Bulgogi: Korean Sweet-Savory Grilled Beef with Pear Marinade

The story of bulgogi: sweet steam rising from Korean barbecue

Open the sesame oil in the kitchen, stir in soy sauce and grated pear, and you can already sense barbecue before the fire is lit. Pull thin slices of beef through the marinade and spread them on a hot griddle, and the moisture of the onion and the fat of the meat sizzle at once. When a sweet smell rises just short of scorching, you want to have the rice already served.

Bulgogi (불고기) is a Korean dish of thin-sliced beef seasoned in a sweet-savory soy marinade and cooked on a griddle, a grill rack or a skillet. An introduction on Korea.net, drawn from the Korea Food Promotion Institute, explains it as seasoned thin-sliced beef cooked on a hot grill pan. The name is often translated as "fire meat," but when you cook it at home, the star is less the flame itself than the heat control that coats thin meat with marinade and builds a toasty flavor in a short time.

What people outside Korea tend to wonder is whether bottled barbecue sauce will do, whether to add pear or apple, and whether it turns watery in a skillet. A bottled sauce can come close, but what makes bulgogi bulgogi is that once soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, scallion and the sweetness of fruit have gone into the meat, strong heat drives off the moisture and turns it into a glaze.

Among Korean dishes, bibimbap (in Japanese) separates the toppings and mixes them at the end, kimchi jjigae simmers the sourness of aged kimchi, and doenjang jjigae turns the aroma of fermented soybean paste into a stew. Add japchae, in which glass noodles and vegetables are cooked separately and tossed at the end, and the sweet-savory meat and the aroma of sesame oil connect, bringing out even more of a Korean table.

Why the pear marinade changes the meat

In Korean home recipes, grating pear into the marinade is very common. Maangchi's bulgogi combines Korean pear, onion, garlic, soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil, and Korean Bapsang also treats pear as the ingredient that gives flavor and tenderizes the meat.

Korean pears are hard to find in many places. At home, use an Asian pear when one is in season, and substitute apple when it is not. Apple has a stronger aroma and tends to be sweeter, so cutting the sugar a little makes the balance easier. Bottled pear juice can be used, but those with strong fruit sweetness make the marinade too sweet.

Too much fruit makes the meat too tender and likely to fall apart when cooked. For 600 g thin-sliced beef, stop at about 120 g of grated pear or apple. Even when marinating for a long time, keep it to 2 hours in the refrigerator rather than overnight, and draining off a little marinade before cooking prevents wateriness.

Ingredients (serves 4): measure the sliced meat and marinade first

This serves 4. For the beef, use thin slices as for sukiyaki or shabu-shabu, or spread-out stew-meat trimmings, rather than thick short rib cuts. If you want browning, shoulder loin sliced about 1.5–2 mm thick is easier to handle than ultra-thin shabu-shabu slices.

This dish contains beef, soy, wheat, apple or pear, and sesame. Soy sauce, gochujang and Korean seaweed may contain wheat, soy or seafood depending on the product. If you have a food allergy, check the ingredient labels of the seasonings. Marinade that has touched raw meat must not be used uncooked as a table sauce.

Shopping notes: invest in aroma and grilling, not in the meat

Beef, onion, scallion, carrot and lettuce are fine from an ordinary supermarket. What is worth seeking out are the sesame oil that decides the aroma, the gochujang that adds heat at the table, and a grill pan that builds browning more easily in a skillet. Gochujang is easier to handle at home as a little spooned beside the wraps than as a large amount stirred into the marinade.

If you keep cooking Korean food, sesame oil is a fast-turning seasoning. It also works for the namul of bibimbap, for the start of kimchi jjigae and for bringing out the aroma of doenjang jjigae, so it does not end with bulgogi.

On a day you want heat, adding a little gochujang at the table is easier for a family to adjust than making the marinade spicy. Put a little rice, meat, garlic and gochujang on a lettuce leaf and it comes close to the way wraps are made at a Korean barbecue restaurant.

You can cook it in a skillet, but a ridged grill pan lets moisture escape downward and builds browning more easily.

Method: control the browning and the amount of liquid

If you put all the marinated meat into the skillet at once, it tends to simmer rather than sear. Spread half the meat at a time over fairly strong heat, drive off the first moisture and then turn it, and the sweet-savory marinade turns into a glaze.

A decision table for home kitchens

Bulgogi is easy to substitute in, but if you drop thin slicing, fruit sweetness, sesame oil aroma and strong-heat cooking all at once, it becomes just sweet stir-fried meat. If you change something, change one thing at a time.

