Sunday, March 28, 2010

Feelin' Sassy. Sort of.


Anyone who's hung out with me recently is well aware of my intense interest in homesteading skills. When I was a kid, back in the back-to-the-land days of the 1970s, the Foxfire books were something of a handbook slash bible for the cool skills needed when venturing off the grid and into a wild life.

I recently bought the first two books off Ebay, and was reading Foxfire 2's chapter on spring wild plant foods with great interest. Maryland's first spring forageables are just peeking above the ground, and I'm raring to start collecting -- and eating.

Old-time mountain folk valued sassafras tea as a spring tonic, saying that it thinned a person's blood made sluggish by a long winter spent indoors. I could certainly use a seasonal pick-me-up, and decided to make some sassafras tea while waiting for the dandelion leaves to get just a little bigger before I pick them and sauté them in an obscene amount of butter.

I uprooted a sassafras sapling while setting up my new compost heap, and making tea could not have been easier -- I scrubbed the three-foot long, fragrant taproot clean of mud, cut it into lengths, smashed those with a meat hammer, and boiled them in a big pot of water. The liquid turned a lovely deep red color and gave off a scent reminiscent of both licorice and shoe polish. I strained out the solids, sweetened the tea with honey (gathered from Baltimore county bees kept by a friend's 9 year old son!) and drank several cups. This might have been wishful thinking, but I swear it made me feel a little, well, tingly.

It's truly a delicious drink -- a complex, slightly sharp taste that reminds me of root beer, with a velvety mouth feel. (The mouth feel is very distinct, and I wasn't surprised to read later that sassafras leaves are dried to make filé powder, the Cajun seasoning that lends both flavor and especially thickening properties to gumbo). I poured the rest into bottles, one to give to a friend and brought the other as a beverage contribution for a pot luck following a Mid-Atlantic Primitive Skills Group workshop on emergency preparedness.

That batch of sassafras tea is all drunk up now, and I was basking in a fairly deep sense of coolness about having made it. I mean, talk about your back yard beverage! But then it occurred to me to look up the health benefits of sassafras tea, other than of course the traditional springtime blood thinning thing.

Distressingly, it turns out that sassafras used to be popular as a food additive and flavoring but was banned by the FDA in the 1960s after it turned out that safrole, the essential oil that gives sassafras its distinctive odor and flavor, caused liver cancer in laboratory rats. Grrreeeeaattt...It also turns out that the Cherokee, who used sassafras as a traditional medicine, also stressed that it should never be taken for more than a week at a time, so even back before laboratories and rats it was known that you shouldn't drink a whole lot of this stuff. One side affect of too much sass, too fast: profuse sweating and shakiness.

I feel a little bad that I foisted potentially carcinogenic sassafras tea on my friend Brian -- he's been under the weather for the past couple weeks, a guy in need of a spring tonic if ever I've seen one -- as well as my new MAPS friends, all without doing due diligence on the potential benefits or, ahem, pitfalls of the foraged food.

Further research shows that a few cups of sassafras tea isn't going to hurt anyone -- it's long term, high-dosage use that brings on the liver cancer. (Now, what was it that Euell Gibbons died of? Since in Stalking the Wild Asparagus's sassafras chapter Gibbons mentions his fondness for, and frequent quaffing of, sassafras root tea). So I'll probably limit my own sassafras tea consumption to a single, annual March spring tonic brewing, and certainly alert anyone I might ever offer it to in the future as to its potential lethality.

So I hereby apologize to Brian, and MAPS folks (especially Dan, who seemed to like it the most), and also to my liver. Happy Spring!






Thursday, March 25, 2010

Cube-ism

So I waded back into the beef this week. Porterhouse steaks last Friday night -- the butcher cut them a little thin for me, on the skinny side of half an inch, but a quick sear on the grill with a nice sea salt and pepper crust turned out some tender, flavorful meat. Mashed potatoes (potatoes and butter courtesy of the Amish co-op) and a salad (from Gardener's Gourmet woodstove-heated greenhouses in Westminster, by way of the Waverly farmer's market) rounded out a quick and satisfying dinner.

Ever since I crammed, stuffed, and wedged that quarter side of beef into my freezer last month I've been wondering what the hell I'd do with the 20 or so pounds of cube steak that came along with. I wasn't even sure what cube steak *is* -- we never ate it when I was a kid, so it's not part of my retro-foods vernacular.

