Wanna-Kalbi

I wanted to do kalbi, but I don't presume to have a real Korean recipe, so I did some research online, mostly here on this thread on ChowHound, and took bits and pieces from different places. But who's going to find Korean pear in Santa Cruz, California?



3 pounds of beef short rib cut thinly (I believe the term is "flanken" if you want to speak butcher)
1/4 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup good soy sauce (I didn't have any good soy sauce so I brought out the brute-force extra-strength Filipino soy sauce)
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
3-4 scallions chopped
1/4 cup sesame seeds
black pepper (to taste)

and of course... 1/2 can to 1 can of Coca-Cola (to taste)... better if it's the Mexican coke in bottle so that it has real sugar rather than corn syrup.

The phosophoric acid in the Coca-Cola helps to tenderize the beef. This was all left to marinate for at least 8 hours.

These were barbecued on a medium-hot grill, flipped often. The beef is cut really thin and is almost falling apart after marinating for 8 hours so it burns really easily, so you have to be on the ball with this. I think each cut took about 5 minutes to cook.

It wasn't like walking down the street in K-Town in NYC, but this wanna-kalbi was actually pretty good.

It's been a while since I blogged-- but not because I haven't cooked. I actually intended to blog more often than I did this month, taking time to take pictures, but it just didn't happen. I feel bad because I was also tagged to tag and I passed the tag on, but I haven't actually blogged much in July. Oh well. Onward!

Internet Memes and the Foodie Tag

I have been tagged! This is my first foodie blog meme, which is a whole lot more pleasant than other internet memes that have been circulating around. I mean being rickrolled is just not fun. I guess it's funny haha but really, rickrolling is not that funny. Especially when it seems to have leaped out of the internet. I picked up the phone at work and I heard Rick once. Some other forms of internet memes are great too. Like lolcats, which I can't get enough of. But foodie blog tag? Good stuff.

So thank you Natashya from Living in the Kitchen with Puppies for the tag. Sorry it took me so long to respond. So many things going on right now. But before I go on with this, I'd like to say that Natashya has a wonderful recipe for apricot ginger ice cream that I just made this weekend, and it came out wonderfully.

So here are the meme rules.

Tag Rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
• Post the rules on the blog.
• Write six random things about yourself.
• Tag six people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

...and here are 6 random things about myself.

1) I like to dress up as food items during halloween. See? Here and here.
2) I like post-modernity in its food form, of which Garden Burger Meatless Riblets are the supreme example: it is a meatless meat that pretends to be a meat that pretends to be a meat. How great is that?
3) I enjoy deep fried Twinkies.
4) I own three bicycles and I want another.
5) My Aeropress espresso maker has displaced my Kitchenaid stand mixer as my favorite kitchen gadget.
6) Just once, I'd like to walk down the street and find myself stuck in a movie musical, with people doing Busby Berkeley choreographed arrangements while singing in unison.

I tag... well I tag some folks who've made some great stuff I've tried myself.

Dhanggit from Dhanggit's Kitchen
Maybelle's mom from Feeding Maybelle
Lisa from Jersey Girl Cooks
Tinker and Tugger from Tinker Culture
Janet from Gourmet Traveler
Peter from Kalofagas



If you are too busy or tired to play we will all fully understand. If not, I look forward to hearing from you.