Korean Barbecue

According to culinary concepts, barbecue is meat grilled over coals. A classic example would be pieces of pork, beef, poultry, or seafood, seasoned with various spices and arranged on a grill with coals underneath. The aroma and how well the barbecue is cooked depend on the height of the grate and the type of wood from which the coals are made. Grilling meat over coals is a very ancient tradition, and therefore such a dish is not considered national. There are only variations that are characteristic of different peoples. For example, in Russia, the most popular version of this dish is shashlik. There is a separate section of charcoal-grilled food in Korean cuisine as well.

But in Korea, barbecue is very unconventional. On the one hand, it's just different meats that are grilled on different types of grills: charcoal, microwave, electric, or gas. However, in a broader sense, barbecue for Koreans is an entire philosophy, an important tradition of their national cuisine.

Korean Barbecue - Be Your Own Chef

In addition to being served buffet-style, another important tradition of barbecue in South Korea is that guests cook for themselves. "Buffet" is a widely known concept. It's quite simple: dishes are placed on tables with access to all customers who help themselves to any amount they want.

In Europe, this system is called "self-service." A certain amount is set as a fee for participating in the "buffet," for example, 10 euros per person. The visitor who pays this can eat anything and as much as they want: there are no restrictions on the dishes or the amount of food.

To better understand what Korean barbecue is, let's imagine we've entered a local restaurant. Here, you can see a picture like this.

On a standard table, there is empty crockery (plates for finished dishes and trays with compartments for preparations), some cutlery (chopsticks, forks, tongs), spices, sauces, and marinades (ready-made or ingredients for them that need to be mixed).

A grill oven. It is placed near the table with the dishes and lit, or visitors are entrusted to do it themselves (firewood and lighter fluid are also there).

Compartments with various products directly at the tables. This is, first and foremost, various meats cut into pieces that are convenient for making barbecue.

That's pretty much it. The success of the meal then depends only on the visitors' rich culinary knowledge and good imagination.

Here is an example of what Korean barbecue can look like.

A grill stands in the middle of the table, and bowls with various national appetizers (banchan) are arranged around it.

How the dishes are arranged depends on the number of visitors sitting at the table. If, for example, there are two of them, the dishes with side dishes and sauce bowls stand around the grill in the shape of two crescent moons, and space is left at the edges for empty plates for finished dishes.

Approximate Korean Barbecue Cooking Scheme

If you are not yet familiar with Korean cuisine, you should start with a recipe like this.

Necessary Ingredients

• pork (traditionally they take belly, but if it's not available, you can take other meat: chicken, beef, turkey);
• shiitake mushrooms (can be replaced with champignons);
• onions (regular and green);
• a variety of zucchini or summer squash native to Mesoamerica;
• lettuce (it is better to take larger leaves, then it will be convenient to wrap pieces of meat in them);
• spinach;
• paprika;
• garlic;
• fresh chili pepper or in powder form;
• chili paste;
• soy sauce;
• sugar for adding to sauces (the amount can vary and depends on personal preference);
• sesame seeds;
• sesame oil;
• fermented soybean paste.

Analogues of traditional Korean cuisine products are indicated so that, if desired, you can prepare the dish at home, that is, practice. When you get to a Kimchi restaurant, all the traditional Korean cuisine ingredients will certainly be available.

Barbecue Cooking Instructions

1. Take two green onions and cut them into medium-sized pieces, then leave them in cold water for a short time so that the onion loses its bitter taste.
2. Cut a garlic clove and one green onion into small pieces.
3. Prepare the first sauce. For it, you will need soy sauce (3 tbsp.), sesame oil and dried chili (1 tsp. each), sesame seeds (1 tbsp.), and sugar (2 tsp.).
4. Drain the water in which the onions were lying and pour the prepared sauce over them, mix.
5. Prepare the second sauce from minced garlic and green onion with soy paste (2 tbsp.), sesame oil (1 tsp.), sugar and sesame seeds (2 tsp. each), and chili paste (1 tbsp.).
6. Shiitake mushrooms (or champignons), regular onion, and zucchini are thinly sliced so that they are convenient to grill.
7. Thinly slice the paprika.
8. Simply arrange the spinach and lettuce.
9. Now everything is ready for the "culinary battle." To make it convenient to cook, you should arrange the ingredients in bowls and place them around the grill. Now we begin to cook. The degree to which the vegetables and meat are fried depends only on personal preference. This process is quite easy to control.
10. Those who are just getting acquainted with Korean cuisine are certainly interested in how to eat the cooked products. If you follow the traditions, you need to make something that resembles a shawarma from a lettuce leaf. Unfold it and place the fried meat, then add the second sauce, vegetables, mushrooms, the first sauce, and a small amount of spinach. Now you need to wrap the leaf. You have made one of the types of traditional Korean barbecue.