I did however have vague recollections of a fantastic Dorothy Allison essay I'd read in the NYT Magazine a few years ago. It was more about her scrambling up the economic ladder far enough to afford a duck and a goose for Christmas -- the accompanying recipe is how to roast a duck. The part that stuck in my memory, though, was a passage about pounding oddball cuts of beef with a Coke bottle to tenderize it -- essentially, home-made cube steak. I went looking for it and got to re-read one of the most lyrical passages of food writing I've ever encountered:

"Gravy is the simplest, tastiest, most memory-laden dish I know how to make: a little flour, salt and pepper, crispy bits of whatever meat anchored the meal, a couple of cups of water or milk and slow stirring to break up lumps. That’s it. It smells of home, the door locked against the night and a stillness made safe by the sound of a spoon going round in a pan. It is anticipation, the last thing prepared before the meal comes to the table, the bowl in Mama’s hand closing the day out peacefully, no matter what came before."

Having read that -- and also the part about the Coke bottle pounding -- again, how could I not venture in for my own cube steak and gravy experience?

Once the inaugural pack of cube steaks thawed out, I opened the white butcher's paper to discover six heavily dimpled, flattened cutlets. The cuts were in a checkerboard shape -- hence the term "cube" steak. When I'd spoken to the butcher who custom-slaughtered our quarter cow, she'd offered this meat in the form of cutlets or cube steaks, my choice, but heavily recommending the cube steaks. "You'd have to work really hard to get this meat anywhere near tender enough to eat. You'd have to pound it within an inch of your life before you cook it," she advised over the phone. "But we have a machine that pounds the meat and tenderizes it for you."

Hey, I'm in favor of anything involving less work for little ol' me, so cube steak it was. Plus, though I'd envisioned engaging Jack and Cole in a little pre-dinner meat pounding, we utterly lack any of the heavy-lipped old fashioned Coke bottles Dorothy Allison references. So I told the butcher go ahead, pound 'er up.

Cube steak, it turns out, generally comes from parts of the cow that got a lot of exercise -- fairly tough cuts of muscle, like the the top or the round. Once tenderized, however, whether mechanically or via child labor, it's basically poor man's steak, straddling the divide between hamburger and cheap sirloin. Kitchens the world over have a use for cube steak, it seems. Browsing the innerwebs for cooking ideas, I mused over the phenomenon of smothered steak -- an approach ranging from intriguing, as in braising them in stock with caramelized onions, to terrifying preparations involving canned green beans and cream of mushroom soup. Latino kitchens marinate in lime and garlic to make bistec palomilla or adobo seasoning for bistec encebollado; Asian ones don't bother with the macerating, they just cut it matchstick-thin and stir fry. The cube steak concept that most made my mouth water, however, was chicken-fried steak.

I used to spend a fair amount of time in Austin, Texas, and I have fond memories of the chicken-fried steak at Threadgills. They claim theirs is world famous, and maybe even invented there if memory serves, but I just wanted to dine where Janis Joplin used to be the house entertainment. The outstanding chicken-fried steak was a secondary benefit.

Now, Threadgill's does East Texas CFS, which means batter dipped and served with sawmill (white) gravy. I am by birth tragically gravy challenged and so decided to make West Texas-style CFS, where the meat is simply coated in seasoned flour and quickly fried in a hot skillet. I am reasonably able to make a quick pan gravy, essentially a red-eye gravy, but cream gravies in my past have been regrettable.

So I filled a pie plate with flour, sprinkled on some coarse sea salt and lots lots lots of ground pepper. I floured the steaks on both sides and dropped them into a very hot iron skillet which had been liberally lubricated with lard. Once I'd flash-fried up a dinner's worth of cube steaks I then turned the savory, crunchy bits left in the pan into a dark brown gravy by dumping the leftover flour into the skillet to brown, then adding water and a little milk. By this time the smell of frying beef had filled the house, and once the gravy thickened up I called the boys to the table for chicken-fried steak and garlic mashed potatoes, with an ocean of gravy poured over.

