I finally made bulgogi, and honestly, I don’t know what took so darn long.
Bulgogi isn’t a complicated dish, in fact quite the opposite. A marinade is made; meat is sliced, then soaked, and then cooked.
Dating back to the 13th century, bulgogi does have a long history in Korean cuisine, and having been passed down from mother to daughter over the centuries, there appear to be as many recipes for the sweet soy marinade as there are Korean surnames.
This time I used the requisite soy, ginger, but replaced sugar with apple juice (I couldn’t find pear), though I’ve seen it done with kiwis. I used top serloin, something my husband soundlessy though effectively protested with rib poking when the whole foods butcher weighed out a pound at 15.99. We’ve decided to stop shopping at Whole Foods.
The whole thing was surpisingly simple. I used my mother in laws meat slicer to get the meat relatively thin (the guy at whole foods claimed not to have a slicer, but offered to slice it with a knife, so so so clueless)
I marinated the meat, giving up on microplaning the inch nub of ginger, instead throwing the whole fibrous lump into the pot.
Needing carbs and wanting to soak up the juices I added some ddok to the dish then served it all on a med of micro-greens with a dollop of ssamjang and a shaving of garlic. None of which was needed. I would happily eaten the meat off the plate with my hands.
Here’s my recipe
2 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp Honey
2Tbsp Apple Juice
1 T minced green onion
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp Sesame Seed oil
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 pound beef serloin, thinly sliced
1/2 cupsliced ddok, soaked in water for 15 minutes
Garnish
A handful of washed micro greens
1 Tbsp ssamjang per person
1 clove garlic per person, thinly sliced
1. Combine all the bulgogi marinade ingredients in a bowl and mix well.
2. Slice the meat (or add already sliced mea) to the marinade and stir to coat the meat. Let stand for 30 minutes.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the meat and marinade and cook. Drain the sliced ddok and add to the meat mixture. Cook until ddok is tender and meat has reached desired state of doneness.
On each plate lay down a handful of washed microgreens. Place a healthy dollop of ssamjang on each plate accompanied by sliced garlic. Top off greens with a serving of bulgogi.
I am also shopping around for a takbagi bulgogi (is that right) recipe.
So I’m curious, with all the variations, how do you cook bulgogi? What do you put in your marinade? How do you plate it, and have you ever considered enveloping it in puff pastry?
I know it is a bit off point, but having wrapped up my first quarter of school I can’t help but begin planning my Chef of the Day; a final of sorts for culinary graduates where we plan and execute a 5 course meal. I’m thinking of North Asian ingredients with Western European Techniques. For a main course I’m considering a Korean take on beef Wellington. And ideas?
I have gotten a slew of emails lately and while I’ve done my best to answer them, please add your 2 cents.
Anytime mints are a curious candy, once you have a taste for the vanilla mint, no other will ever do. Sadly I could not find an online source for Anytime mints. I did, however, find them at my local Korean Grocery Chain Pal-Do World. If you have a hankering for these I suggest contacting your local Korean grocery and begging, or try calling Pal-do and ask to special order a case. Those of you reading in Korea could stand to make a mint here. Ba-dam ba! I really didn’t intend for that pun, but seriously, you could start an export business out of your apartment.
Calories in Ddok. One of my favorite friends back in Seoul recently emailed me asking, no doubt dreading the answer, if there were a ton of calories in ddok. The sad answer? YES. Though I love ddokboggie and ddokgochi, and ddok guk, the long slender fingers of processed rice cakes are just about as bad for you as a bag of chips. Of course I have no hard-core evidence to back this up, but I vaguely remember reading a JoongAng Daily article about unhealthy snacks and sitting pretty next to a big mac was a bowl of ddokboggie.
Street Food in Seoul.
Recently I got an email from a reader about to visit the land of the morning calm on a stop over asking for suggestions on where to eat Street Food. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a pojangmacha, but some high concentrated areas for grazing include Dongdaemoon market, Myeongdong shopping area, and around Yongsan Station.
Korean Style Fried Chicken in Seattle The NY Times article, featuring fantastic Korean foodie Zen Kimchi, has sparked interested in Korean Fried Chicken. Recently I was asked where to find this in Seattle, and here is what I could find. Imo’s in Pioneer Square does a Cornish game hen treated to a Korean style fry, and, according to ChowHound.com, a little place in Federal Way, past Federal Way Discount Guns. If you know of a place anywhere in the I-5 Corridor, let me know.
Finally beloved, who muses at belovedbabbling, is asking for Korean restaurants in the Downtown Seattle vicinity. Sadly, I am not an expert here. I know of The Shilla, possible one of Seattle’s oldest Korean restaurants, however I cannot attest to the quality of the food. Then there is Shilla Korean BBQ, a small Kimbap Nara-ish joint in the Uwajimaya food court. Any Suggestions?
My knife skills test is appromaxiately 12 hours away and I am freekin freaked out. The physical symptoms of stress have appeared, and I feel sick.
I have 30 minutes to complete the following cuts.
Batonnet 1 potato
Medium dice 1 potato
Brunoise 1 Carrot
Peel and segment one orange
Concassee one tomato
Fine chop parsley
Small dice one onion
Mince 1 shallot
Mince 6-8 cloves garlic
Because I am not at the CIA, if I cut myself, we call time out, am bandaged up, squirted with water, given a quick shoulder massage to stay loose, then sent back into the ring. I’ve heard rumors that some schools fail you if you cut yourself or go over the time limit.
