Korean Grilled Beef and Glass Noodles

One advantage of growing up in Los Angeles is the bountiful amounts of ethnic food.  Los Angeles is so big that there is a group of people of every nationality, and someone somewhere has opened a restaurant to cater to them.  I was in college before I was introduced to Korean BBQ for the first time, but after eating it once, I was hooked.  We went to a great place called Yellow Cow.  A small restaurant, located in an ubiquitous LA strip mall, once inside the smokey interior, you would find load of Koreans grilling meat at their own tables.  The tabletops would be groaning with a myriad of little dishes, called banchan, containing salads, various types of kimchi and other little delicacies.  You had a bowl of rice. You had delicate rice noodle pancakes and a big bowl of crispy salad.  You grilled your meat and ate it wrapped up in a pancake with some of the salad and perhaps garnished with some kimchee or hot sauce.  I still go to Yellow Cow every time I am back in LA and it is still one of the best Korean BBQ places that I know.

Here in Stockholm, the choice is limited.  However, we do have one decent place, Arirang.  Ten years ago, you also could grill yourself, but now the meat comes to the table pre-cooked. I am not going to say this is great Korean food, but it still hits the spot.

I never tried cooking Korean food myself until a year or two ago when I found out about a Korean blogger, Maangchi, who does YouTube videos of how to cook authentic Korean food.  This recipe is inspired by her recipes for Bulgogi and Japchae.  Bulgogi is sweet soysauce marinated beef, usually thinly sliced and grilled or pan fried. Japchae is a dish of stir fried glass noodles, made from sweet potato starch called dang myun.  These noodles are fairly tasteless on their own but have a nice chewy texture and soak up flavors beautifully.  They are also gluten free, for those who are interested. I saw these noodles at my local ICA the other day, so I snatched them up.  Wandering down the meat aisle, they had some nice flank steak, which is not that common here in Sweden and so I decided to use the Bulgogi marinade for the beef but grill it whole in the oven, and then slice the meat over the noodles.

Here is how I did it:

Serves 4 to 6

Grilled Flank Steak
1 pear or apple
1 small onion
8 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
4 tablespoons soysauce*
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
black pepper
1 kilo of flank steak

Peel your pear or apple, take out the core and roughly chop it. Stick it in a woozy woo (mini food processor) and process until it is a paste.  This is easier to do with a pear, which is the traditional fruit. But I have so many apples in the garden right now, I decided to use that instead and it tasted fine.  Peel and roughly chop the garlic and onion and puree in the woozy woo in batches.  You can also do this in the food processor or if you don't have one, you could use a mortar and pestle.

Take a large ziplock bag, one which will fit your meat, and dump the ingredients of the marinade into it.  Close the bag and knead it to mix up the marinade.  Throw in the flank steak, close the bag and knead it, making sure the marinade covers the entire steak.  Put in the refrigerator for at least half an hour, but overnight is even better.

About half an hour before you want to eat, turn on your broiler to its highest setting.  Take the steak out of the bag, scraping excess marinade into a little pot and set aside to use in the noodles. Lay the steak on a pan that is covered with aluminum foil (to help contain the mess).  Broil for 6 to 15 minutes per side until each side is nicely browned.

The time will depend on how hot your broiler is and how close to the heating element you can get your meat.  If you like your meat rare, then put it as close to the heating element as possible. There should be some bits that look almost burnt. Let the meat rest for 10 minutes and then slice it thinly AGAINST the grain.

Stir Fried Glass Noodles
About 150 grams of dang myun sweet potato noodles
2 large carrots
1/4 head savoy cabbage
15 to 20 fresh shitake mushrooms
1 onion
3 to 4 spring onions
1 to 2 tablespoons of soysauce*
1 tablespoon sesame oil
olive or vegetable oil for frying
salt and pepper to taste

Take a large pot and fill with water and bring to a boil.  Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables. Peel and grate the carrot. Take the cabbage and cut out the core and cut into thin strips.  Cut off the stem on the mushrooms.  You can save the stems to flavor a stock, if you like, otherwise discard. Thinly slice the heads of the shitake mushrooms. Cut the onion in half and then thinly slice.  Thinly slice the white part of the spring onions and slice the green portion into 2 cm (about 1 inch) pieces.

Take the little pot of marinade from the meat and put it on the stove.  Bring it to the boil and the turn the heat to low and simmer it for 10 minutes.  Set aside.

