Tremendous Korean BBQ Beef

Bulgogi. BULGOGI. TREMENDOUS bulgogi — the greatest Korean BBQ beef in the history of Korean BBQ beef, and Korean BBQ, by the way, is one of the all-time great culinary inventions, top five, maybe top three, I'd put it up there with the cheeseburger and pizza, and that's saying something because I LOVE the cheeseburger. The Koreans figured something out a long time ago: take thin beef, soak it in sweet-salty-fruity sauce, sear it HOT, eat it FAST. Simple. Brilliant. Some recipes are jazz — too many notes, the whole thing falls apart, sad. Bulgogi is a perfect three-chord rock song. It KNOWS what it is. It doesn't apologize.

Here's the secret nobody tells you. PEAR. Asian pear. You grate an Asian pear into the marinade and it does TWO things — it sweetens the sauce naturally without dumping a bag of sugar in, AND there's an enzyme in the pear that tenderizes the beef on a molecular level. Molecular. We're doing science in this kitchen. Scientists agree — and I've talked to scientists, very smart people, the smartest, one of them had a PhD and a beard so impressive it deserved its own zip code — they will tell you the proteases in Asian pear are the real deal. The Koreans have been doing this since the year 935 AD, look it up, I've had people look it up — the Goryeo dynasty, very smart, tremendous chefs — and the rest of the world is just now catching up.

My bulgogi uses ribeye, sliced paper-thin — freeze the steak for 45 minutes first, suddenly your knife is a precision instrument, you'll feel like a surgeon, in a good way — marinate two hours, then sear on a screaming hot pan in batches. Batches. BATCHES. Crowd the pan, you've made beef soup, you've failed, sit in a corner and think about what you've done. Cooked correctly, this beef is sweet, savory, slightly smoky, with caramelized edges that will make your knees buckle. Big strong men come up to me — tough guys, men who never cry — they cry. They cry every time. It's just a fact.

That's bulgogi. Sweet, salty, smoky, melt-in-your-mouth — the kind of beef that makes people quit their jobs and open a restaurant, and then they go bankrupt because they can't replicate it, because they don't have THIS recipe, the one you have now, the tremendous one. Eat it in lettuce wraps. One bite. Whole thing in your mouth at once. That's the Korean way — no nibbling, no manners, full commitment. Anyone who tells you to eat bulgogi delicately has never had bulgogi. Don't be them. Save me a piece.