Korean BBQ

In my quest for fun, new – to me – spicy peppers, I ordered some Korean Gochugaru Pepper Flakes online. While I know that I like eating Korean food, I haven’t cooked a lot of Korean food. We used to frequent a Korean restaurant on 9th & Judah in San Francisco that had fantastic food – there was no reason to cook it if you could get such wonderful food right down the street.

Fast-forward many years, and Gochugaru pepper flakes are on their way. My first use was going to be on a pork tenderloin.

Sadly, the package was damaged in transit and never arrived. It was sent back – with full refund. I ordered another.

On to Plan B.

I had a container of Korean Gochujang Paste in the ‘fridge, so I started there.

Gochu in Korean, is pepper and garu means powder. Gochujang is a paste that has gochugaru in it – along with other ingredients. The things you learn…

I decided to make a BBQ sauce of sorts, so I broke out the blender. I put in a half of an onion, 6 small radishes, 3 cloves of garlic, about 3 tablespoons of gochujang paste, and three tablespoons of ketchup, along with a pinch of salt and blended it all into a smooth sauce.

I sliced the tenderloin into about 3/4-inch slices and placed them into the sauce for about an hour. From there, they went onto a very hot grill for just a few minutes.

Onto the plate, topped with chopped scallions, and served with white rice.

Korean BBQ

It wasn’t the most authentic Korean BBQ, but it did have a lot of flavor. Not overly hot and not overly sweet, it had a nice balance of flavors.

The gochugaru pepper should arrive this weekend. We shall see what other concoctions we can come up with…