Fast Bulgogi 2 Ways: Beef and Vegan
This is Korean bulgogi two ways: a very fast recipe with beef and a vegan variant, so you can have a dinner party and skip the debate of diet restrictions. There's a spicy cucumber banchan on the side, and the marinade has a trick in it, half a kiwi, whose enzymes tenderize the meat.
Ingredients
- 1 nice ribeye or sirloin steak, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp sesame oil, for the wok
- 1 small onion, in half rings
- 2 green onions, chopped
- a sprinkle toasted white sesame seeds
- 5 tbsp soy sauce
- 1.5 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 small onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 green onion, chopped
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/2 kiwi (or a sweet apple or Asian pear)
- 80 ml water
- 1 pack Beyond ground beef, pressed and torn into strips
- 1 small onion, in half rings
- 2 green onions, chopped
- 300 g Japanese short-grain rice, washed three times
- 360 ml water
- 1/2 cucumber, sliced
- 2 green onions, finely sliced
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/2 tbsp gochugaru (Korean chili flakes; regular chili flakes work, you'll just miss some flavor)
- 1 tsp white sesame seeds
- a few thin long strips of green onion, curled in ice water
Method
Beef bulgogi
- 1
Slice the steak thin. Trick: semi-freeze the steak for about an hour (or let a frozen one thaw until you can just cut through it), that gets you those thin strips. Always cut against the grain. Or ask your butcher for shabu-shabu meat, which is thinly sliced beef.
- 2
Blend all marinade ingredients until completely smooth. The kiwi's enzymes tenderize the meat.
- 3
Pour the marinade over the beef and massage it in so every slice is coated evenly. Cover with plastic wrap and fridge for 1 hour or overnight, at least an hour, but not too long, or the fruit enzymes tear the meat down into mush.
- 4
Chop 2 green onions and 1 small onion into nice half rings; set aside.
- 5
Cook the rice: 1 part rice to 1.2 parts water (300 g rice, 360 ml water) in the rice cooker or a pan, 12 to 15 minutes, after washing the rice three times.
- 6
For garnish, slice thin long strips of green onion into ice water so they curl up nicely.
- 7
Get a wok ripping hot with sesame oil and carefully add the beef, keeping as much marinade liquid out of the pan as you can. Stir-fry on medium-high to high for about a minute.
- 8
Once the marinade starts to evaporate, add the green onion and onion. Cook until the liquid has almost completely evaporated, then finish with toasted white sesame seeds.
Vegan bulgogi
- 9
Make the exact same marinade and blend until smooth.
- 10
Press the Beyond ground beef together a little, tear off strips, and drop them into the marinade. Cover and fridge for an hour or more.
- 11
Cut the onion and green onions like before. A flat pan works here too, anything is possible in life.
- 12
Add the strips to the pan with minimal liquid, cook a minute or two, add the onions and green onions, and let the water evaporate completely.
Spicy cucumber banchan
- 13
Slice the half cucumber into a bowl with the finely sliced green onions.
- 14
Mix the soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sugar, gochugaru and sesame seeds, dress the cucumber, and serve in a cute little bowl next to the bulgogi.
Serving
- 15
Rice at the bottom of the bowl, bulgogi on top, sesame seeds and the curled green onions to finish. I left the sesame off the vegan one just to tell them apart, it's your party, do whatever you like.
8 tools I used.
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