I didn't have to call twice.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Loving the Leftovers


Since starting this blog a couple months ago it's become evident to me that we tend to eat the same dinners over and over. In any given week one night will almost definitely feature paht thai, and another is likely to feature spaghetti and meatballs.

(A note about meatballs: although I'm all about eating locally, sustainably and seasonally, there are a few convenience foods I might actually purchase, were they to exist, like frozen, pre-cooked meatballs made from pastured beef. I have never found these anywhere, but it would be great to keep a package on hand for last-minute meals. Instead I make my own meatballs in giant batches, cook and freeze them for quick reheating: DIY convenience food. For just those times when the meatball bag is empty and the guys are too starving to wait for -- and I'm too exhausted to assemble -- scratch-cooked anything, I stash a package of Applegate Farms uncured, grassfed hot dogs in the freezer. Hey, on those nights, it's either that or popcorn for our evening meal; peanut butter sandwiches would be a fantastic dinner alternative, except on those nights we are also invariably fresh out of bread).

Anyway, the guys often request skeddi (as Coley calls it) and meatballs. I usually cook an entire pound of pasta, even though we eat maybe a third of it for dinner, because what I really look forward to is the next day: Skeddi Pie. Or, as my Neapolitan landlady used to call it, torta di pasta.

I've never actually seen a recipe for this, though I'm sure you can find anything on the ol' innerwebs. It's one of those something-from-nothing dishes that Italian cooks seem to emerge from the womb already proficient in throwing together. It's brilliant with any kind of left-over pasta, from short or tube pastas to long strands, even if the pasta is already dressed in tomato, cream or any other sauce. This recipe can also make use of many other odds and ends you might have lingering in the fridge. It's fast, simple, and inexpensive, and best of all really really delicious. Also highly portable -- it's one of my favorite picnic foods.

Basically, once the pasta is tossed with the eggs and Parmesan, you can toss in whatever you've got loitering around: leftover roasted vegetables. Artichoke hearts. Sun-dried tomatoes, or chopped fresh ones. Anchovies or sardines. Olives, capers, marinated mushrooms. Pennies. (Just seeing if you were paying attention).

Torta di Pasta

4 cups cooked/cooled pasta (approx 1/2 lb, a little more or a little less is fine)
3 eggs, beaten,
1 cup grated Parmesan or Reggiano cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated pepper

Add-ins: at least throw a handful of sliced scallions in there, or some olives, but really anything goes -- as little or as much as you like.

Oven to 375.

In large bowl, combine pasta with all ingredients (except add-ins). Using your hands for best results, and also because it's fun, mix gently but thoroughly. Fold in scallions, olives, etc.

In a large (9 or 10 inch) ovenproof skillet (cast iron is brilliant for this), heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil. When pan is very hot, pack pasta mixture into the pan as evenly as you can. Cook over medium-high for about 3 minutes, until starting to brown on bottom. Run a spatula around sides and underneath to loosen torta and prevent sticking. Slide into oven for 15-20 minutes, until middle is firm to touch in center.

I usually serve this straight from the pan, but you can run a spatula under and around the cake to loosen it and then invert onto a platter.





Monday, March 15, 2010

Crunchy On The Inside


Recently I've been trying to take more of a problem-solving approach to life here on the cul-de-sac. Case in point: we seem to always run late for school in the mornings, and it's a major stressor for everyone -- me carping at the boys to get dressed, find their backpacks, finish their breakfasts, no really I mean it put clothes on right NOW. I swear the average school morning shaves an entire week off my lifespan, and the boys don't enjoy it either.

One thing that slows us down, I know, is that my insistence on a solid, nutritious breakfast, and preferably a hot one. Pancakes are relatively quick, and so is oatmeal when I remember to soak the danged oats the night before, but when you're working on getting everyone fed, dressed and out the door in less than 30 minutes, scratch-cooked breakfasts are just going to make us late for school. Again.

So I've been playing around with the idea of breakfast bars -- whole grains, fruit and protein in portable form. Add a travel cup of milk and you've got a car seat-friendly first meal of the day. I certainly didn't invent the idea -- the supermarket is rife with kiddie go-foods, from cereal bars coated with a white substance meant to suggest milk to slurpable tubes of technicolor yogurt containing more sugar per serving than a Coke.

