Recipe: Dak Bulgogi - Spicy Korean BBQ Chicken

It has been sometime since I posted the last recipe. Well, after such a long wait, I decided to post a heavy weight recipe - one of my very own creations, on how to marinate and cook Bulgogi (Korean BBQ meat) at home!

Ingredients:

Chicken Meat, cut in Chunks– 800g  (Preferably leg meat) 

Spring Onions – Handful (Optional)

Marinate:

Korean Chili Paste – One tablespoon

Minced Garlic – 2 cloves

Sesame Seed Oil – Half a tablespoon

If prefer spicier, can add in fresh minced chili.

Also, freshly squeezed juice of half an orange or pear.

To note:

It is better to use chicken thigh meat for this recipe as they are more suitable for grill. I do not recommend chicken breast as they tend to be dry if grilled for too long. You can also replace the chicken meat with pork or beef. Suggest to use pork shoulder, i.e. fattier cut of meat for this recipe.

Depending on how sweet the fruits are, you might need additional sugar. Alternatively, use Citroen Honey as sweetener and some water to dilute the marinate into paste-like mixture.

The marinate also do not need soy sauce or salt as the Korean Chili paste, see picture above, is salty by nature. The Korean Chili paste is not really spicy, in my opinion and in fact tasted more like Chili- flavoured bean paste.

Method:

In a large bowl, mix all marinate condiments together.

Our family love spicy food, thus I added quite a huge amount of minced chili.  

The mixture is then diluted with the freshly squeezed juice. I would strongly recommend you taste the marinate at this stage and make adjustment to see if it suited your taste.

Add more sugar if you prefer the meat to be slightly sweeter or a bit of soy sauce if you feel that it is too sweet and not salty enough. The thumb of rule is that the marinate should be slightly stronger in taste, so that when you add in the chicken meats later, it will be just right.

 

Mix in the chicken pieces thoroughly. It should preferably left to marinate for at least one day. You can store this directly in the chilling compartment for about 2 days. You can also marinate in bulk and store the marinate meat in freezer. It can be kept for at least two weeks. 

To cook:

Although I did say grilled and BBQ, to save the hassle, you can actually “grill” them in a non-stick pan. 

This is what I did.

 

Heat up a non-stick pan with medium-high heat and grill the marinate meat without oil. To accompany the meat, you can also grill onions and fresh mushroom in the same pan.

Viola! There you have it, beautifully grilled, aromatic, spicy and sweet Korean BBQ Chicken ! 

Looking at the dish, I can’t help myself to tuck in immediately.

Tip: As there is sugar content in marinate, the meat burnt easily. Pay closer attention when cooking it. Turn it frequently. Add a bit of water to deglaze the pan, if it gets too dry.

Of course, such a wonderful dish can be serve as it is or with a bowl of hot rice! Let me show you how I eat it:

I learnt this from Korean restaurant. They loved to pair greasy grilled meat with fresh lettuce leaves and so I did.

On top of it, I put in a bit of caramelised grilled onions.

 

Then, the grilled mushroom.

After that, I select one of the golden grilled meat…

 

… and place it on top of the mushroom and onions

Gently, picked up the lettuce leaf and make it sort of like a wrap. Shove it into the mouth immediately (not that you can wait anyway…) !

Hmmm… Now where is the ice-cold beer?