Heather's Korean BBQ Night!

The foxy foodies have experimented with many ethnic foods but up until this night, we had never attempted Korean food. I decided to give my fellow Koreans some love and came up with a menu focused on Korean BBQ dishes, that you would find in any restaurant in Los Angeles Korea Town. With the help of my boyfriend, James (who also happens to be Korean), I put together the following menu together.

Kalbi - Korean Shortribs (Courtesy of my new favorite blog CookingCloset)

This is probably the most common form of Korean BBQ that you would get in a restaurant. This recipe is relatively simple, just throw a bunch of ingredients into a bag with the meat, and marinate overnight. Most of us enjoyed the sweet-garlicky flavor of the marinade but thought that some of the pieces of meat were fattier than others. One caveat is that we didn't use an outside grill because I don't have one and instead used a grill pan. I think grilling outside would have made a big difference.

Bulgogi - Korean BBQ Beef (Courtesy of CookingCloset)

We were slightly disappointed with this recipe as the beef lacked flavor even after it marinated overnight. On top of that, some of the meat was really chewy which could be a quality issue. I think next time, we would just rather go to Ktown to get our Bulgogi. :)

Pa Jun - Korean Savory Pancakes (Courtsey of the NY Times)

I know what you're thinking...what the hell is a savory pancake? Well imagine an Asian-flavored frittata with a lot of veggies in it. You can customize this recipe to include the veggies that you like the best. All of us enjoyed this recipe and it's relatively easy to throw together.

Oi Muchim - Korean Cucumber Salad (Courtesy of Cooking Light)

When you go out to Korean BBQ, the server will bring over an array of side dishes called Banchan that you're supposed to eat along side all that meat. The banchan can range from traditional American potato salad, to fermented cabbage (Kimchi), to cucumber salad. I have a strange love of cucumbers and this was super easy to make. We all thought it was a healthy, spicy salad that went well with the heavniess of the meat.

Chap Chae - Sweet Potato Noodles (Courtesy of some random blog)

So, this is also a version of banchan and it is my absolute favorite! I can eat at least two bowls of these noodles. Sweet potato noodles are essentially like rice noodles - translucent, thin, somewhat sticky noodles that go great when paired with vegetables and an Asian sauce, like in this recipe. You can also customize this one and throw in whatever veggies you have laying around. We all really liked this recipe but agreed that the sauce to noodle ratio was slightly off. We all wanted a little more sauce to dip our noodles in!

Vanilla-bean Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting
(Courtesy of Bon Appetit)

Koreans don't typically eat dessert and when they do, it normally involves some sort of red bean. As I enjoy my red beans with rice and not in cake-form, I decided to switch it up a little and go the non-traditional route. I really wanted to incorporate an Asian pear in the dessert but after spending an hour googling recipes, I opted for this coconut cupcake instead. After all, coconut is sorta Asian right? The cake turned out delicious and very moist but we all agreed that the icing was almost too rich and too buttery. I know...how can you go wrong with buttercream frosting but for some reason, I thought this version could have used a tad more sugar.