Since I've long been concerned with organic and whole foods, I've also often been mocked for being a hippie: "You're SO crunchy," someone once told me. I don't wear Birkenstocks or tie-dyed anything, and never really counterculture identified (though I must confess to attending a few Grateful Dead shows) so I'm not sure why how I eat makes me a hippie when I seem to lack most of the other flower child cultural markers. Whatever, man.

Thus I think it's funny that I've only been making my own granola for a couple of years, and this is my first shot at granola bars -- granola being the standard culinary petard used to hoist hippies, I guess. Maybe I've been crunchy on the inside all along.

No matter my demographic, I would benefit as much as the guys from a healthy portable breakfast, if this morning's regrettable trip to Safeway is any indication. Today I had time for coffee but nothing more on a morning totally thrown off by the Daylight Savings time change, which sprang forward hard on my ass. After dropping the guys at school -- on time, though just barely -- I swung by the grocery store and was blindsided by English muffin lust. Safeway's got a buy-one, get one free sale on Thomas' products this week and, upon entering this particular store, shoppers are greeted by an enormous English muffin display.

I've worshiped at the Church of Michael Pollan for nearly four years now, and we eat as traditionally and seasonally as we possibly can. However, English muffins happen to be one of the industrial foods I've missed most -- for many years I breakfasted daily and happily on a toasted English muffin, slathered with butter and marmalade -- and this morning, confronted in my hunger-weakened state by the muffin mountain, I threw two boxes of whole wheat muffins into the cart. It wasn't til I got home that it dawned on me to check the ingredients list, which was appallingly long: thirty-eight separate ingredients (counting "mono- and di-glycerides" as two). Holy multisyllabic industrial food additives, Batman! I still toasted one up and ate it slathered with butter, but the joy was gone. English muffins are so over for me now.

Fortunately I have evolved a really, really good breakfast bar recipe. I played around with all sorts of approaches, including blending in tofu for extra protein and moisture, but ended up with a more or less classic granola bar. It's dense and chewy, not too sweet, and as chock-full of fruit and fiber as you want to make it -- you can add up to three cups of dried fruit, nuts, seeds, whatever you got, or none at all (though IMHO you're crazy if you don't, those tasty little treat nuggest are the best part!), it's all good. My favorite combination so far is 2/3 cup each dried fruit-juice-sweetened cranberries, walnuts and large-shred (flaked) organic coconut. (Anybody knows a reliable place to find flaked coconut minus propylene glycol and sulfites, please to let me know).

Cul-de-Sac Breakfast Bars

1 cup quick rolled oats (not instant)
2/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour
1/4 cup hippie sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
up to 3 cups coarsely chopped dried fruit, nuts and/or seeds*

6 tablespoons melted butter (can substitute some or all of this with coconut oil)
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tablespoons golden syrup** or molasses
1 tablespoon water

Oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8x8 pan.

Mix together all the dry ingredients plus any additions you're adding. In a separate bowl whisk together butter, syrups and water. Toss wet with dry until evenly moistened. Firmly press the mixture into the prepared pan, packing it down and distributing it evenly.

Bake 40-45 minutes, until the edges are brown. The center will seem underbaked, but will firm up as it cools. Cool completely in pan on a cooling rack before slicing. To store -- not that these will hang around long -- wrap squares individually or keep in airtight container.

* Suggestions: any kind of nuts, of course, and chopped dried fruit like apricots or prunes. Also sunflower seeds, pepitas, sesame seeds, wheat germ, flax meal, even chocolate chips (cherries, walnuts and dark chocolate chunks are a pretty amazing combination if you're loose on your definition of acceptable breakfast foods).

**Lyle's Golden Syrup is my new favorite obscure ingredient! It's a British baking item that is a useful substitute for corn syrup. Genuine golden syrup like Lyle's is made from cane sugar, and has a marvelous caramel flavor that really comes out in these granola bars. (There are knockoff brands that mix corn syrup with molasses; technically this is treacle, not golden syrup, so be sure to read the label). For a darker, richer flavor you can of course use molasses. You could also substitute King syrup, or of course just use corn syrup. Golden syrup is sold at many grocery stores.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Kitchen Therapy


I've been making a lot of som tum (green papaya salad) recently. Actual green papayas -- not unripe regular papayas, but a distinct and separate papaya species that remains green even when ripe -- are hard to come by, and I generally only find them at H-Mart or other large Asian grocers. They tend to be big, so when I do get my hands on a green papaya it's som tum time for quite some time around here. (You can find the recipe along with one for paht thai here).

