Korean Marinated Beef & Vegetable Stew (Bulgogi Jeongol)

I’m starting to get a palate for Korean Food. It’s meaty and satisfying, and mostly good for you. This is from the fantastic book Our Korean Kitchen, and is full of spice and warmth. The beef is marinated first and then stewed with vegetables and noodles in a garlic, chilli, seasame and soy broth. It’s a great recipe for using up leftover veggies, and bit of a twist from the norm. 

The recipe for the beef marinade is as follows: 

1 Asian pear (or 2 normal pears), cored

1/4 red onion

1cm ginger, grated

4 garlic cloves, crushed

2.5 tbsp soy sauce

1.5 tbsp honey

1.5 tbsp toasted sesame oil 

Half tsp freshly ground black pepper. 

Blitz it all up in a blender until it looks a bit like baby food. (Alternatively you can grate the pear and onion and add to the other ingredients.) Add to 450g beef cut into thin slices and leave to marinade for at least 30 mins, preferably longer. 

Now to make the stew. 

RECIPE

1 quantity beef, marinated as above. 

100g rice noodles

1 litre beef stock

1 tbsp gochujang chilli paste

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp toasted sesame oil 

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/2 an onion, finely sliced

1/2 a red pepper, cut into strips

1/2 a courgette, cut into strips

1 large carrot, cut into strips

50g shiitake mushrooms, halved

4 spring onions, thinly sliced 

1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Add the beef stock, chilli paste, oil, soy sauce and garlic to a pan and bring to the boil. 

In a seperate casserole pan/high sided frying pan, arrange the vegetables around the edge of the pan, and add the raw marinated beef in the centre. Tuck the noodles in next to the beef. 

Add the sauce from the other pan and simmer everything together til the veg is tender and the meat cooked through. 

Top with sesame seeds and serve. 

Warning… This stew is addictive, I couldn’t help myself going back for seconds! 

Serves four hungry people, or six with self control.