Food Safari's Bulgogi

This is a tasty dish of marinated beef, tenderised and flavoured with a blend of nashi pear and onion then cooked on a hot plate. Koreans love to eat bulgogi wrapped in lettuce leaves, sometimes with a small amount of steamed rice in the lettuce too, and with condiments such as kimchi, gochujang (chilli paste) or doenjang (soybean paste), which are all available from Korean food stores.

Ingredients:

• 600g Beef scotch fillet, sliced as thinly as possible
• 185ml Soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp Water
• 1 Tbsp Crushed garlic
• 40g Sugar
• Pinch Salt and pepper
• 1 Nashi pear, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
• 1 1/2 Onions, 1 roughly chopped and 1/2 finely sliced
• 1 Tbsp Sesame oil
• 3 Spring onions

Garnishes and accompaniments

• Sesame seeds
• Pine nuts
• Red chilli, very finely julienned
• Lettuce leaves
• Kimchi, gochujang (Chilli paste) or doenjang (Soybean paste)

Method:

Combine the beef with the soy sauce, water, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. Puree the pear and chopped onion and stir into the beef. Leave to marinate for approximately 30 minutes. Just before cooking, stir through the sesame oil.

Heat a heavy-based frying pan and add a little oil. Grill the beef (in batches if necessary) for around 3 minutes, adding some of the marinade towards the end so the beef doesn’t dry out. Add the sliced onion and spring onion and cook for another minute.

Garnish the beef with sesame seeds, pine nuts and chilli. Serve immediately with lettuce leaves and condiments.

Notes:

• Koreans love to eat bulgogi by placing a small amount of steamed rice in a lettuce leaf, a slice of bulgogi and small amount of kimchi (pickled fermented vegetable available in Asian stores). Roll up and eat.

• It is polite in Korea not to bite into your bulgogi parcel. Most Koreans will eat it in one bite.