So I promised you something Korean last week and this is what came out of my oven today: bulgogi, a well-marinated Korean grilled beef dish, in honor of my many Korean friends on campus.
This past week, I made a trip over to the Hannam Chain, a Korean supermarket located on Beach Blvd., to buy my ingredients. The ingredients were a little pricey, but I like to think I still saved money by making it from scratch instead of eating out. Unfortunately, I still ended up smelling like charred meat. There’s no escaping that smell.
I am neither Korean, nor do I speak the language, but people often mistake me for being Korean. I totally gave myself away when I headed over to the meats section. Looking at all the different cuts of beef —which all really looked like assorted shapes of red play dough — I had no clue which one to buy. I told the butcher I wanted to make bulgogi and tried to sound as Korean as I could while I was at it. In the end, he pointed me over to an icebox with large bags of thinly sliced beef.
“Final sale,” he said.
He then pointed over to one of the packaged meats inside the counter window and said, “This one is fresh. Your choice.”
I looked over both— as if I knew what I was doing — and decided that the one with the “fresh” sticker must be better. I’m a sucker for stickers.
As far as the other ingredients go, I cheated a bit and had my mom bring them for me from home. But I made sure to check the package cost of each of the ingredients, so you know what you’re actually getting yourself into.
First, I took out my cutting board and sliced the meat into very thin slices. This is easiest when the meat is frozen. Unfortunately, I had defrosted the meat by the time I discovered this.
Afterward, I cut up two cloves of garlic into small pieces. Next, I got out a tray and sprinkled a little brown sugar and garlic on the bottom. I laid out the beef slices flat onto the tray, making sure not to overlap them. When that was done, I put another layer of brown sugar and garlic on top of the beef and then laid any extra pieces on top of those.
Next, I got out a bowl and cut up the extra cloves of garlic. I mixed the minced ginger, garlic, soy sauce and rice vinegar together in the bowl and poured it all over the meat. After putting that in the refrigerator, I let the meat sit overnight while I got some shuteye.
The next afternoon, I turned my oven knob to “broil” and laid the meat slices onto a baking pan. Since I didn’t have a pan big enough to cook all the meat at once, I cooked it in two batches. I put the first batch into the oven and nonchalantly went over to my laptop and went on facebook, totally forgetting about my meat.
This is an example of what NOT to do.The first batch came out burnt and crispy, which really wasn’t what I was going for.
The second batch was much better. Just to be sure, I left the meat in the oven for no more than five minutes — but it still came out kind of tough. Keep a really close eye on the meat because it cooks faster than you might think.
The beef came out tangier than I wanted, probably because of the rice vinegar. However, if I had added anymore brown sugar and vinegar it would surely have tasted like sweet and sour beef, which doesn’t really exist because it neither sounds, nor tastes good. So just as a warning, be sparing with the brown sugar and vinegar.
Anyway, this may very well be my last column for the semester, as I might be going home for some personal reasons. If that is the case, then so long. Thank you to all who followed my cooking column, and encouraged me not to give up.
