Summer grilling with Korean-style beef short ribs

Kalbi or Korean-style beef short ribs are?so tender they will melt like butter in your mouth.

By Patricia Tanumihardja,?The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook / July 24, 2012

Korean-style short ribs barbecued on the grill makes a delicious course for a family meal.

The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook/Lara Ferroni

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Here in Seattle, we don?t expect summer ? the most elusive of all seasons ? to make a gracious appearance until after July 4th.

Skip to next paragraph Patricia Tanumihardja

Born in Indonesia and raised in Singapore, Patricia Tanumihardja writes about food, travel, and lifestyle through a multicultural lens and has been published in numerous national and regional publications. Pat is also the creator of the ?Asian Ingredients 101? iPhone and Android app, a glossary on-the-go that?s the perfect companion on a trip to the Asian market. Her first book,?The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook: Home Cooking from Asian American Kitchens,?will be available in paperback in September 2012.

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Now after Independence Day, I am happy to report that the days have been gloriously sunny! The temps have rolled into the 70s and 80s degree F., and we?re even starting to complain about the heat.

While true Seattleites have no qualms about being pelted by raindrops while guarding the grill, it?s always more pleasant when skies are blue and steaks aren?t sodden.

I know better than to take our gorgeous weather for granted so we have a few outdoor-centric activities planned for the next few days and that, of course, includes a barbecue.

Call me a snob but I?m not a burgers and hotdogs (bratwurst, yes, but I don?t consider them one and the same) kinda gal. I prefer sate, pork chops, and chicken wings ? foods we always had at our family barbeques growing up. That being said, my husband usually insists on throwing some patties and buns on the grill, ?just in case people don?t care for sate.? Seriously?

Sure, it involves more prepping and elbow grease ? as chief marinator and head sate-skewerer, I should know ? but if you gather family and friends, it makes for easy work and a fun evening of chattering and gossip. And who could argue that tender, deeply marinated chicken morsels ? flame-licked and kaffir lime-spiked ? dipped into peanut sauce isn?t heaven on a hot and sticky summer?s day, or at anytime, really?

Now that I have you salivating over chicken sate, I?m going to tell you about a relatively new addition to my grilling repertoire ? kalbi or Korean-style beef short ribs (sorry!).

To be honest, I don?t eat much red meat but I?ll happily eat kalbi. For some reason, my taste buds don?t register kalbi as beef. Similarly, rare flank steak or oxtail don?t taste beefy to me either.

I?ve eaten kalbi at Korean restaurants, and every time I?ve marveled at the meat so tender it melted like butter in my mouth.

Fortunately, I didn?t have to wonder for very long.

I was enlightened when my friend and fellow food-writer extraordinaire Susan Kim shared her grandma?s kalbi recipe (and a few more) with me for??The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook.??The revelation was extraordinary, much like an initiation into a reverent circle of all-knowing Asian grandmas, which producing the cookbook was! It seems that every Korean grandmother has her own secret to tenderizing meat, ranging from soda (Coke or 7-up) to Asian pears, and in Sang Jung Choi?s case, kiwis. (Curious if kiwis are native to Korea? So was I, and as it turns out,?they are.)

These methods and ingredients may seem unorthodox to the American cook but trust me, the results are impressive.

So what are you waiting for? It?s time to get grillin?!

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/5kdyGxSbWdg/Summer-grilling-with-Korean-style-beef-short-ribs

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