Beef Bulgogi

It has been a while since we last updated our blogs. Sometimes we are just being lazy and sometime we are simply speechless with the conditions of our surroundings, literally. For one, the haze is pretty bad now and I am finding it quite hard to even take a breath in some instances.

But don't worry, Greg and Nee still eats & that is for sure. If one day comes when we start losing our appetite, the world would have probably been torn apart literally. Last night, we indulged ourselves with Four Points buffet with heaps of oysters and sashimi, and please try their satay next time - good stuff that one! It doesn't matter whether one is happy, sad, lost, depressed, or overjoyed, we'd still have to eat. At heart, all human beings just want to be happy with no worries about food, job and living. At heart, Nee will still always do what she knows best. Cooking and feeding Greg!

We had a good meal in Korea with Grilled Beef ribs. So I decided to try this when we got back. Bulgogi is not unlike Samgyeopsal, it is beef version, but marinaded. I checked out a couple of recipe books and found nashi pear in all of the them. And I think that made a whole lot of difference. We tried this two weeks ago with our cell group bunch as guinea pigs. And they love it. So please try it out.

You don't have to cook it over a table top. Just in the pan will do and serve over meal. If you want a better presentation, do the sizzling plate thingy. You can definitely wow your guests with this simple dish that looks like a complicated one.

Serve 5-6

500gm thin slices of sirloin, pre-order from Choice Daily
1 med carrot, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
5-6 slices of fresh shitake mushrooms, slicely

Marinade:
3 tbsp of korean soya sauce
2 tbsp of rice wine or sake
2 tbsp of brown sugar
1 tbsp of sesame oil
1 no of nashi pear, grated
2 no of spring onion
1/2 teasp of black pepper
1 teasp of garlic, more if you like garlic, we dont so we omit

1) Mix the marinade sauces and ingredients well in the bowl.

2) Place the meat slices in the bowl and marinade for at least 3 hours or overnight.

3) Heat up a flat pan and line it with some onion, shitake and carrot slices. Add marinade meat and grill it up to your liking. Dont overcook, meat may be slight chewy and cardboard like. Dish out and serve with garlic, korean chilli bean paste wrapped with raw greens just like samgyeopsal.

4) Repeat till all ingredients finish or stir fry the whole thing and place it on the sizzling hotplate. Serve immediately.

Best eaten with rice. So there you go, another simple dish.

Samgyeopsal

We have to admit it, we are belly pork lovers and like what Roger says, "You guys always eat good stuff". So it's getting pretty hard to lose weight like that.

Our favourite meal in Korea is the Jeju Island's Black Pigs. This seems to reaffirm our belief that black animals have tastier meat (eg. black skinned chickens). Pieces of pork shoulder meat and belly pork from black pigs are grilled on table top and cut into smaller pieces before eating, wrapped up in lettuce and spring onion. Heaven!

Interestingly in Korea, the meat are not paper thin, rather they are about slightly less than 1cm thick. We realised that with side dishes like Kimchi, daikon, spinach and many others, even though the main meal is meat, they are at least another five portions of vegetables, which makes it a pretty balanced meal.

I got my Samgyeopsal hotplate in Namdaemun market. Was debating whether I should get the Bulgogi one too, which was only 20,000 won (RM58) but did not dare to push it. The Samgyeopsal ones (45,000 won, about RM 130 each) were metal pieces of slanting plates that let the oil flow off the side into a smaller bowl while Bulgogi ones are dome shaped, reason being Bulgogi are marinated, so it is wet in the first place while samgyupsal is dry but oil will flow out later.

Why am I feeling a nagging sense of regret for not getting the Bulgogi ones too?

Here is my latest addition to the Nee's Kitchen family of arsenals.

Samgyeopsal are basically pieces of pork (bacon like raw strips but not cured or smoked like bacon) meal grilled on table top stove, dipped in sesame oil salt and pepper dip before wrapping in lettuce with chilli bean paste and spring onion salad (to our liking but optional). I found my pork strips at Butcher's Deli and Greg was smiling from ear to ear. Me too because i can imagine cooking becoming easier because he is going to grill his own meat. All I needed to do is prepare the salad, wash the lettuce and cook the rice.

We tried out my new toy when Roger was back for his holidays. His Royal Highness thinks he liked it, which was like an almighty compliment for his humble sister 'chef' or was that 'slave'?

Greg, well, he thinks it was as good as the ones we had in Korea.

For 3-4 person:

500 gm of sliced skinless pork belly, store bought which can be quite thin or you can slice it if you have good sharp knife when the piece is semi frozen.

Whole pieces of lettuce like romain, butterhead.

