BULGOGI AT HOME : KOREAN BARBECUE

Korea Town in Los Angeles made me fall in love with Korean Barbecue . We have had our share of Korean Barbecue, across cities,hence then. From the famous Kogi Food Truck, in LA, to Chosun Barbecue, in Kansas City, we made sure our bellies and hearts were full. The sizzle of the grill, when the marinated beef touches it, the caramelization and the unmistakable taste and texture, whats not to love about it.

Bulgogi , is a Korean Barbecue staple. Bul means Fire, and Gogi means Meat.  Almost paper thin slices of beef, are marinated, and then grilled . If you are at a Korean restaurant, then your server, brings you, your choice of meat, and you grill it , to your taste. If you are making Bulgogi, at home, then you have the choice to either grill it, or pan fry it in a cast iron pan. While my husband loves to grill, this time around, we decided to use our cast iron pan. The juices don't fall in the fire, if you pan fry them. So you have higher chances of not making your meat dry, if you are doing it at home.

We were shopping at the local Pan Asian store, when I came across a tray of Beef marked -Bulgogi Beef. The trick with Bulgogi is convincing your butcher, to cut those paper thin slices of Rib eye or Sirloin or Flank Steak. If you are already getting pre-cut Bulgogi Beef, then just grab it.

What makes it different, from any other stir fried Beef, besides the cut of meat? Its a star ingredient in the marinade. Bulgogi is marinated among other things, in Asian Pear Puree. The Pear acts as a meat tendersizer and also helps in caramelizing the meat, when it hits the pan or grill. We could not lay our hands on Asian Pears this time, so we settled for an ordinary pear. It didn't make much of a difference in taste, honestly. Soy sauce, sesame oil, onion - ginger-garlic puree/paste are the other ingredients. You can use julienned onions and carrots, in the marinade and grill them with the meat. The soy is the basic salting agent. Its very important that you let the meat marinate overnight. It helps in breaking those connecting tissues, in the already thinly sliced beef. Grill or pan fry them meat, till you can see it getting caramelized along the edges. If you are pan frying it, then make sure you dry out all the liquid. You can garnish with some sesame seeds, if you like. I don't prefer that, so we didn't do it. And Bulgogi is best served over a bed of hot steamed rice.

Its a very easy dinner idea, if you do the meal prep a day earlier. Throw on the marinated meat on the grill, and all it takes is 10 minutes or even less.

BULGOGI AT HOME :

Recipe adapted from : https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/bulgogi

Ingredients :
Beef Sirloin/Tenderloin/Rib eye : Thinly sliced - 1/2 inch x 2 inchx1/8th of an inch thick (cut against the grain)
Asian Pear/Pear : Puree : 1/2 cup
Onion : Puree : 1/4 cup
Garlic : 4 large cloves
Soy Sauce : 2 tbsp
Green onion : 1 chopped (we had run out of it )
Brown Sugar : 2 tbsp
Black Pepper Powder : A pinch
Carrot: 1/2 large
Toasted Sesame Oil : 1 tbsp

Procedure:
Skin the pear and core it. Throw it in the blender along with onion and blend to a paste. Finely mince the garlic and ginger. Mix it all together in a large bowl.

Julienne the carrots.

Mix in the rest of the ingredients into the marinade.

Carefully separate the slices of beef and dunk it in the marinade. Close the lid of your marination bowl and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

We had pan fried our Bulgogi in a cast iron pan. Cook it till all the liquid has disappeared and the meat has started to caramelise.

Serve over a bed of steamed rice.

Bon Appetit ! 

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SLOW ROASTED GOAT LEG FOR THANKSGIVING

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all ! I am so Thankful to all of my fabulous readers like you. We hosted a Friendsgiving Dinner at our place. The menu was meticulously planned and executed by my Master Chef husband - Debashish. He loves to cook. He understands and appreciates food and ingredients in a totally brilliant light. Our Main Courses for the night were SLOW ROASTED GOAT LEG and CRAB GHEE ROAST.

Lets talk about Slow Roasted Goat Leg for this post. This is a specialty of my husband. Whenever he makes it, people cant stop raving about it. But its never been featured on the blog, so thought, why not. I know Goat is an acquired taste, but if you prefer lamb, you can just substitute it with Lamb Leg. In fact Lamb will cook faster than goat.

The Slow Roasted Leg of Goat(Lamb) is a Work of Art, a Labor of Love. You bring it in to your dinning table, you are bound to have your guests exclaim in delight.

When you go to your Butcher, you have to ask for a Leg of Goat or Lamb. They will trim the fat and the silver skin, and get it all spruced up for you. We picked ours up on Tuesday evening.

