Bulgogi is one of my favorite foods of all time, and I found that a lot of my friends like it as well. So I decided to make a simple guide to make your own Bulgogi. People think it is hard and expensive to make it because it is an oriental dish, but all you need is some vegetables, soy sauce, and beef. It takes about 2 to 3 hours to until it is ready to eat. It seems like a lot of work but it takes a lot of time because you have to marinate the beef for about an hour, and cutting the meat takes quite some time. If you can find cut meat and minus the time to marinate the meat, it takes about 10 to 45 minutes to make the meal. I put the 35 minute variation time because if you don’t have a blender, it takes some time to grind all the stuff to make the sauce. You don’t have to worry if you don’t have the top notch cooking equipment as long as you have a knife, any kind of container, and a frying pan. Now, are you ready to make some Bulgogi?

Step 1: Get the Ingredients

Get the listed ingredients.

ã Cooking ingredients:

Required:

Beef 600g

You can use various parts of the beef for Bulgogi
Sirloin beef is usually used but you can also use eye-round, T-bone, tenderloin, rib eye, chuck, flank, or plate.

Cut the meet very thin, about 3mm thick.
    The length and the width is up to you but I recommend cutting it about the size of a credit card.

Optional:

Any vegetables you like such as:
green peas
green peppers
onions
carrots
mushrooms
water chestnuts

Salt

Pepper

Sesame seeds

ã Sauce ingredients: (These are the minimum ingredients listed for the sauce. You may vary the amounts)

Required:

Soy sauce 4-5 tablespoons

Sugar 2 tablespoons
Tip: Can use 1/3 to 1/2 of can of coke instead
           It also helps soften the meat

Onions 1/2 onion

Ground garlic 1/2 table spoon

Optional:

Sesame oil 1 table spoon (recommended)

Pepper (recommended)

Ground pear 1/2 to 1 pear (recommended)
Warning: This is a round yellow pear that I am talking about. I have not tried making it with a green pear.
                    Also, I do not recommend using lemons to soften the meat because of its sourness.

Ground apple 1/2 to 1 apple

Ground ginger 1/2 table spoon

Kitchen utensils

Knife

Frying pan

Container

Optional

Blender: makes things much easier

Step 2: Making the Sauce

1. Grind the ingredients with a blender or cut them into very small pieces with a knife:

  a) onion

  b) ginger

c) garlic

Tip: It is easier to grind garlic by pressing the onion down with a clindrical shaped object such as the bottom of a knife. A hammer
         works well too, but not recommended.
         If you have trouble grinding a full sized garlic, I recommend cutting the garlic into flat pieces before grinding them.

4. Put all the sauce ingredients into a container.

Tips:
It is easier if you use a blender. If you don't have one, you may slice everything up into small very small pieces. I used a cheese grater because I didn't have a blender.

Warning:
Make sure to wash your hands before cooking.

Step 3: Marinate the Meet

1. Put the cut meat into the sauce container

2. Mix the meat into the sauce thoroughly.

Tip: It is easier to mix the meat and the sauce with your hands.

3. Refrigerate the meat for 30-60 minutes.

Step 4: Cooking

1. Take out the marinated meat

2. Heat up the pan to medium high

3. Cook the meat and vegetables for about a minute or two: (no cooking oil needed)

4. Eat!!!

Tips: You do not want to cook it too long because the sauce may all evaporate and the meat become stiff. Since the meat is very thin it
take about a minute to cook the meat.
You can add any vegetables you like such as carrots, mushrooms, green onions, green peppers, etc.

Step 5: Presevation

Short-term preservation

1. Put left-over in a container or a bowl with plastic wrapping

2. Put the contained left over in the refrigerator

3. Microwave to eat again

Long-term preservation

1. Put left-over in a zip-lock bag

Tip: It is better if you can get all the air out.

2. Put the bag in the freezer

3. Re-cook the meat before eating

Warning: You can tell if Bulgogi has gone bad if it smells funny after re-cooking it.

Hopefully this guide helped you guys out on making your own Bulgogi. You can always change the amounts here and there to your preference. Now that you know how to make the basic Bulgogi, tell me what you usually like to put in your Bulgogi.