Category: Beef

Bulgogi in Korean literally means “fire beef.” Thinly sliced sirloin steak is marinated in a soy sauce mixture before frying. It is usually served with Boston lettuce leaves, which the Koreans also call ssam, so that you can fill a lettuce leaf with some meat, some rice, a little bit of kimchi, or Korean pickles, and wrap it in a bundle.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds sirloin steak, thinly sliced
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp of hot chili sesame oil
2 tbsps brown sugar
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 small knob ginger, peeled, grated
2 large red onions, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, julienned
Boston lettuce leaves
vegetable oil

1. Prepare marinade while thawing the beef. In a bowl, whisk together soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, garlic and ginger. Divide marinade in two. In half of the marinade, toss half of the onions and bell pepper and set aside to use as dipping sauce. Marinate the beef before it completely thaws out in the other half. Let sit for a couple of hours, covered.
2. Over medium-high heat, pour oil in a large non-stick skillet. Add onions and bell peppers until onions are soft. Transfer to a plate and wipe skillet clean with a paper towel.
3. Cook the beef in small batches, turning often, until browned. Return the cooked onions and bell peppers and stir-fry with the beef. Serve with Boston lettuce leaves.

This is a great recipe from epicurious.com. It’s time-consuming but the end product is so satisfying. If you can’t find dried herbes de Provence, you can make your own with some dried basil, dried thyme and fennel seeds. A full-bodied Cabernet will also do if you don’t have a red Zinfandel. The original recipe called for Niçoise black olives but I just picked up a bottle of regular black olives I found in the store.

Ingredients:
4 pounds meaty beef short ribs
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 package of baby carrots
3 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 large red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup pitted black olives
1 bulb garlic, peeled
2 tbsps all-purpose flour
1 tbsp herbes de Provence
2 cups red Zinfandel
2 cups beef broth
1 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes with juice
1 bay leaf
flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 300º. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Season the short ribs with the salt and pepper. In batches and without crowding, add the short ribs to the pot and cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 8 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the ribs to a platter.
2. Pour off all but 2 tbsps of the fat from the pot. Add the onion, chopped carrots and celery to the pot and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and cook, stirring ocassionally, until the vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, herbs and flour, and cook for about a minute.
3. Stir in the wine and the broth and bring to a boil over high heat, scraping off the browned bits on the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Add the tomatoes and bay leaf. Return the short ribs with their juice to the pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
4. Cover tightly, transfer to the oven, and braise, stirring occasionally to change the position of the ribs, until the meat is falling-off-the-bone tender, about 2 1/2 hours. During the last 15 minutes, add the baby carrots.
5. Transfer the short ribs to a deep serving platter and tent with aluminum foil to keep warm. Skim off the fat from the surface of the cooking liquid and discard the bay leaf. Bring to a boil over high heat and cook until the liquid is reduced to your desired sauce consistency, about 10 minutes.
6. Add the olives and cook to heat them through, about 3 minutes. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
7. Spoon the sauce with the carrots over the ribs and sprinkle with the parsley before serving.

I adapted this recipe from an issue of Saveur Magazine. The flank is the underside of a cow’s belly. It’s a bit more chewy than the sirloin right above it, but it has a great beefy flavor for a cheap cut of beef. Marinating it for a couple of hours or even overnight makes it easier to cook later. Keep it medium-rare because flank gets more tough if overdone. Serve with bottles of Corona beer.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of beef steak
flour tortillas
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, julienned
2 large red onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
light soy sauce
lime juice
half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
red chili flakes
chipotle sauce
salt, pepper

1. Make the marinade. Mix in soy sauce, garlic, one of the onions and half of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the steak and marinate, covered in the fridge, for a couple of hours.
2. When ready to prepare, make salsa. Combine tomatoes, the other onion and the rest of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt, pepper and red chilis to taste.
3. A few minutes before serving, preheat oven to 400º. Transfer steak to a pan and broil for about 7 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes on a chopping board. Slice into strips along the grain.
4. Wrap tortillas in aluminum foil and heat in the oven for less than 2 minutes.
5. Let your guests assemble their own fajita: fill in tortilla with strips of steak and red bell pepper with some salsa, lime juice and chipotle sauce.

I watched the boy make his own kalbi marinade for a barbeque party once. It’s so involved, that’s why people usually just buy it in a jar. Kalbi, or galbi, as some Koreans spell it, is really just short beef ribs cut across the bone. You can even leave them uncut but they’re easier to marinate and broil later if the bones are smaller. Filipino barbeque is as sweet as this Korean-style version, so I immediately knew my parents would like it. I went to the meat market and asked the butcher to cut the ribs lengthwise. I now make this marinade ahead of time and store it in a jar in the fridge. For more flavor, marinate the ribs for a day.

Ingredients:
2 pounds beef short ribs, cut lengthwise
1 cup soy sauce
2 tbsps white sugar
a jig of rice wine
3 tbsp sesame oil
1 knob ginger, minced
1 bulb of small garlic, minced
1 bunch of scallions, finely chopped
salt, pepper

1. Make kalbi marinade. In a small pot over low heat, slowly dissolve sugar in soy sauce. Slowly add small amounts of water to dilute the saltiness of the soy sauce. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
2. Massage meat with sesame oil and the rest of the ingredients in a glass baking pan. Add the marinade over the meat and let sit, covered with plastic wrap, for a couple of hours.
3. When ready to cook, broil in the oven for about 10 minutes.