Bulgogi. And it's Paleo.

Thanks to my wonderfully patient husband, I have FINALLY (okay years ago, but not as many years ago as I would like :) discovered Korean Food. Can I get a "Yum! Yum!"

I pretty much avoided Korean food because kimchi is NOT on my list of foods I enjoy eating. I really DO NOT like pickled food. I remember going out with friends one afternoon/early evening for Korean and the food was good, but I couldn't stomach the kimchi. So my picky little brain avoided all Korean foods. Then I met a boy. And EVERYTHING changed. I mean, you kind of HAVE to try out new foods when the person you are head over heels with has completely different taste in food than you, right? 

(If not, don't tell me, I LIKE the fact that my husband has expanded my horizons.)


Tonight, I made Beef Bulgogi. A friend of mine had a picture up of the bulgogi her brother made and I instantly started craving Korean. More than anything, as soon as I saw the picture, I wished I was back in Sierra Vista so I could grab some Da Bok. (This AWESOME little hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant (although I think EVERYTHING in SV is "little") that my family LOVED. And by family, I mean my husband and I. The little monkeys were "particular".) So, naturally, I decided to make some Beef Bulgogi and why not go for paleo while I was at it?!

I did a general internet search for paleo bulgogi and came up with three recipes I thought looked stellar. Now, Bulgogi isn't exactly a "pretty" dish, so don't judge these recipes (including mine) by the pictures!

[Note: This recipe requires at least 15 minutes of marinade time for your beef. Luckily I realized this around 1:30p.m., had everything said and done by 2p.m., so my beef marinaded for a minimum of three hours.]

Beef Bulgogi w/Cabbage (Paleo)
(First made 04 Feb 13)

What you need:
1.5-2 lbs beef (I used Tri Tip, but you can use any kind of beef; I saw flank recommended, although I use flank steak for carne asada exclusively)

For the marinade:
1/4 C Braggs Amino Acids
1/4 C Coconut Aminos
3-4 garlic cloves minced
2 Tbsp Sesame Oil
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp ginger (I did not have fresh ginger; I used ground ginger, probably closer to 1/8 tsp)
3 green onions chopped
1/4 small white onion
sprinkling of black pepper

Half a Head of Cabbage
1/2 white onion

I've never had to thinly slice beef before, so I followed the recommendation of freezing the beef for 15 minutes (the time it took to gather and prep my marinade ingredients and put them together). If you have awesome slicing-beef-thin skills, then ignore putting your beef in the refrigerator. I left mine in its wrap, sitting in the plastic bag on our meat cutting board, chilling (haha, literally... sorry) in the freezer while I put together the marinade.

Marinade Ingredients

The marinade is pretty simple to whisk together. Chop up the green onions and 1/4 small onion (I like really small pieces and just happened to have half a small onion sitting in my refrigerator) and mince your garlic. After you've prepped the onions and garlic, add all the ingredients for the marinade together. 

It probably will look something like this:

Marinade

Now pull out your pretty chunk of beef from the freezer and get it undressed. Like this:

My beautiful 1.85 lbs tri tip.

 As I mentioned earlier, tonight was my first time thinly slicing up beef. Sadly, I don't have natural skills and had to butcher my pretty tri tip a bit.

I DID however, end up with some pretty awesome slices.

When it was all said and done, I had a WONDERFUL meat fest just waiting to marinate.

Add your slices to your marinade. You can mix it around with your hands or a spoon. Most recipes at this point tell you to put your bowl in the refrigerator and let your meat marinate. I know it isn't exactly "environmentally friendly", but I put my meat and marinade into a bag. Here's why:

I want my meat to suck up ALL the marinade, not just the pieces on the bottom. (And this is a decent size bowl I'm using here too.) So, into a gallon size, plastic storage bag it all goes.

Do you SEE that?! There is liquid ALL the way around each slice of meat and because my beef has three hours before I'll START making supper, the beef is going to truly have time to marinate and absorb the deliciousness of the marinade. Put your beef into the refrigerator and let it be.

When you are ready to start cooking, pull out your cabbage and half an onion.

Then slice it all up.

For the kiddos, I cooked some rice because I knew they'd be a little iffy on the cabbage and onions. If I'd chosen to be SMART tonight, I would have had them each have a little bite, but being completely smart slipped my mind and I decided to just be gracious to them instead. I kept my onion slices small as I'm not a HUGE onion fan.

Take some oil and heat it up in a skillet. I tossed in the onion slices with the intention of caramelizing them. While the onions were cooking, I pulled out my marinated beef.

Do you SEE how beautiful that is?! Talk about getting me ALL excited to cook it up and start chowing down!

If you have a LARGE (and I am talking LARGE) skillet, I'm pretty jealous, I want one. Could I borrow yours? If you're like me and have tiny, small, and medium sizes to choose from, you'll need to cook the beef in batches. I added about a Tablespoon of coconut oil to my skillet and in batches cooked the beef. I let it cook for a few minutes before turning it over to cook the other side. I'd pull one entire batch out before starting the next batch.

And in the middle of my beef batches, I added the cabbage to the skillet with the onions. Depending on HOW you want your cabbage depends on the cooking time. I decided 5-10 minutes was probably sufficient time to keep my cabbage a little crunchy and away from complete soft, sloppiness. But I'm particular when it comes to my vegetables.

Once I finished my beef batches, I poured the remaining marinade and oil onto the cabbage and onions. Stirred it all together and crammed as much beef into my mouth as I could while the cabbage and onions finished cooking. I also did you the favor of NOT taking a picture of my mouthful of bulgogi.

As SOON as the vegetables were done, it was time to assemble.

Because bulgogi isn't a "pretty" dish, I added some extra greens from a green onion and sprinkled on some sesame seeds. (I could have added sliced carrots too, now that I think about it and that would have livened up the dish.)

If you want to cut on cooking time, you don't HAVE to cook the cabbage. I put some uncooked cabbage leaves on the plate to make two cabbage wraps.

Let me just say...

I DEVOURED my beef bulgogi and cabbage AND my cabbage wraps.

And my fork should TOTALLY be face down to indicate I'm done eating, so the server can clear my place. Oh right, NOT at a restaurant, and since the kiddos were STILL eating their rice and bulgogi in the five minutes it took to stuff my face, I guess I'll clear my own place setting.