Beef short ribs in the style of Korean BBQ

Galbi or short ribs are as popular on menus in Vancouver restaurants as they are in their native Korea. In Vancouver, many restaurants offer a large sampling platter of beef short ribs, pork, chicken and seafood, all ready to be cut up with scissors and cooked to your liking on the huge burner in front of you. Basically your table converts into a propane barbecue. Served with gochujang sauce, soup, plate after plate of banchan (side dishes), which may be pickled turnips, daikon, radish leaves and always kimchi, the meal is as congenial and fun as it is delicious.

ESL students from Korea always know the best places to go and if you have been a particularly nice teacher, you may just get invited along. In the image above is myself, my fellow teacher Kristina and our students: (clockwise from left) Scott, Joey, Ikumi and Asano enjoying such a meal a few years ago. Look closely and you can see the platter of ribs roasting away on the burner in the middle. Dotted around are the many accompaniments as well as the lettuce usually used to wrap around each piece of meat. (I didn't, preferring to taste the sweet and slightly smoky red pepper and sesame sauce unadorned). 

The boys in the photo are Korean and the girls Japanese, which shows how fused these two cuisines are becoming and how beloved they are to each other. Another night we visited a Japanese restaurant where Joey, (Korean) was head chef, preparing sushi with deft hands. As we entered he just happened to be in the middle of peeling a cucumber with the biggest blade I have ever seen, paring the skin off in one piece. (He's actually training to be a chef in Canada now).

Not possessing a propane burner in the middle of my dining table and the temperature outside being just a little too cold to barbecue, I improvised the classic galbi with Korean flavours, initially searing the beef and then roasting in the oven. Lots of aromatic vegetables and the gorgeous Gochujang sauce were all I needed to partially recreate the magic of these Korean BBQ houses. I forgot the kimchi though, how criminal is that.

Recipe : Oven roasted short ribs in the Korean style

2 short ribs, cut about 1/2 inch thick and about 6 - 8 inches in length

1 tbsp peanut oil

1 onion, peeled and finely sliced

1 bell pepper, seeded and finely shredded

1/2 carrot, scrubbed clean and cut into slices

2 cloves garlic, left whole

a handful of chives, snipped into small pieces

4 tbsp gochujang paste

2 tsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp raw cane sugar

1 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Mix together the gochujang sauce, vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and pepper flakes. Mix well and set aside.

Heat the peanut oil in a frying pan over high heat and add the ribs when the oil is very hot. Sear the ribs until browned on both sides.

Preheat the oven to 375oF.

Place the onion, bell pepper, carrot and garlic cloves into a baking dish and lay the beef on top. 

Spread the mixed sauce ingredients all over the ribs and sprinkle the chives over the top.

Bake the ribs for about 1 hour to 1.5 hours until they are very tender. Remove from the baking tray, cover with foil and set aside.

Remove the vegetables from the tray with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel. Keep warm.

You should be left with a sauce which is quite oily with the fat floating on the top. Either use a separating jug to separate the oil and juices or try to spoon off as much of the oil as you can. Pour the juice (without oil) into a small saucepan and boil fairly rapidly over a high heat until thickened. I added another tsp of gochujang sauce, but you don't need to, although some more chopped chives would be nice.

Serve each person one rib with some vegetables laid on top and some sauce poured over. We had a baked potato with ours, but some white or brown rice would also be good as a plain accompaniment to all that rich flavour and to soak up the sauce. You could slice the meat from the bones and serve it with lettuce leaves, a la Bulgogi, Korean style, just don't forget to add some kimchi.

Leftover prawn and galbi sauce rice noodles

The next day I had a fairly significant amount of sauce and vegetables left over. The meat was long gone as truth be told, there is not a lot of flesh clinging to the bones and if you have really big appetites, two ribs would be more likely to satiate you. 

I decided that what I had was too good to waste, so I made a dish of flat rice noodles to act as a blank canvas to some crisply fried prawns and the leftover sauce which seemed to intensify by the next day.

Recipe : Leftover sauce with rice noodles and prawns

4 prawns, defrosted

1 tsp oil

1 small bundle of rice noodles

1/2 cup leftover sauce and vegetables

Place the noodles into a shallow dish and pour boiling hot water over to cover. Let them stand for a few moments while you fry the prawns.

Heat the oil in a frying pan over high heat and fry the prawns until cooked through: pink and opaque.

Check the noodles. Sometimes I find they are still not soft enough after a few minutes, so I add another big splash of boiling water from the kettle. Wait until they are really soft with no more bite, then drain well. 

Reheat the prawns over medium heat, add the noodles and leftover sauce and stir fry everything until thoroughly combined and piping hot throughout. Serve.