The thing about green papaya is that its flesh is really tough, and the recipe I use calls for tenderizing it via extended pounding in a mortar and pestle. Lacking a large enough mortar, I just pound the hell out of it in a giant Pyrex bowl using the pusher cylinder from my Cuisinart as pestle. It's quite the workout, really -- the whole recipe, which requires thorough pounding to mix in the seasonings as well as bruise the raw green beans, takes about 6-8 continuous minutes of rapid upper body exertion. It's a great way to work out any frustrations or tensions you may have carried through the day: it's not just dinner, it's an existential palliative!

Sometimes, however, even a thorough papaya pounding isn't enough to cure what ails and this morning I felt the deep need for Rice Krispie treats. I've been slogging through a rough couple of weeks, life-wise, and I've been craving them for quite a few days now. I believe in listening to the body and feeding what it asks for -- I mean, usually my body is asking for greens. (Seriously: my most common food cravings are kale, spinach and eggs. Go figure). But what about when your body says, hey, how 'bout some doughnuts?

So to both soothe my angst and stick to my dietary convictions, I've been trying to come up with a less evil version of RKTs -- using puffed brown rice, local raw butter and making my own marshmallows (more about that in a future post -- I have yet to conquer the homemade marshmallow learning curve). My first efforts were, in a word, inedible. The homemade marshmallow was definitely the problem -- once set, it refused to soften again to combine properly with the cereal. Instead of Rice Krispie Treats I had tooth-shattering brown nuggets that nobody wanted to eat, not even the squirrels after I chucked them out in the yard. And our aggressive mutant squirrels will eat anything left outside -- including pumpkin pie, bottled mustard and, once, the better part of a Coleman cooler lid.

This morning I just gave up the struggle and made some damned straight-up RKTs. I didn't do this on purpose but I did end up using just about the most vile ingredients possible -- WalMart brand crisp rice cereal that my mom brought over, plus supermarket marshmallows and some regular butter that's been sitting in the freezer. So this is truly a junk-fest of odd additives -- who knew there was blue food coloring in marshmallows? They're white, fer cryin' out loud -- and funky chemicals: bring on the tetrasodium pyrophosphate!

Making RKTs could not be easier: put 40 large marshmallows (or 4 cups mini mallows) and 3 tablespoons butter in a big bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes, stir, and microwave another 1-2 minutes untill completely melted. Stir again, then stir in 6 cups crisp rice cereal. Press into buttered 9x13 pan. Begin eating immediately.

I started the recipe at 8:50 and by 9 am I was chowing on my very own personal pan of industrial deliciousness. I guarantee they'll be gone by the end of the day, and yes I'll probably be feeling pretty gross, physically. But one-third of the way through the pan I already feel a little less bleak of spirit, a little more optimistic and energized (though that's likely due to the four different kinds of sweetener -- count 'em: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, and sugar -- found in the ingredients).

Eating sustainably is crucial, but sometimes sustenance wears a weirdly different form. I almost never eat this way, but today I'm feeding not my body but my soul. And my soul apparently is solidly white-trash.

FOOTNOTE: I only got to eat the portion of the RKTs you see already missing in the photo. Shortly after posting this blog entry I spotted our babysitter's adolescent Weimeranar dashing out the front door of my house carrying an entire giant rice krispy treat in his joyful jaws. Dammit.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Captain Beefheart: the part about the beef heart


So when my quarter cow came, by the way, it was accompanied by its tongue, liver and heart. Your basic variety meats, in other words, minus the brain and kidneys. They came to me because the other three cow sharers didn't want them. I have never cooked any of these cuts, but I do like eating them -- particularly tongue -- and so it's going to be an adventure to learn how to do it myself. My grandfather used to be fond of beef heart, sliced thin and given a quick, hard fry. He also liked brains scrambled with eggs, but I just don't think I'll be going that far into family food tradition.