The key to a good roast, is the marination. How and When you do it , to be more specific. It does need 48 hours of marination. You have to realize, that ts a large hunk of meat on the bone, which does need its special treatment. The secret to a tender goat leg, is in a primary element in the marinade - Raw Papaya. Its a natural meat tenderizer. It actually does wonders. Make sure you make incisions along the meat, so that the marinade goes in, and it cooks evenly. While the raw papaya mixture is the first marinade, its followed by a second round of marinade the next day. And it was roasted on Thanksgiving Day,which was technically the 3rd day.

Without much further, let the Step by Step pictures do the talking.


SLOW ROASTED GOAT LEG :

Ingredients : 
Goat Leg - 1
Raw Papaya : 1 (Grated)
Ginger - Garlic Powder
Raw Ginger - 2 inches - cut into thick slivers
Garlic Gloves - 7- 8 (Cut in half)
Salt
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Cumin Powder
Coriander Powder
Fennel Seeds
Red Chili Powder

Pulao : (If you are making)
Rice - 2 cups
Poatoes : 2 - 4

Procedure: 
Pat the goat leg dry with a paper towel. Place it on your roasting pan with grill tray.

With a sharp knife , make incisions along the meat for the marinade to sink in deeper.

Lightly smash garlic cloves and 1/4 inch pieces of ginger. Put them in the incision you just made.

Make a dry rub of ginger and garlic powder and dust it on the leg. Its all about building layers of flavor.

Grate or make a paste of raw papaya, and some more ginger and garlic. Goat has a very gamey flavor, so the ginger and garlic , help in neutrazing it. Or if you want, you can just use raw papaya, for this step.

Cover it with the raw papaya marinade on  both sides. Then tightly cover the meat in foil and let it rest in the fridge for a day. We did this step on Tuesday night.

We got the goat leg out of the metal foil covering on Thursday early evening, and scraped off the papaya marinade gently with the back of a spoon.

Then prepared a dry rub with cumin, coriander, fennel , red chili powders, and salt and sugar to taste. Liberally coat the Goat leg on both sides with this spice rub.

You could roast it in a pre - heated oven for 2 hours, checking every 45 minutes. Or could you roast it over a bed of rice ad potatoes, to make an instant pulao. Add a cup of water to 2 cups of rice . Place the goat leg on a grill, as shown in the picture. The goat drippings fall on the rice and it gets aromatic.

Get the goat rest for at least 15 minutes, before you start carving it. You could garnish with dry herbs or you could add some fresh cilantro to the final few minutes of roasting.

Sorry about the fact that there are not so great pictures of when the Goat was finally done. I was busy playing hostess, and later saw that none of the pictures were satisfactory, although a ton of pictures had been taken. I promise to update the post,whenever we make it next.

Bon Appetit !

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CHOSUN KOREAN BARBECUE

Recently being back from LA and having explored the food scene, in a true Food Blogger style, Korean Barbecue was high on our minds. My husband had found about this joint in KC which was really well known for their Korean Barbecue. Mind you, we were still under a food coma of Koreatown in LA so the stakes of comparison were a bit high.

We were accompanied by our friends. So it was 4 adults and two toddlers who were dinning that night.

Chosun Korean Barbecue is located in Overland Park . The exterior is so dimly lit that you could even think that the place is closed for business. We had to step in to find out whether they were open or not. First Red Flag.

I wanted to taste some Korean Beer. But our server seemed absolutely blank when I asked him about beer options. He kept repeating the options, which I can probably pick up on a Friday evening, from my local Walmart.

Last of all, my husband asked him if he had anything special in Beers. I am very patient with people who might find it difficult to understand English, so we worded the question differently. The server came back with two Japanese Beers  for me and Hubs. I didn't want to argue any further.

We started off with the BibimBap. Its a bed of steamed rice, topped with a variety of fresh seasoned vegetables, beef and topped with a panfried egg. I had requested the server that I need to photograph the food, before he serves it, as I am a Food Blogger . I explained further that its my job to write about Food. Probably he didn't take me seriously or didnt understand. My husband explained in clear terms that he needs to wait for us to tell him when to serve the food. Despite all the ardent requests, he was in such a mad rush to serve up the BibimBap. Hence no picture of it. Coming to taste, it wasn't out of the world.

It was already Three Red Flags.

For our Main Course, we opted for Combo 2 of  Korean Barbecue: Large Beef Rib Eye, Beef Ribs, Bulgogi. Pork Belly and Pork Shoulder. It serves 3- 4 people according to their Menu. Korean Barbecue involves table side cooking. So every table has a pit in the table, fitted with a grill. yes, you got to be very careful with toddlers. The waiter brings in your share of tenderized and marinated cuts of meat, which are then cooked and rested in front of you, by the server. Somehow our server was not very keen at all, on having us cook our own food. We have done that in the past in many different eateries across the mainland. Interactive barbecue. So we didn't bother arguing any more with him. 

Salad and Banchan(Korean Side dishes) are complimentary with Barbecue. The Kimchi and the fluffy egg were quite good to nibble on, as we waited for the first of our meat to be grilled.

