Beginner
Korean
Kimchi Jjigae (Kimchi Stew)
Source: Traditional
30 min3420 kcal
Dairy-free🌶️🌶️
Beef Bulgogi · Paik Jong-won
Paik's simplest bulgogi, built on one rule of order: sugar and garlic go onto the beef alone and rest 10–20 minutes, and only then does the soy sauce arrive.
Source
Recipe by 백종원 · 👨🍳 Chef · Paik Jong-won — chef & restaurateur, 백종원의 요리비책
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Paik Jong-won (요리비책) — Published by Paik Jong-won on his own YouTube channel as a 'golden recipe' for bulgogi from simple ingredients, where he notes there are many ways to make it and this is the simplest. The distinctive part is the order: he marinates the beef with sugar, syrup and garlic alone for 10–20 minutes before the soy sauce goes anywhere near it, explaining that sugar molecules are larger and must be given a head start.
Cook: 백종원
Watch it being made
⏱ 40 min🍽 4 servings🔥 380 kcal🇰🇷 South Korea
Dairy-free
Steps
Cut the beef into bite-size pieces, drop it into a deep bowl and pull the slices apart with your fingers so no sheets are stuck together.
Add ONLY the brown sugar, the syrup and the minced garlic to the beef. Mix by hand until every piece is coated, then leave it to sit 10–20 minutes.
💡 This waiting step is his whole point, and he explains why: sugar molecules are bigger than the other seasonings, so if the soy sauce goes in at the same time it gets there first and the sweetness never penetrates. Sugar alone, then wait.
While it rests, pull the stems off the shiitake and slice the caps thinly, about 0.3 cm.
Slice the green onion and the red chili on the diagonal, about 0.5 cm thick.
Trim the onion and julienne it about 0.5 cm thick.
Now add the soy sauce to the rested beef and fold it through gently, keeping the slices intact rather than shredding them.
💡 Gently. Thin bulgogi beef tears easily, and torn shreds cook into dry threads instead of tender folds.
Add the onion, green onion, red chili and shiitake and mix them in.
Sprinkle the black pepper and sesame oil over the vegetables and mix once more.
💡 Sesame oil last. Add it early and it coats the meat in a film that seals the soy and sugar out.
Set a pan over high heat and let it get properly hot before anything touches it — flick in a drop of water and it should skitter and vanish.
💡 A properly preheated pan is the difference between bulgogi that sears and bulgogi that boils in its own marinade.
Add the bulgogi and stir-fry, using tongs or chopsticks to keep teasing the meat apart as it cooks so it does not weld into a mass.
Cook 6–8 minutes over high heat, until no pink remains, the onion has gone soft and glassy and the marinade has reduced to a glossy sauce clinging to the meat. Stir in the MSG here if you are using it.
Plate the bulgogi, scatter with toasted sesame seeds and serve with rice — or with lettuce leaves to wrap.
💡 Tips
- Beginner's mistake: mixing every seasoning into one bowl of marinade at once. This recipe is built on order — sugar and garlic alone first, rest, then soy, then sesame oil last. Skip the order and you get salty beef with no sweetness inside it.
- Make-ahead tip from Paik himself: if you are cooking it the next day, marinate with ONLY the green onion added and refrigerate, then mix in the rest of the vegetables on the day you cook. The other vegetables leach water overnight and dilute everything.
- Substitution: no starch syrup? Use honey or an extra 1/2 tbsp of sugar. It is there for gloss and cling more than for sweetness. No shiitake? Any mushroom, or leave them out — the dish stands on the beef, onion and scallion.
- Don't overload the pan. 500 g in one small pan will steam. Cook it in two batches over high heat rather than one crowded, grey batch.
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