Korean Barbeque

As we sat down to breakfast last Saturday, Kimberly said, out of the blue, "Korean barbeque sounds good." Well, as a sucker for Asian cuisine, I immediately reached for the Korean cookbook that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago. Although I've read it, I have never actually cooked out of it.

A quick phone call revealed that the Green Onion Market on Neil. St. not just carries bulgogi meat (Korean barbeque), but that they even have it pre-marinated! This place is great. They have a large selection of fresh items, including meats, vegetables, fish, and Korean side dishes. They also have huge jars of kimchi. No Korean meal is complete without it. They just happened to have a special on the bulgogi, and even had some cooked up for tasting. Excellent!

First, we prepared several banchan dishes, which are the small side dishes that are served with Korean meals. We made kohng namool (seasoned soy sprouts), shigumchi namool (seasoned spinach), gamja jolim (seasoned potatoes), and of course the kimchi.



For the kids, we made mixed rice bowls. These are similar to Chinese stir-fry, except each ingredient is stir-fried separately. They looked impressive, but only Ethan was very interested.



Finally, Kimberly and I ate the bulgogi Korean style: wrapped up in a lettuce leaf with some rice.

The whole meal required about 1 1/2 hours to prepare and was delicious. I'm sure we'll be having this again in the coming weeks.