In a large frying pan, heat a glob of oil on high heat.  Stir fry each vegetable over high heat separately:

1. Throw in the mushrooms and stir fry for a two to three minutes until they are tender and the edges are a bit browned.  Pour the mushrooms into a large serving bowl.  Put a plate or lid over the bowl to keep everything warm.

2.Put a bit more oil in the pan and throw in the grated carrot and the white part of the spring onions and a pinch or two of salt.  Stir fry for a three to four minutes until the carrot is tender and sweet.  Pour the carrot into the bowl with the mushrooms.

3. Add a bit more oil and then stir fry the cabbage, sliced onion and the green part of the spring onion with a pinch of salt until tender and the edges of the cabbage are getting a bit brown, about three to four minutes and then pour into the bowl.

When the water is boiling, add the noodles and cook for about 7 minutes until the noodles are tender.  Drain the noodles and add into the bowl. Add the sesame seed oil and a tablespoon of soysauce.  Throw in the cooked marinade from the meat. Toss everything together.  Taste the noodles and add a bit more soy sauce if it needs more salt.  If there are any juices from the grilled flank steak, throw that into the noodles, too. If the vegetables have cooled too much, you can throw the whole thing back in the pan and warm through.  Taste and adjust, adding more soysauce and sesame oil if necessary.

Serve the noodles hot with the thinly sliced grilled flank steak on top.


*If you want this recipe to be gluten free, you have to make sure you use a gluten free soysauce, like a Tamari style soy sauce.

Kallops: Swedish Beef Stew

This morning I woke up to the sound of thunder and rain beating down on my rooftop.  I lay awake for a few minutes listening and feeling warm and snug in my bed. Then I became aware that there was a suspicious dripping sound.   I tried to ignore it.  It didn't work.  I had to get up and investigate. I had left my window open last night and there was a significant puddle of water dripping down the window sill. After wiping up the watery mess, I understood that stew would be required for dinner.  Not just any stew, but Swedish stew.  Warm, comforting, and simple.

Kallops has nothing fancy in it.  It is, in essence, just beef, carrots and onions. A bit of seasoning takes it from ordinary to sublime: bayleaf, clove, and allspice.  I use Leif Mannerström's recipe, as I defer to him for all things Swedish, especially husmanskost (roughly tranlated as home cooking).

Traditionally, this dish is served with plain boiled potatoes and pickled beet root.  However, I am not Swedish and I like to mix things up, so I often serve it over, mashed potatos, couscous or on buttered noodles. Here is my take on this classic stew, with a large helping of Mr. Mannerström.

Serves 4

1 kilo stewing meat

 2 onions
2 carrots
1 tablespoon flour
4 bay leaves
5 all spice corns
3 cloves
2 tablespoons soysauce
2 anchovy fillets, optional
a bit of oil for frying the meat
salt and pepper to taste
About 4 to 5 cups water

Cut the meat into bite-sized cubes.  Peel the onion and carrot and roughly chop into chunks.  Heat up a pot and brown the meat in two or three batches of a single layer of meat, making sure that all the sides are nicely colored.

It can be helpful to deglaze the pot in between batches.  You do this by swishing a bit of water around the pot and scraping off the brown bits on the bottom.  These juices contain a lot of beautiful caramel flavor and are the basis for the sauce.  I find that if I don't deglaze between batches of browning the meat, then the browned parts sticking to the pan start to burn, ruining the flavor of the dish.

Browned bits

Deglazed with water

Once the meat is all browned, sprinkle in the flour.  Using a spatula, spread the flour about and stir it around, letting it cook for a minute, but watching to make sure that it does not burn.  Add in a cup of water and use your spatula to deglaze the pot (again), making sure you get all the browned parts melted off the bottom of the pan and into the water.  Pour in all your browned meat (if you hadn't already) and pour in the meat juices from earlier deglazing, if you have it.  Add in the carrots and onions, the spice, the soysauce, and anchovy fillets if you are using them.  If you don't have any anchovy fillets, you can add a bit of worcestershire sauce, which contains anchovies.  If you don't have that, then just leave it out.