If you want spicy bulgogi, serving gochujang on a separate dish after cooking is less likely to fail than putting 1 tbsp into the marinade. Gochujang in the marinade scorches easily, and the aroma of the paste comes in front of the sweet aroma of the meat. On a day when you want a spicy meat dish as the star, it is more natural to move toward a separate dish of gochujang pork stir-fry.

Failure causes: fix watery, tough and too sweet

If it is watery, the skillet is too small for the amount of meat, or the marinade was put in without draining. Do not use a lid; take the meat out for a moment and reduce only the remaining liquid over medium heat for 2–3 minutes. When it is thick enough that a line stays when you draw a wooden spoon through it, return the meat and toss over low heat for 1 minute. Reducing for a long time over strong heat from the start only makes the meat tough.

If the meat is tough, it is too thick, overcooked or too lean. Next time, slice thin from partly frozen meat and rest it 10–30 minutes in the fruit marinade. When using lean round, shorten the cooking time and add 1 tsp sesame oil at the end to keep it from drying.

If it is too sweet, the sugar and fruit are overlapping. Mix 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 tsp soy sauce and a little black pepper in a small dish and spoon it over only the portion you eat. Adding a large amount of acid to the whole pan moves away from the Korean sweet-savory flavor, so fine-tuning in a dish is safer.

If it scorches, there is too much gochujang or sugar, or the skillet is too hot. If black burnt bits appear, take it out before it turns bitter, and next time start over medium-high heat and drop to medium-low once the glaze appears. Adding water when it threatens to scorch makes the glaze hard to recover, so turning off the heat and tossing on residual heat keeps the flavor from thinning.

Storage and menu: use it up the next day in a rice bowl or a wrap

Let cooked bulgogi cool slightly, move it to an airtight container within 2 hours and eat it up within 2 days in the refrigerator. To freeze, spread only the cooked meat thin in single-meal portions and freeze, for about 2–3 weeks. Lettuce cannot be frozen, so wrap it in a paper towel, put it in a separate container and use it by the next day.

To reheat, 2–3 minutes over medium-low heat in a skillet, or 1 minute 30 seconds in a microwave at 600 W, stir and add 30 more seconds. If it lacks moisture, mix 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp mirin and 2 tsp water and add that instead of plain water, and the flavor does not thin as easily.

For a menu, white rice, kimchi, roasted seaweed and wrapping greens are enough. If you add a soup, doenjang jjigae comes together most easily; on days you want to cut through with heat, kimchi jjigae; and on days you want a gentle chicken soup, samgyetang suits. Leftover bulgogi can go the next day into the beef topping for bibimbap (in Japanese), where the namul and rice take up the meat juices.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make it with only bottled barbecue sauce?

You can. But the round sweetness of pear and onion, the aroma of sesame oil and the rise of garlic that make it bulgogi will be weaker. If you use bottled barbecue sauce, adding 60 g grated pear or apple, 2 tsp sesame oil and scallion to 5 tbsp of sauce brings it closer to home-style bulgogi.

What do I use if I have no pear?

Apple is the easiest substitute. Grate 1/2 an apple with the skin and reduce the sugar to 2 tsp. If you use pear juice, keep it to 3 tbsp and lightly drain the marinade before cooking to account for the added moisture. Replacing it with honey alone gives too little aroma and moisture and the meat moves toward teriyaki.

Which cuts are suitable?

Shoulder loin, ribeye and sukiyaki-style slices suit it. You can make it with beef trimmings, but if they are too fine, spread them out before cooking. Lean thin-sliced round tends to turn tough, so keep the marinating time short and take care not to overcook.

Can I make it on an electric griddle?

Yes. Preheat to about 200°C, spread the meat thin and cook the first minute without touching. When the family gathers around it, do not put all the meat on at once; cooking in 2–3 batches keeps it from turning watery. If liquid collects on the plate, take out only the meat first and reduce the liquid.

Does it need an overnight marinade?

For thin-sliced meat, 10–30 minutes is enough. Overnight, the fruit and salt make the meat too soft and it tears easily when cooked. Even with a tough cut, keep it to about 2 hours in the refrigerator, and draining the excess marinade before cooking is easier to handle.

Is it a spicy dish?

Basic bulgogi is not spicy. Add heat at the table with gochujang, green chilies or kimchi. If there are children or family members who do not like heat, cook the meat in the sweet-savory soy flavor and let only the adults put a little gochujang on the lettuce wrap, which is easy to separate.

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