Creating your own Korean feast at home is much easier than you think. While the side dishes, or banchan, are essentially only limited by your imagination and tastes, the main courses are basically just marinated meats cooked over the grill. Korean food has become hugely popular around the globe and this simple to follow bulgogi recipe makes having a wonderful dinner at home that much easier! Traditionally, beef bulgogi is not spicy so this recipe should go over great with your entire family, even the kids. Eaten with rice or wrapped in lettuce, beef bulgogi is surely to become a family favorite!
The key to making a great batch of beef bulgogi begins with the marinade. I will walk you through the basic ingredients in a a traditional marinade, but also mention other substitutes and additions to make your own version at home. Nowadays, most of these ingredients can be found at any local grocery store, but worse case scenario they will definitely be available on amazon if you must order something very specific to Korean cooking. Anyway, let's get started with our marinade. Exact amounts for a 2 pound batch will be in the recipe card below. In a large mixing bowl, combine soy sauce, sugar, rice wine (cooking wine, mirin, or soju/sake), minced garlic, sesame oil, red pepper powder (gochugaru), and sesame seeds. If you can find one at your local store or asian market, grate half an asian pear and add that as well. If unavailable, granny smith apples or regular pears will also do the trick. Mix these ingredients thoroughly to combine. Finally, a trick taught to me by a native Korean when I was attending language school, add about half a can of dark soda to your mix. I honestly have no clue why, but the magic of those artificial ingredients and carbon dioxide really help tenderize and flavor the beef. Warning here, though. Be careful stirring the mixture now unless you want a bubbly mess all over your counter. Just gently mix in the soda and set the marinade aside momentarily.
Now we need to get the meat and onions ready to soak up that delicious umami bomb of flavor. Beef ribeye is the cut of choice, but honestly almost any thin sliced beef will work. If using a whole muscle piece, partially freeze it for about an hour or so to make thin slicing easier. We truly want thin sliced here, and by thin I'm talking about 1/16th-1/8th inch or so. Have your butcher slice it for you if you want to be a bit lazy. For all my mega lazy people out there, look for the already sliced carne picada, eye of round, top or bottom round, or even shaved chuck. Make it as cheap and easy as you want, but mega thin sliced ribeye is 100% the best option here for it's fat to meat ratio. Besides being thin sliced, just make sure everything is also cut down to a large bite size, about 1/4-1/2 your palm being an ideal size. Ultimately, it will just come down to cooking times depending on the thickness and overall size so just keep that in mind for later when we actually fire up the grill or pan. Place all the meat in a large sealable bowl, container, or plastic bag and add some thin sliced onions along with 2 inch pieces of green onions. Pour that marinade we made earlier over this and mix with your hands or some tongs to get all the meat well coated. Seal it up and throw it in the fridge for at least 4 hours, but overnight is definitely better.
For everyone that enjoys a good plot twist, you may actually want to pay attention now. Besides just beef and onions, this recipe can really handle other typical stir fry ingredients quite well. Shredded carrots, bell pepper, water chestnuts, snap peas, etc etc etc the list never ends. Add whatever you want, but you may want to consider tweaking the marinade just a bit more to the spicy side to create a better balance of flavor. If I go this route, I typically add Korean Red Pepper Paste (gochujang) and up the garlic drastically. Ginger is also a nice addition to a more stir fry style bulgogi.
Pretty simple so far, eh? Hopefully it's the next day now so pull out that well marinated meat and let it come up to room temperature for a bit. Not necessary but we are only cooking this for a minute or so since it is so thin sliced and you do not want cold, but overcooked bulgogi! Now we just need to fire up the grill, preheat a cast iron pan on the stove, or get fancy and break out the portable stove top Korean grill I will be using for this recipe walkthrough. Keep in mind if using a regular grill that you will need some sort of finer mesh grate or grill pan unless you like sacrificing all your tasty meat to the grill gods that get everything that falls through. Alright, now the fun part. You actually want to cook this in small batches as you eat, preferably. You can cook up a larger portion and dish it out like any other meal, but Koreans like to sit around a built-in or portable table grill and cook as they eat to keep it hot and fresh! Either way, just heat up whatever cooking device you are using to super hot and throw down a couple handfuls of beef/onion mixture. Let it rip for a minute and flip the slices or just kind of stir it around Chinese-wok style a bit. I prefer ribeye in that medium-rare range so my batches were done on my little portable grill in less than 3 minutes, but the marinade should have really tenderized the meat so feel free to cook it fully through, if you wish.
That's it! Serve it along side some rice or make small lettuce cups. A dab of Korean red pepper paste, gochujang, isn't required, but it's basically the ketchup of Korea so you probably want it with this meal. It sounds spicier than it really is, but it is surely a great compliment to this beef bulgogi. While you are cooking the beef, don't be afraid to throw on several slices or cloves of garlic. It's a fantastic addition to the lettuce wraps! Now this recipe isn't 100% traditional by any means so don't go blasting the white guy all over the internet over trivial matters, but definitely feel free to shoot some love and praise over on instagram or facebook. Try it out and tell me what you think!
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