Add in the water until you cover the meat and vegetables.  Bring

After adding all ingredients.

the liquid to a boil and then turn down the heat and let it simmer, uncovered for about 1.5 hours, until the meat is very tender and the liquid has thickened.  Stir occasionally while it is cooking, just to make sure that nothing is sticking to the bottom.  If it looks like too much water is evaporating, feel free to add some more.  If at the end, the meat is down but you feel it is too watery, then just turn up the heat to high and let the sauce boil until it is at the desired thickness.  The broth should just be slightly thickened and have a bit of body.  Adjust the salt and pepper, and serve hot.

Finished stew with thickened sauce,

Slow Cooker: Oriental Beef Stew

This fragrant stew is an easy riff on a classic Chinese dish called red-cooked beef. When I was a child, my Chinese grandmother would make a similar type of dish for special occasions like my birthday enriched with boiled eggs and glass noodles.  The eggs, which were my favorite part, would be boiled and peeled and then cooked with the beef, and would end up colored and tasting of the delicious broth.  The eggs symbolized fertility and the noodles symbolized long life.  Sometimes, my grandmother would have a dish of red colored eggs where the red color meant prosperity, good luck, and happiness.

The flavor of the stew comes from star anise and five spice powder which is a mixture of spices normally including cloves, cinnamon, sichaun pepper, star anise, and fennel. I love using star anise because they are so amazingly pretty.  The five spice powder can be used as a spice rub on meat, in stir fries, or even stirred into mayonaise for a dip.  It makes everything taste vaguely Chinese!  Orange and ginger are complementary flavors that I throw in, if I happen to have the ingredients around.  But the stew will taste also good without them.

For everyday, I usually don't bother to do the extra step of boiling the eggs. Making it in a slow cooker makes it easy to serve on a weekday, but you can also make it on a pot on the stove.

Serves 6

1.5 kilo stewing beef

1 large onion

2 to 3 carrots
2 to 3 turnips or half of a daikon radish

2 star anise
2 teaspoons five spice powder

4 tablespoons soysauce, adjust to taste
2 inch piece of fresh ginger, optional
grated zest of one orange, optional
8 cloves of garlic

black pepper

oil for frying the beef
4 to 6 boiled eggs, peeled (allow one per person), optional

First prepare all the ingredients. This can be done the night before, if you just want to throw it all in the slow cooker in the morning. Cut the beef into bite size chunks.   Chop the onions into large dice.  Peel the carrots and the turnips or radish and chop into large bite size pieces.  Peel the garlic and chop each clove into two pieces.  Peel the ginger and slice thinly.

Take a large pot or skillet and put on the stove on the highest heat.  Put some oil in the pan and brown the beef in three to four batches.  If you try to brown all the beef at once, the heat will drop in the pot and the juices will come out of the meat and you will end up boiling the meat instead of browning it.  For each batch, drop in pieces in a single layer to cover the bottom of the pan, making sure that each piece has contact with the pan.  Turn the pieces over until they are nicely brown on all sides.  Put the browned pieces in a bowl (or straight into the slow cooker pot), and then repeat until all the meat is done.  In between batches, if the browned bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan look like they might burn, throw in a quarter cup of water and scrape the bottom of the pan.  Add this water to the bowl with the browned meat.  It is these caramelized juices that will form much of the flavor of the stew, so you want to make sure you get it all! Then, heat the pan again and add a bit more oil and continue browning the meat.

When all the meat is browned, add a bit of water to the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan, stirring until all the browned goodness at the bottom is dissolved into the water.  Pour this water into the bowl with the meat.

Put the browned meat and the juices into the pot (or your slow cooker), add the vegetables, onion, garlic, and peeled boiled eggs if you are using them, and pour in water about half way up (about 2 cups of water).  Put in the spices and soysauce.  Pepper generously. If using a slow cooker, then turn it on, according to how long you will be away and put on the lid.  

If cooking on the stove, then bring the stew to a boil.  Let the stew simmer at a light boil for an hour with the lid off (this will evaporate some of the liquid to make a stronger tasting broth).  After an hour, taste the stew liquid for salt.  Add some salt or more soysauce if necessary.  The liquid should taste fairly full bodied.  If it tastes a bit weak, leave the lid off to reduce the liquid further, but be careful to salt with a light hand.  If the liquid already tastes good, then put the lid on and lower the heat until the stew is just simmering.  Simmer until the meat is very tender, a further one to two hours. 

Whether made on the stove or in the slow cooker, taste and adjust the salt before serving hot over white rice.  Stir fried bok choy, spinach, or other greens make a nice accompaniment.