Slow Cooker Asian Short Ribs (galbi-jjim)

While you will never catch me sitting down to eat a rare steak or roast beef, I do enjoy eating meat – especially when it is slow roasted or braised. I recently bought some beautiful short ribs on the bone even though I wasn’t quite certain what I wanted to do with them. I came across this recipe for Korean slow-cooker short ribs and decided that in honor of Frances I had to try them. Only Frances or her mother can tell me if this is authentic; I can simply say they are delicious! This is real Korean comfort food. The flavors only get richer the more you eat!

If you are feeling lazy, just serve it over some cooked rice so you don’t lose a drop of the yummy sauce. If you are feeling more ambitious, you could choose to add some carrots and potatoes or water chestnuts, dried red dates and ginkgo nuts to the slow cooker about half-way through the cooking time or serve with sugar snap peas that simply have been steamed or stir-fried. This is a wonderfully easy and delicious dish to make for a relaxed dinner with friends. And wouldn’t you rather be taking part in the evening instead of stuck fussing in the kitchen?

Slow Cooker Asian Short Ribs by Chungah Rhee from Damn Delicious and Eating Korean by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee

Yield: 6 to 8 servings, depending on the number of banchan served

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

1/2 cup beef broth

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

3 cloves garlic, minced, about 1 good tablespoon

1 rounded tablespoon freshly grated ginger

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, optional

5 pounds bone-in beef short ribs, cut crosswise into 2″ pieces (Although don’t fret if the short ribs are cut differently. Do try to get them on the bone, however, as the bones lend flavor and gelatin to the sauce.)

1/4 cup water or broth

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Optional Additions

1 pound baby carrots

1 pound red baby bliss or other small potato

For Garnish

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

3 scallions, thinly sliced

DIRECTIONS:

  1. In a large bowl, whisk together soy sauce, beef broth, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and red pepper flakes, if using.
  2. Place short ribs into a 6-qt slow cooker. Stir in soy sauce mixture until well combined. Galbi jjim3
  3. Cover and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.*
  4. In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and 1/4 cup water or beef broth. Before stirring in the slurry of cornstarch, use a spoon to carefully skim off as much of the fat that has risen to the top as you can. Then stir the cornstarch mixture into the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high heat for an additional 30 minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. If you don’t remove the fat first, your sauce will never appear to get thicker – to say nothing of the fact that the fat has done its job of keeping the meat moist and adding flavor, but eating all of it is neither tasty nor healthy.
  5. Serve immediately, garnished with parsley or scallion and sesame seeds, if desired. Galbi jjim1

NOTES:

*To test for doneness, pull on a bone as it should slide out freely. In a Korean home, this dish would be served with the ubiquitous kimchi and a choice of banchan. Left-overs will keep in the fridge for up to a week. Simply gently reheat.

Kalguksu (or Korean chicken noodle soup)

Growing up, this was one of the best meals to have when feeling sick and under the weather. As I got older, it finally occurred to me that this was basically just chicken noodle soup, but how the Koreans made it.

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I almost never make my own noodles for this, though I was feeling inspired last weekend and finally gave it a shot.

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In general though, if I can’t find a Korean grocery store or if I’m just feeling lazy I’ll just use udon or ramen noodles.  Kal-guk-su literally translates into “knife cut noodles” so to get the authentic flavor of these, it really is worth either making the noodles or finding them at a Korean grocery store.

For the soup

  • 2 lb of chicken
  • 1/2 cup of “gook-gang-jang” or soup soy sauce (if you can’t find it, I’ve heard you can substitute with fish sauce found in Asian aisles at grocery stores)
  • 1 zucchini, diced finely in matchstick pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 5 tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 tbsp sesame seed oil
  • scallions (1 bunch)
  • sesame seeds
  • Korean red chili pepper flakes (go-chu-garu) optional for garnish

For the noodles

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil

To make the soup:

  1. Bring a 5 qt pot of water (where the pot is about 70% full of water) to boil.  Add the chicken and cook for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is fully cooked.
  2. Skim the surface of the broth, and take out the chicken and move to a cutting board.
  3. Shred the chicken using 2 forks and put into a medium sized glass mixing bowl.  Add the soy sauce, scallions, sesame seed oil, and sesame seeds and mix thoroughly.  Feel free to add some more soy sauce if it’s not enough to coat all the shredded chicken.
  4. Add the soup soy sauce and the zucchini to the broth on the stove and let simmer for about 15 minutes.

To make the noodles:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour and vegetable oil, and slowly add the cold water mixing to make a dough as you go.
  2. Mix and knead the dough until it hold shape in a ball.  Knead for another 5 minutes or so and then let rest for about 30 minutes in a covered bowl.
  3. After the 30 minutes, knead the dough again for about 5 minutes, and then roll it out like a large pancake until it is rather thin.  Add flour to the top of this “dough pancake,” flip over and add flour to the other side as well.  Then fold the pancake a few times over.  Cut the folded panckae in about 1/8″ increments to make the noodles.

Putting it all together

  1. Once the broth is back up to a boil, add the noodles and cook for about 5-7 minutes.
  2. Put some noodles in a bowl, add some liquid broth, and then garnish with a clump of the marinated chicken. Sprinkle some kochugaru if you have it, and enjoy!

(I personally love to add a lot of kimchi to this hearty dish – plus I think it helps with clearing out the sinuses!)