Monday 24 January 2011

Bulgogi Beef with Bean Sprouts & Chilli Chive Dressing



Sunday's dinner was adapted from Beyond Kimchee’s guest recipe on Rasa Malaysia’s blog.  Originally I was going to use a bulgogi marinade I picked up in Chinatown a week or so ago but on Friday my friend Linda & I checked out a new Turkish / Meditereanean supermarket on the edge of the North Circular & I managed to grab some Asian pears so decided to make the marinade from scratch after all.  

The other major changes were that I used mung bean sprouts rather than soya bean (which I’m not sure I’ve seen in supermarkets here), so the cooking time for them was reduced, and for convenience sake I used dashi instead of the anchovy & kelp stock.

I served this with a little bit of kimchi on the side as suggested but also with stir-fried flowering chives (with some pancetta as I had half a packet in the fridge and the saltiness & rendered fat go well with the garlicky chives):

So, a bit of a mishmash then in terms of asian cooking but very tasty all the same - the chive dressing in particular is delicious and would be great as a condiment with all sorts of things.

Bulgogi Beef with bean sprouts and chive dressing
Serves 2
250g soy bean sprouts
5g sachet dashi seasoning
150g sushi rice  
150g beef mince
Chive dressing
3 tbsp chopped Chinese chives (you could use normal chives or spring onion - make sure you use the green parts if the latter)
4 tsp Korean chili powder or flakes
¼ green chili seeded and chopped
¼ red chili seeded and chopped
1 small clove of garlic, minced
3 tbsp soy sauce (light if possible)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp roasted sesame seeds
pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Bulgogi marinade
4 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
¼ asian pear (or normal pear or apple if not available) pureed - I put the chopped up pear in my grinder and pureed it
1 tsp mirin (or rice wine)
1 small clove garlic, pureed with the pear
¼  tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp roasted sesame seeds


Soak the rice in the water for 30 minutes, drain & set aside.
While the rice is soaking, mix all the marinade together in a small bowl and then mix the mince. Set aside.
Mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile place bean sprouts in a pot with the dashi and 200ml of water. Cover with a lid and cook over a medium heat until it starts to steam.  Reduce the heat to low & continue to cook (still covered) for about 3 minutes.  Drain the bean sprouts and reserve the broth.

Add the reserved broth to the rice in a heavy bottom pan (I would normally use my rice cooker but was unsure what setting to use as I don’t normally soak rice), cover, bring to the boil then reduce heat to very low and cook for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the beef mixture in a pan until browned.

Place the cooked rice in a big individual bowl, top with the beef and then bean sprouts, and top with the chive dressing (about 1½ tbsp per person - or more to taste).  Mix everything up a la bibimbap!

Stirfried Chinese chives with pancetta
50g pancetta cubes
100g chinese chives cut into 5cm lengths
Schezuan pepper oil / groundnut oil

Cut the pancetta cubes into even smaller morsels & stirfry them in a drop or two of schezuan oil until the fat starts to render but they haven’t gone too crispy (less than a minute) .

Throw in the flowering chives and stirfry until tender: a few minutes.  You can check for seasoning but personally I don’t think it needs any.



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