Ambitious Delicious(ness)

I spent the last couple of days cranking out a bunch of Korean dishes for a special dinner. You see, back in June, I had the privilege to go to Haiti for 10 days. In order to raise funds, our team held a silent auction. I offered a Korean meal for two and D&T won! So I planned the menu around classic Korean dishes, and everything turned out well (for the most part).

Our dinner consisted of seasoned cucumber salad, dry squid moochim, spicy fishcakes, spinach moochim, shittake mushroom bokkeum, Kimchi, crab and scallion jeon, tofu jjorim, dwen jang jjigae, pork bulgogi, pumpkin galbi jjim, ddukbokki and pound cake with fresh whipped cream for dessert.

I forgot to take photos of the entire thing. Thanks again for your support, D&T!

Galbi (short ribs) jjim literally means steamed galbi. In essence, you use the same seasonings as you would for grilled galbi for this dish except that you cut the meat differently and use a different cooking method.

Keep in mind that you will need cook this at least two hours, so cutting corners is not an option. Unless you want to end up with rough, pieces of meat that refuse to fall off the bone, make sure you have time to commit to this recipe before getting started.

I saw this Japanese squash at the grocery store and decided to experiment by adding this instead of the usual potatoes. The squash is orange on the inside and all it needs is a little bit of heat to bring out its wonderful sweetness. This was the perfect addition to the slow braised beef!

And lastly, I used honey and Asian pears for sweetness, and a little bit of sugar.

Recipe: Kabocha Galbi Jjim
Makes 5-6 servings

Ingredients:

5 pounds of Galbi ribs, cut lengthwise (Asian markets will have this)
1 Kobocha squash, peeled and cubed
2 Asian pears, peeled and pureed
1/4 cup of rice wine
4 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of minced ginger
2 tablespoons of honey
2 teaspoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 teaspoons of gochugaru
8 cloves of garlic, mashed
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed (optional)

Procedure:

1. Rinse the meat under running water. Pat dry. Cut into smaller chunks, leaving one bone chunk in each piece.

2. In a large pot, add 4 cups of water. Add the meat and boil for 10 minutes.

3. Turn off heat. Remove gunk that floats to the top with a slotted spoon (or a sieve).

4. Transfer meat chunks to another bowl and pour pureed pear over the meat.

5. Save beef broth in a different bowl. Wash the pot (or use a different one).

6. Combine beef broth, soy sauce, rice wine, minced ginger, honey, sugar, sesame oil, gochugaru and garlic in a bowl. Pour half of the broth into the pot, along with meat pieces. The broth should cover only about 1/2 of the pot.

7. Cover the pot and cook on high heat for at least 90 minutes. You can open the lid and take a peek at the one hour mark but not before that. It is very important to keep the pot closed.

(*It is super red because used too much gochugaru. However, I was able to fix it by getting rid of most of the sauce and diluting it with water. Then I recooked it with new seasonings. Disaster averted, thankfully!)

8. After 90 minutes, give the meat a good stir and add more of the broth. Cook for another 30 minutes. At this point, the meat should fall off the bone on its own.

9. Add Kabocha pieces to the pot. Cover and cook on low for 5 minutes. Be careful, you don’t want the squash to overcook. Turn off heat and serve!