The Rib Eye was grilled last and it rounded off the meal well. It was a meat overload in a good sort of way. The meat were seasoned well, and grilled to perfection. And the portion size was good enough for 4 adults.

By this time, our bellies were full, but we weren't too happy with our server. The restaurant was almost empty  and they were in a rush to see us off ,we felt. The Manager Kevin Wong, proabably sensed something was wrong. He came up to out table to talk to us and introduced us to the owner Carrie. They were very proud and insistent that they serve only USDA Prime. Now that's where I need to differ. I know my meat well. While I am not arguing that the meat was good, but no way was that Rib Eye USDA Prime as they kept on stressing. Carrie and Kevin are good hosts, but their servers need to be more attentive and receptive . Service needs to improve.

Will I be going back? Yes, I will, at least once, To check whether this time around the service is better for me to enjoy my Beer and Barbecue on a Friday night. 

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CHAR BAR, KC : EATING OUT

Weeknights and eating out are fairly common for us, like most other suburban families. Be it exploring a new joint downtown, or going ahead to the neighborhood favorites, we make sure we are sampling something from someone else's kitchen. Its nice to sit back, relax and have someone cook for us and even serve you at the table. And don't worry about dishes and cleaning up the table. Last week I was attending the launch of THE BLOG GUILD downtown, and the Man and our daughter were spending some quality time, while running errands. So we decided to head out to dinner after all our individual plans for the evening had concluded.

The man had been talking of going over to CHAR BAR and this seems the perfect opportunity as we were almost in the neighborhood. So Thursday became a barbecue dinner night for us.

The large parking lot was indeed a blessing as most places downtown have a huge struggle with that. you often have to park at a nearby lot and walk up to the restaurant of your choice.But CHAR BAR had a personal, and fairly large parking lot of their own. Which meant we had to walk less.

The decor was like a typical gastro pub but I loved the brick walls all round. Gave it an old school rustic charm I felt. It was pretty spacious, with outdoor seating and even some option of some outdoor games to keep you busy while you wait for your food. Or if you just want to indulge in a game bout with your buddies while chugging on some local brews. Smoked Meats and Amusements, as their website claims.

When it comes to menus, the first thing we look for, are the options for kids. We opted for SMOKED MAC CHICKEN NUGGETS for our daughter. Rather than being nuggets, there were more more big chunks of country fried, smoked chicken pieces. It came with a flight of sauces or dips to dunk your chicken in: Buffalo Mayo, Spicy BBQ, Buttermilk Chive and Carolina Gold.

 The Crust had a good crunch to it and the smokiness are all prevalent. Maybe a bit too strong  for kids. But for a typical Barbecue loving toddler Kansan, it was right up the alley. The picky eater was surely digging in. Bon Appetit, Mommy said in her mind  !!

We started off with LOBSTER DEVILED EGGS. If deviled eggs were not decadent enough, then you add lobsters to it. I felt the presentation as way too sloppy. It looked like a thirteen year old, was having a first go at making deviled eggs, in terms of presentation. They would have looked better if the boiled egg yolks had been piped in, using a curly or star piping tip. Would have looked more professional. And the sauce was hastily smeared below. It looked very sloppy and unprofessional. But taste wise, they were pretty decent. The pea shoots added a nice crunch.

I had been sipping on some wine, at THE BLOG GUILD LAUNCH, so I opted for a beer to pair with my eats. ODELL'S MYRCENARY  DOUBLE IPA. The man was driving so stuck to his iced water. And boy did the Beer pack a punch. It was not your regular lighter beer which you can chug all night long, without even realizing anything This was strong and had a few layers of taste , when it hit your tongue. I am surely gonna be looking for this beer whenever I eat out next.

For our main course, we opted for the BBQ TRAYS with a choice of three meats. They came with a side of pickles and Texas Toast, a choice of sides. We decided on CRISPY JO- JO POTATOES for our side, which came in a nice mug. the LO made a dash for the mug the moment it arrived at our table. For our meats, it was BLACK ANGUS BRISKET , PULLED PORK BUTT and HAND CRANKED SAUSAGES . 

As Kansas City is the city of Barbecue, you always tend to compare the fare with the other local favorites. The brisket was the best of the three and had a nice smoke ring on it. The Pulled Pork was a tad bit dry and the sausage was  just about so so. Had we just opted for the Brisket, it would have been a smarter choice on our part.

The service was great and our server kept checking in on us, without being intrusive. I had a mind to try  my hand at the outdoor amusements in the backyard, but it was already getting late on a weeknight. Maybe next time. Want to check out their brunch fare, maybe on a cool crisp Fall Morning. Cant believe how short this Summer is turning out to be.

CHAR BAR
Website: http://charbarkc.com
Address: 
4050 Pensylvania Avenue
Kansas City, MO 64111

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post and the dinner was paid for us in full. The opinions expressed are those of mine. 

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