Honestly, though, almost as much of an adventure lies in learning what the hell to do with all the OTHER cuts of beef now cramming my freezer to capacity:

45 pounds of ground beef (!)
10 lbs stew meat
10 lbs cube steak
5 lbs bones

Plus a couple dozen steaks -- porterhouse, sirloin, t-bone, and rib steak, whatever that might be -- and an army of roasts: arm, chuck and English. Plus more stuff I didn't even write down as I stuffed it into the freezer.

I am, by the way, in the market for a really good meat loaf recipe...

Captain Beefheart

Two weeks ago today I took possession of a quarter of a cow. Take my word for it: even one fourth of a cow is still a LOT of cow -- 175 lbs, to be precise.

Fortunately my custom-butchered demi-cow had been carved up into smaller pieces, and then wrapped in white freezer paper packages and labeled. When I first heard about this steer-sharing opportunity I was excited -- pasture-raised beef for $3/lb! -- but also hesitant. I wasn't sure I had the freezer space to house such a quantity of cow but decided I could handle it when a quarter beef was described to me as filling two regular coolers or four paper grocery bags.

Well, maybe really big ones -- when it arrived, my cow took up four really really large cardboard boxes, and it was quite a job to fit it into an already fairly full standup freezer. I had to triage existing freezer contents and eat, compost or give away some of the things I found in there (some quite embarrassingly elderly -- 5 year old Boca Burgers, anyone?) to create space for Big Beef. But at last space was created and I was able to actually fit all the beef inside the freezer and close the door securely -- although the stuff in my freezer now fits together, interlocked closely and precisely like an intricate 3-D puzzle that I have to partially dismantle every time I want to take something out.

Now that I've lived with my own personal quarter cow for two weeks I have come to the conclusion, too late alas, that I was crazy to buy this damned much beef when our family doesn't actually eat that much meat. I was vegetarian and vegan during my 20s, and even though I'm an enthusiastic carnivore now it's like beef just isn't a significant part of my culinary vocabulary. It seems the shopping and dining habits developed in my veggie 20s -- which was when I also learned how to really cook -- are so ingrained that even now, when I go to the grocery store, it's like the butcher shop is invisible. I just don't think about it or buy it -- and this is a proclivity that predates my now 3.5 year old vow to only eat humanely pasture-raised animal foods.

So these days I'm trying to Think Beef when it comes to dinner, but I've only cooked it twice in these past two weeks. The first time was successful: I marinated something called an English arm roast -- which turned out to be a lot like a flank steak only with a big bone in it -- to make Korean bulgogi. I was relieved to find that this grass-fed beef was relatively tender, even though it had been harvested (PC foodie speak for slaughtered) in February.

(In general, you want to harvest your meat-on-the-hoof in the fall, after the animals have had a nice long season of dining on lush, abundant pasture. So this steer got to eat some organic grain, plus lots of silage and whatever plants it could find in January pasture -- maybe not the strict pasture-fed ideal, but ultimately producing tasty and tender meat. I don't mind a little grain finishing, so long as it's not in some nightmare hock-deep-in-shit CAFO feed lot).

The bulgogi -- meat sliced thinly across the grain, marinated in sesame oil and soy sauce with lots of garlic, chopped scallions and a pinch each of sugar and red chile flakes -- was fantastic. We ate it rolled up with rice inside of red lettuce leaves, I wish I'd had doenjang, the fermented soy bean paste condiment that traditionally accompanies bulgogi, but Sriacha had to suffice.

My next beef dish was red beef curry, and I hoped to make it a little more locavore by cooking it with some pumpkin from last year's garden. The results, despite a luscious cup of coconut cream and several more of coconut milk, were pretty lackluster -- the recipe definitely needs some reworking. The bulgogi, though, that was a keeper.

Bulgogi
(marinade per one pound of beef)

4 T soy sauce
1 T canola oil
1 T sesame oil
1-2 T granulated sugar
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 scallions, finely chopped greens and all
1 t sesame seeds

Slice beef thinly, across the grain. This is easier to do if the beef is still slightly frozen.

Whisk together soy sauce and sugar until sugar dissolves, then add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour over meat, toss until meat is well coated, and let marinate for at least an hour -- the longer, the better.

Traditionally you grill bulgogi on a hibachi, but I cooked it by tossing slices into a very hot cast iron skillet for about 30 seconds on each side, just searing the beef so it remains tender.