Gochujang, korea red chilli bean paste

Raw pieces of garlic sliced thinly lengthwise (optional)

Green chillis peppers (optional)

Sesame dip:

1 tbsp of salt

1 tbsp of cracked black pepper

2 tbsp of sesame oil

Scallion/Spring onion salad:

1 tbsp of soya sauce (korean)

1 1/2 tbsp of white vineger

1 tbsp of sesame oil

2 tbsp of water

1 teasp of korean red chilli flakes

1 tbsp of sugar
6-8 stalks of spring onion, cut thinly lengthwise

1) Toast salt and pepper in a pan over med to low fire. Add to sesame oil. Set aside.
2) Cut spring onion, especially the bottom half, into 2 inch length and slice into thin fine strips. Mix soya, sesame oil, sugar, vineger, water and chilli flakes. Add spring onion strips and mix well. Set aside.
3) Place pork strips on a pan over a table top gas stove. Grill on both sides till slight golden brown. If strips are too long, cut into half.

4) Dip in sesame dip.
5) Place on lettuce. Add garlic, spring onion salad and chilli bean paste. Wrap and eat with or without rice.

Bibimbap

When Greg and I first dated one another, he would take me to the more "high class" restaurants, even for lunch. Then as we went steady, we would frequent "road side" stalls. Now, we just eat at home. Ladies, see the trend? It's not that men are lousy creatures that don't appreciate their wives, but they do change their priorities after marriage, from getting the gal, to making sure they bring food onto the dinner table.

So, enjoy the moment while it lasts, and don't complain if they are working hard to buy you big bling-blings, expensive holidays and a good retirement.

One of the places we usually went to when we were dating were Korean eateries. And this is one dish we would always order, Bi bim bap ~ Korean minced beef with vegetables on rice.

This is a nice, healthy dish. That I can guarantee. With meat and vegetables lightly sauteed and topped with an egg and eaten with Korean chilli paste and rice, we have almost the entire food groups in place in just this one dish.

Serve 2-3:
200gm of minced beef
4-5 pieces of shitake mushrooms
1 no of small japanese cucumber, cut into thin strips
1 no of small carrot, cut into matchsticks thinness
50 gm of bean sprouts
100gm of fernbrake (subject to availabilities)
3 eggs, pan fried with sunny side up.
1 1/2 cup of rice, cooked as you normally would with rice
3 tbsp of korean chilli paste (gochujang)

1) Season minced beef with 1 teasp of garlic, 2 tbsp of korean soya sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar/honey, 1 tbsp of Korean cooking wine/japanese sake, 1/2 teasp of sesame oil. With 1 tbsp of oil, pan fry the beef till almost dry. Set aside.

2) Soak mushrooms in room temperature water till soft and slice thinly and season with 1/2 of the amount of seasoning. Pan fry mushrooms like the beef. Set aside.

3) Lightly pan fry carrots with 1 teasp of oil and salt and pepper to taste to semi cook. Dish out.

4) Lightly pan fry separately cucumber, bean sprouts and fernbrake like carrots. Keep separately.

5) Scoop out rice 2-3 portions into separate bowls. Arrange beef, mushrooms, carrots, cucumber, bean sprouts and fernbrake nicely in a circle. Place a sunny side egg right in the middle for each bowl. Sprinkle with some sesame seeds and sesame oil for extra taste.

6) Serve with chilli paste. To eat, stir everything together with chilli paste.

Samgyetang ~ Ginseng Chicken Soup

Our first encounter with this dish was two years ago, at a Korean restaurant along Londsdale Street in Melbourne. My brother Roger strongly recommended this dish and it was really worth the every cent we paid for. For less than AUD18/MYR 50, we actually paid for a soup of whole chicken with ginseng, Korean style.

The Chinese, like Koreans, believe that ginseng is an energy food, a tonic that boosts the immune system and a source of energy and vitality. Koreans are definitely very proud of their ginseng. It is almost like their pride joy, aside from their Kimchi.

There are many grades of Korean ginseng, with the really good ones costing over thousands dollars. In terms of taste, I think the Chinese ones are slightly more herby and Korean ones are sweeter. But then again I dont think I have tasted the really good quality ones from both.

This is a Korean dish, which is quite easy to prepare and it tastes excellent. Glutinous rice is stuffed into the chicken's cavity and simmer to cook.


The natural sweetness of the chicken goes well with the ginseng soup combined with the ever zen-like simplicity of the glutinous rice. The best thing about this combination is that the glutinous rice absorbs the sweetness of chicken. Everything has a reason & role to play.

It is also a good dish to enhance the energy for your family especially on hot evenings. I normally have to use whole dried chinese ginseng, which costs around MYR15 each. There are available at Chinese medicine halls and in some wet markets.

