Kalbi, Marinated Beef Short Ribs

I'm so so into Korean food these days.

Frankly, I've never like Korean food. The only Korean food I knew while growing up was Seoul Garden in Singapore. It's a Korean BBQ buffet restaurant with so many varieties of heavily marinated meats (with tenderizer I think !!).

In the past year, we started trying out Korean restaurants around KK & I start to fall in love with Korean food. Guess what ? I'm beginning to enjoy Kimchi ! So far, I think Kimchi at Hi-Seoul, Likas Square, is the best, so fresh, so crunchy. I'm looking forward to my Korean friend's new restaurant opening at City Mall.

I even started cooking Korean at home. In fact, Korean cooking is not difficult, just the right ingredients you'll get the dish right.

I was shopping at Merderka Supermarket 2 weeks ago & spotted some beef short ribs in their freezer section. Immediately, Kalbi came to my mind. I know hubby likes ribs so I grabbed a kilo of it. This is quite a big portion for 4 of us as the ribs were cut into thin slices.

After browsing through my recipe books, I found a great recipe :

1 Sweet Chinese pear, peeled
1 Tart green apple, peeled
1 Onion, peeled
1kg Beef short ribs, sliced

Marinade :

6 Tbsp Soya sauce
3 Tbsp rice wine
2 Tbsp sesame oil
3 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp roasted sesame seeds, crushed
6 Cloves garlic, crushed

Finely grate the pear, apple & onion into a large bowl, add the beef short ribs & mix thoroughly. Set aside to allow the meat to tenderize.

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl, mix well & pour it over the beef, mixing thoroughly until the beef is well coated with the marinade. Cover & let marinade for at least 4 hours or overnight in the fridge.

Heat a frying pan or grill over medium heat until very hot. fry the beef ribs, in batches, for 2-3 mins on each side until golden brown. Remove from heat & transfer to serving platters. Garnish with roasted sesame seeds & serve with rice.

We had this over 2 meals in a day, lunch for hubby & I, and dinner for the 4 of us. Hubby thought it was good, very well marinated with natural ingredients.



Now, what is Korean food without any side dish ? No, I can't make Kimchi. So I could only come up with their most common salad, the sigumchi namul, which is seasoned spinach. But I don't have any spinach in my fridge that day, so I've substituted the spinach with choy sum.
How to :

300g Choy Sum, chopped & washed
3 Tbsp Soya sauce
2 Cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp Sesame oil
1 Tbsp Roasted sesame seeds, crushed
1 Tsp Sugar

Bring 3 cups of water to boil, blanch the choy sum for about 1min. Remove from heat & rinse in cold water. Drain & squuze out the excess water from the vege.

Mix all other ingredients in a large bowl. Add the blanched choy sum & toss the mixture thoroughly, making sure it's well coated with the seasoning.

Place in an airtight container & chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour before serving.