I’ve been practicing, and am confident in my orange segmenting (that is down to 2 minutes), my batonneting (also two minutes, faster if I could peel that damn potato with out it popping out of my hands every 10 seconds). I have got concassee down pat, just needing to mind the cooking time (they only need a few seconds), my mincing skills are posh, but parsley is a time whore, at least 5 minutes. My biggest fear is the bourniose. Half of a carrot 1/8th by 1/8th by 1/8th. Not only is my sizing off, but I cannot square off a carrot to save a life. Somehow (I blame the knife!) I always end up a little slanted to the outside. My planks are sloppy, and I’d be lucky to get those little suckers into their proper dimensions.
I do curse these cuts, always muttering under my breath when I am to fine dice 10 pounds of celery, or brunoise 5 pounds mushrooms, but heaven strike me now If I don’t nit pick when where I’m eating doesn’t do it right.
“You are not a small dice,” I challenge the cubes of carrot in my stew.
“You call that a julienne, ha!” I sneer at a pair of criss-crossed peppers garnishing a side of rice.
“Chiffonade basil? Please, you’re nothing more than disregarded Christmas ribbon.” I yell at my pizza. This all happens in my head of course. Sometimes aloud if I’m at home, alone.
“Remember, if people are paying $40 for a plate of food, then they deserve perfect cuts,” has become my pep talk when I start to purposely cut an extra 1/32nd of an inch, or leave that seed in the concasse, just to rebel, just to put my stamp on it. But this quickly comes to an end as not only will my finish product be picked through for precision, but my rubbish as well, to ensure that I have not wasted too much. So say a little somethin’ somethin’ to the kitchen gods this week for me, I need it.
“Is this your first time in Cabo?” The lady in the seat next to me asked.
“Yes.” I replied in a tone that neither expressed excitement nor intrest.
“Oh,” she said, her eyebrows raised in excitement. “You’re going to just love it.”
Mexico and I have never been friends.
Though thousands of Americans are drawn to beaches and underage drinking, and thousands of Mexicans are drawn to higher wages, Mexico and I are like oil and vinegar (me being extra virgin olive oil imported from Tuscany and Mexico being two bit hintz white vinegar). That is until my mother-in-law flew me down to join her and Kevin for a week in Cabo (something she is no doubt regretting as she has twice desperately lost to me at scrabble).
After nine weeks of cramming the most arcane of culinary information into that little 12% of my brain that actually gets used, I have hit the wall (didn’t take long, did it?). I don’t know what is going on, really, I never got good grades before (but let me tell you I, though lucky to be harboring somewhere around a 3.0, considered myself right along up there with my friends who got accepted to ivy league schools and scored 1400 on their SATs. It isn’t that I didn’t get accepted to Stanford, I just didn’t want to go there). My misunderstood genius was redirected into making out with my boyfriend or memorizing lines from Samuel Becket plays for upcoming debate tournaments).
I can understand that it is confusing for my family and friends to see me so determined, so intent on a 4.0, so focused on my studies. One friend, in particular, I won’t name names, but we’ll see if she even recognizes I’m talking about her, reminds me, on an almost daily basis that I never used to be like this. “Mary? What happened? You were never like this in high school, organized, and all doing your homework.” But I’ll wear her compliment, “you’re the cutest perfectionist I know,” with pride. The point is this. I want to enjoy my good grades, my success in class, not be made to feel embarrassed for it. And then there is the counter point. Maybe I’m taking this all to seriously. This is school afterall, and not, as my chef reminded me after confessing my bleeding heat, “the CIA.”
I don’t claim to be Jerri Blank, but I am confident that my resolute sense of responsibility stems from hitting the glass ceiling in the world of coffee, glass bottom of the coffee cup so to speak? I have been 23, thinking I was the cat’s meow, but only making 7.25 an hour. Not exactly the place I imagined my BA in the Arts would find me. I guess that is why my classmates like to poke fun and snicker when I get frustrated at their complete lack of responsibility, or try to contest a missed question on a midterm.
Finally getting in a verbal spat with one after one too many of his “I’m just teasing,” got me on the first day of my period. I really hate that our menstrual cycle so often takes the blame, or truly is the cause, of outbursts, emotions, or rage induced flurries. But sometimes it can’t be helped, ( I have a 28 day long fuse) and last Tuesday was one of those days (I’m blaming my 93 on the quiz on it).
So here I am in Mexico, sipping on margaritas Kevin has spent the week perfecting, trying to “do nothing,” to relax. Cabo is a funny place. Too many American tourists, clad in novelty t-shirts, baseball caps, and sport sandals to allow me my usual combing of alleyways and markets (haven’t found a market yet, come to think of it), so I’ve sequestered myself to our junior suite kitchen, fixing up tortilla soup, chicken and greens in tomitallo salsa, and grilled tiger shrimp. Sometimes cooking is stressful to the point of wanting to flip the sauté pan across the room while yelling obcenities then pull out a package of frozen kimchi mondu in defeat, but other times like this week, cooking quietly puts things back in order, allowing one little successes, a round of compliments from snackers, slowly rebuilding what before came crashing down.
Kev demonstrates how to infuse lime into a beer cabo style.
Does this mean I will return to class fresh faced passing out smiles to those that perturb me beyond belief? No. But at least sinister thoughts of how I can sabotage their Chef Of The Day final will have subsided.