1 - 1.2 kg of small whole kampung chicken
2 pcs of whole chinese/korean ginseng
6-8 pcs of red dates
1 whole bulb of garlic
1 tbsp of pine nuts or 4-5 chestnuts optional
1 tbsp of thornberry optional
80 - 100gm of glutinous rice
About 1-1 1/2 litre of water or enough to cover up to 3/4 of the chicken.

Salt and Pepper dip:
1 tbsp of salt
1 tbsp of pepper

1) Wash chicken clean of all its internals. Chop off at the neck area. But DO NOT cut too deep till you have a gaping hole. Note also to leave skin flapping on at the chicken bottom so that you can easily seal it up later.

2) Wash glutinous rice and soak it in water for 1/2 hour or so. Wash other ingredients.

3) Fill the glutinous rice, one piece of ginseng and 2-3 pcs of red dates up to 2/3 of the chicken cavity. Seal up the chicken by 'sewing' the skin up with a toothpick or satay stick.

4) Boil water in a pot that could go straight onto the table later on (say a claypot or a deep casserole dish). Add the other piece of ginseng, garlic, pinenuts, thornberries and rest of dates.

5) Add chicken tummy side up especially if you could not manage to seal up the skin well. Cook simmering for at least one hour or until chicken meat is so tender that it could almost, but not falling from the bone.

6) Serve by dividing the dish into individual smaller bowls with some glutinous rice topped with some meat. Roast the salt and pepper and the diners can dip as they like. This dish can be serve as an individual with one diner having one small chicken in a small pot. You can also chop some spring onions to sprinkle on dish.

Jaep Che

Greg and I are very lucky to have many Korean friends in Kuching as there are quite a population of them here. Koreans are here to work and/or learn English. So I thought must also be kiasu a bit and start learning something Koreans from them. Language is really not my thing, so I settled on cooking. A while ago I took a few classes from Moon who insisted that she can't cook very well but can try. So we exchanged, I spoke English with her while she taught me cooking (as if I can speak anything else to her, so it was a good bargain for me!)

Koreans are very special. When I visited Moon's kitchen, almost everything is made in Korea. She actually transported a special chiller for Kim Chi all the way from Korea. Rice cookers are also from Korea. Even the kids' clothes, school bags & stationeries were all brought in from Korea.

This is one of the first few dishes I learned from her. Easy to cook yet so delicious.

180gm of Korean sweet potatos starch noodles, also called transparent noodles

200gm of beef like sirloin, rump (for panfry), sliced into strips

5-6 no of medium dried shitake mushrooms, soften with room temp water, squeezed water and sliced

1 bunch of spinach, cleaned and cut

1 no of medium carrot, peeled and sliced to thin strips

1 no of medium onion, sliced to rings

1/2 no green pepper, 1 no of egg (pan fry and sliced), some zucchini (all optional)

1-2 tbsp of Korean soya sauce

some roasted sesame

1-2 tbsp of sesame oil

vegetable oil for pan frying

1) Prepare marinade for beef: 1tbsp of sugar, 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil, few shakes of black pepper, 1 tbsp of honey, 1 tbsp of honey, some salt, 1/2 teasp of minced garlic, 1 tbsp of cooking sake, 2 tbsp of korean soya sauce. Marinade and set aside

2) Prepare marinade for shitake mushrooms: 1 tbsp of sugar, 1/2 tbsp of sesame oil, 1/2 tbsp of honey, salt and pepper and 1/2 teasp of minced garlic, 1 tbsp of korean light soya. Marinade and set aside.

3) Prepare a pot of boiling water. Blanch noodles for about 5-8 minutes. Drain. Wash under running water like washing clothes for about two runs or so to rid the starchy smell of the noodles. Drain well and place on a big plate.

4) Prepare another pot of water and blanch spinach with a little oil for about 2-3 min. Dish and marinade with some salt and sesame oil and sesame seeds.

5) Pan fry with oil all other ingredients, one at a time and arrange around noodles.

6) Add sesame oil, soya sauce, sesame seeds and salt to taste. Mix all ingredients well with chopsticks or tongs. Serve.

Serve with Kim Chi. We had this for dinner with Samgaetyang and Mrs Chung's Kim Chi. I learnt Kim Chi from Moon (I love Moon's version and she is from the romantic Cheju Island). The Koreans are so nice, they supply me with endless quantity that I never get a chance to properly make my own yet.

Like Japanese ingredients, we can hardly find Korean ingredients in Kuching except maybe at Choice Daily. Our supply are usual from Jalan Ampang, KL where there are many Korean residents. And the price in KL is definitely cheaper. For example, Sweet Potato noodles cost about RM25 in KK but only about RM10 -12 in KL.