carrot or baby bok choy, briefly blanched and drained.
Another great addition is some ‘dang myun‘, or cellophane noodles made with sweet potato flour (very different in taste and texture to regular Chinese cellophane noodles), which can be boiled, rinsed under cold water, drained and added to the pan when cooking the bulgogi, they will absorb the pan juices and become delicious!
The final way that bulgogi can be enjoyed is in the Korean ‘ssam’ style – as a lettuce leaf wrap. Take a few crisp lettuce leaves, washed and spun dry, then place a spoonful of rice in the middle, a piece of bulgogi, ‘ssam jang‘ (a fermented soybean/chilli paste specially made for this style of eating) and a few banchan, then wrap up and enjoy! If you can be bothered, grilled garlic cloves taste GREAT in this combination, so if you’ve got a grill pan, peel a few cloves, pop them on and leave to cook through before adding them to the spread!
