Korean Grilled Bulgogi Steak

I’m so excited to introduce you to this meal! It is a staple in my household, and it is one of my favorite dinners, Korean grilled bulgogi steak! Remember when I talked about bulgogi in the Asbury Park post? This is the best way to get that amazing Korean flavor at home! This recipe is reeeally good, but I like to tweak a few parts of it to make it great!

The key ingredient in Korean barbecue style cooking is a magical sauce called gochujang, fermented red chili paste! It sounds pretty fancy, but it’s pretty easy to find in most grocery stores. It’s just spicy enough that it gives a little kick, but isn’t overpowering at all. Now, what are we putting this gochujang on? Steeeaaakkk. There really is an art to buying the perfect steak, and it’s an art I have not mastered yet. With so many different types of cuts, it can get pretty confusing. Though the recipe calls for either skirt or flank steak, I decided to try something new because right next to the skirt steak and the flank steak was the hanger steak. In my professional steak buying terminology, I would say this steak just looked… steakier. And cheaper. Half the price cheaper. So I bought it. And guess what! It was perfect. It was much more tender and more flavorful than the skirt or flank cut, and it worked really well for this dish! I guess buying steak isn’t really that hard after all!

The steak is the star in this dish, but all the extras just make it even better. The recipe calls for sliced cucumbers as a garnish. Plain old cucumbers are okay, but we don’t do boring in my house. Try making a pickled cucumber and red onion salad! Thinly slice (use a mandoline if you have one!) one cucumber and half an onion in 3 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar, a pinch of sugar, and a little salt and pepper to taste. I didn’t mix the cucumbers and onions together this time, but you definitely can. The longer they sit, the better they will be! Since the marinade for the steak uses rice wine vinegar, this salad fits into the meal perfectly and really brings out a lot of flavor.

Usually I use rice like the recipe says to go under the steak. This time, however, I forgot to buy rice, so I decided to make lettuce wraps! In theory this was a great idea. But… eh. I’m pretty bad at folding them for one thing. A folding failure really. I tried to fold one and then I overstuffed it and it fell apart so I tried to do it taco style and it just was not happening. I ended up eating most of it with a fork. Aside from the fact that it’s much easier to eat, I like the rice better because of the way it soaks up the tangy, spicy sauce.

Speaking of spicy, an absolute must is using the kimchi as a side dish! I loooove kimchi– pickled veggies like cabbage, carrots, and scallions with garlic and red chili! It’s spicy and sour and wonderful. This time, I got fresh kimchi from Whole Foods! It was crazy spicy and powerfully delicious. Usually though, I get the brand Sunja’s Kimchi (it’s available in lots of grocery stores) and this one is amazing as well!