Korea
Bulgogi
Thin-sliced beef in a soy-pear-sesame marinade, grilled fast at the table — the dish that taught the world Korean BBQ.
Asian pear is the marinade.
Korean cooks use grated Asian pear (or pineapple, or kiwi) for two reasons — sugar for the caramelisation, and protease enzymes that tenderise the beef without turning it mushy. A bulgogi marinated in just soy and sugar is a soy steak. A bulgogi marinated in pear is bulgogi.
4 · Plate
Korea
Bulgogi
Thin-sliced beef in a soy-pear-sesame marinade, grilled fast at the table — the dish that taught the world Korean BBQ.
Bulgogi (불고기, “fire meat”) is one of the oldest Korean preparations — the ancestral maekjeok of the Goguryeo period (1st c. BCE – 7th c. CE) was meat skewered on bamboo and grilled over open flame. The marinated, thin-sliced form is more recent; it crystallised during the Joseon dynasty as a banquet dish for the Korean court and turned into a popular restaurant dish in the 20th century.
The home version is one of the easiest Korean dishes to make well. The marinade is forgiving, the cook is fast, and the dish wants nothing more than a pan, a heat source, and patience to slice the beef thin enough — partially freezing a steak for 30 minutes makes this a knife job rather than a struggle.
Wrap in ssam.
A leaf of perilla or red lettuce in the palm, a piece of grilled beef, a smear of ssamjang, a sliver of garlic, a chunk of rice, sometimes a sliced chili. Fold into a ball, in one bite. Korean BBQ is a hand-eating cuisine; chopsticks miss the point.