Showing posts with label bul go gi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bul go gi. Show all posts

Friday, July 24, 2009

A steak peep show






Why is it that other food bloggers seem to channel Richard Avedon with their shots of fried green tomatoes and weeknight casseroles, while I seem to channel my Aunt Maxine, whose photographic skills have consistently produced pictures that are so distorted, perfectly normal people look as if they belong in institutions for the criminally insane?

I am so not a photographer. Which is why I had my husband take these pictures. During the life of this blog, my attempts at producing even vaguely serviceable food shots have been lame. Not that these are that great, either. But that steak does look mighty good.

It's bul go gi - Korean barbecue - and you should make it this weekend. It's not totally authentic - I think boneless ribeye is normally used, and this is flank. But the idea is there.

The marinade is easy: put 1 peeled kiwi, 1 chopped onion, a dousing each of soy sauce, Chinese cooking wine, and sesame oil, a couple of cloves of garlic, a spoonful of sugar and salt and pepper into a blender and press "go." I marinated the raw meat for about an hour (next time, I'll add a couple of hours to that), and then tossed it on the grill. Two pounds of meat fed four of us, which is like Refrigerator Perry portions. As Homer would say, Mmmmm, steak.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Hate the regime, love the food


Man, I wish that Kim Jong-il wasn't such an a-hole. His crazy motherfucker antics would be mildly amusing if he wasn't pointing an a-bomb at Honolulu. And, for obvious reasons, watching a thousand goose-stepping soldiers march through the town square doesn't exactly make me feel all calm inside, either.

But, boy, do I love Korean food. I first got a taste at Steve's Lunch in Ann Arbor during college. Ann Arbor is pretty much the epicenter of Korean food in the U.S., or so it seems. There are more Korean restaurants than Chinese restaurants in Ann Arbor, which I could chalk up to who's going to school there. But it also made me wonder: is Kim Jong-il infiltrating American college campuses with the very convincing method of plying unwitting, hungry students with Korean barbecue to get them to join the cause?

Until you've tried bul go gi (Korean for "this is fucking awesome"), you can't understand how possible that is. Paper thin slices of ribeye are marinated in one of those transformative marinades made sweet with kiwis, salty with soy sauce, and tangy with rice vinegar. The pieces of meat are cooked quickly over a smokey fire, and then wrapped in lettuce leaves and devoured.

This is the stuff from which addictions are made. And borne from that are citizens in drab gray garb, wearing solidarity arm bands and worshipping their "Dear Leader," with goose-stepping soldiers not far behind. That is the power of bul go gi.

So eat with caution. And just know that Vietnamese barbecue is similar, and as far as I know, they're not enriching plutonium as we speak.