The Korean's Summer Barbecue Recipe

The Korean strives to be a reasonable, even-keeled person, but he cannot help himself in one particular area: Korean food. When it comes to Korean food, the Korean will be more unreasonable than a tiger sports dad attending a peewee football game. He will be totally biased, irrational and obnoxious. He will utterly disregard the reasonable preference of everyone else. He will lose his shit and wantonly issue death threats to anyone who gives a bad recipe.

The most recent recipient of the Korean's rage is Mark Bittman, who presented this "Korean" recipe to the New York Times. Now, the Korean actually likes Mark Bittman's work, as Mr. Bittman presents great insights on food and food culture. Mr. Bittman also gave a clear disclaimer: "I will not (and cannot) claim that every element of this menu is legitimately Korean." And please, read the paragraph above just one more time -- the Korean is not a rational person when it comes to Korean food. He is a crazy raving lunatic. You don't have to listen to him.

Having said all that...

GO DIE IN A FIRE, MARK BITTMAN. Boston lettuce leaves for ssam? Why not eat sandpaper instead? And gochujang for ssam too? What are you, 10 years old? And who told you that there is such Korean food as "grilled scallion salad" and "Korean potato salad"? Where did you get your recipe from, David Chang?

And the greatest, most unforgivable sin of all -- soy sauce in kimchi. What the fuck. WHAT. THE. FUCK. The Korean nearly had a heart attack just reading that. Thanks asshole, soon all the trendy restaurants will serve soy sauce cabbage and call it kimchi (but pronouncing it "keem-shee".) Go to hell and die.

And the idiots who commented on the article about how gochujang (chili bean paste) is never made with beans, fuck you too. Gochujang is made with beans. Have you even seen a meju, dipshit? That's the fermented block of ground beans, from which doenjang, gochujang and ganjang are made. It also looks like your face -- ugly. Shut the fuck up if you don't know what you're talking about.

Ok. Alright. Even amid this irrationality, the Korean still has enough sense to think: if you don't like something, don't just criticize -- offer an improved suggestion. So here are the Korean's suggested recipe for a real deal, backyard Korean barbecue.

The recipes, after the jump.

Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at askakorean@gmail.com.


Here is the Korean's suggested Korean barbecue spread -- meat, a side dish, a nice chilled soup to wash it down, and a summery dessert.

L.A. Galbi  [L.A. 갈비]

Ingredients
Beef short ribs, cut horizontally
Soy sauce
Sugar
Minced garlic
Sesame oil
Toasted sesame seeds
Grated onion
Scallions
Kiwi

Cooking
- Soak the short ribs in cold water for at least 30 minutes, up to 1.5 hour. This lets out the blood from the beef and allows for a better marinade. Keep changing water until no more blood comes out, then drain.

- Make the marinade. Pour a few cups of soy sauce in the bowl. Taste, and remember that baseline. Add sugar until the marinade becomes significantly sweet. (Usually achieved at around 1/4 part of sugar for every one part of soy sauce.) Add minced garlic, about half to 2/3 of the amount of sugar. Add grated onion, in approximately the same amount as the minced garlic. Add some measure of sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds and cut scallion, adjusting to taste. (Note: This marinade will take some trial and error, but each ingredient may be adjusted depending on personal taste. Just remember that the actual meat will be much less salty/sweet/etc. than the marinade.)

- Add grated kiwi to the marinade -- no more than 1/2 kiwi per pound of beef. Kiwi makes the beef soft, but too much kiwi ruins the texture.

- In a large bowl, put a layer of ribs. Use a spoon to apply the marinade, and add another layer of meat on top. Apply the marinade again, repeat. Marinade in the refrigerator between two to 24 hours.

- Grill, preferably on charcoal. Grill well-done, with slight char on the outside. Start with the meat on the bottom of the marinade bowl, as the liquid marinade sinks to the bottom.

- Note: the meat actually does not have to be the ribs, but that is the meat of choice for Korean Americans. The marinade works equally well with brisket or chicken, for example. In fact, as the name suggests, L.A. galbi is a distinctively Korean American dish, as Korean Americans popularized the use of short ribs instead of whole ribs as Koreans in Korea do.

Scallion Salad [파무침/파절이]

Ingredients
Scallion and/or Korean leek
Red leaf lettuce
Sesame leaves
Garlic cloves, cut thinly.
Long hot green peppers, thinly cut diagonally
Ssamjang [쌈장] - buy it from a Korean market
L.A. Galbi
Scallion salad

Cooking/Eating
This is actually not a separate dish, but a manner of eating meat. Grab either a red leaf lettuce leaf or sesame leaf (or both layered together, as the Korean likes to do,) and place on top the meat, scallion salad, garlic cloves, cut peppers and ssamjang. The cut garlic gloves may be cooked on the grill also, if you prefer cooked garlic over raw ones. Make a small bowl with aluminum foil, place the cut garlic gloves and put it on top of the grill. Make a small wrap with the leaf. Eat.

Chilled Cucumber Soup [오이냉국]

Ingredients