If you’ve been a long term reader of Sunday Gravy then you know that I’m a fan of Korean style foods. You may also realize that some of today’s menu looks kind of familiar. Well there’s a good goddamn reason for that. I’ve made the kalbi style ribs before. Now before you start getting your panties all in a wad, today’s version is a slightly different recipe.

In addition I’ve been getting some pretty positive responses lately since some of my more recent posts have been a little more photo-centric and a little less me droning on and on for paragraphs at a time.

Well sir, there’s going to be a lot of photos today. A veritable shitload as they say. A plethora, a fucking cornucopia of photos. You get the idea.

That first linked recipe details the origin of my fascination with Korean style foods and I give a fairly lengthy diatribe about my “adopted” Vietnamese family who introduced me to homemade Asian food, both Vietnamese and Korean. It’s all in there if you want to recap but I just wanted to give a little background to why I love this style of food as much as I do.

I’ve dabbled in the past with the fucking glorious Korean Style wings, yep those noodles and the shoyu look kind of familiar don’t they? I’ve also done a different version of ribs, these are baby back ribs with a spicy gochujang sauce, but today we’re going back to kalbi style.

Hey you? You want to know the real inspiration for today’s dinner? The goddamn egg rolls.

Who doesn’t love egg rolls? It’s another one of those things that if you are eating buffet style or you’re at a fancy shmancy cocktail party where there are appetizers around, you just KNOW you’re going to eat about 25 of these bastards. What’s even better is homemade egg rolls.

This was my very first attempt at making egg rolls and I was very pleased with the results. There is a bit of prep work involved here kids so we’re going to prep that meat on Saturday and make the egg rolls and grill the meat on Sunday. If you can recruit somebody to man the grill to cook the ribs, even better. If you have a food processor you are going to want to use it. It will reduce your prep work by about 3 hours and that isn’t a bullshit exaggeration.

Enough rambling you wordy asshole, get to the recipe! Away we go.

Korean style Kalbi ribs! 

4 pounds of beef short ribs cut “kalbi” or “flanken” style. This is thin cut with a link of about 3 bones attached to the side.

1 Asian pear peeled, cut and quartered. You can also use a couple of kiwis here instead.

1 medium white onion peeled and quartered.

4 green onions chopped.

8-10 garlic cloves peeled.

1 chunk of ginger peeled and rough chopped

1/2 cup of soy sauce

1/2 cup of sake

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

1 tablespoon of red pepper flake

1 tablespoon of black pepper

A couple of squirts or sriracha

1/2 cup of dark brown sugar.

First thing we’re going to do is rinse off those ribs. These motherfuckers have been cut across the bone with a band saw and you definitely don’t want to chomp down on any bone bits. Dry the ribs with a couple of paper towels and coat them with the brown sugar. Just like this.

Let them sit for a few minutes while we get the rest of the marinade going. Next take the white onion, green onion, Asian pear, garlic and ginger and toss them into a food processor. You can use a blender if you don’t have a food processor but it’s going to work out the motor on that blender. Pulse that food processor a few times and mince up the veggie items until they make a paste.

Next let’s work on the wet ingredients. Take the soy sauce, sake, sesame oil, red pepper flake, black pepper and sriracha and mix together in a medium sized bowl.

Mix these two bowls together.

And you’ve got the marinade ready for action. Take them ribs and put in the all too familiar gallon freezer bag (I actually needed two bags for this recipe) cover with the marinade, shake the bag(s) to coat the ribs and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, you’re going to fire up your grill, preferably charcoal of course, and grill these glorious fuckers for about 3-4 minutes per side.

I was able to recruit brother DJ Taj to handle this element of the dish because I was working hard on the secondary part of the dish in the kitchen.

Continue cooking until you’ve cooked the entire batch of ribs and have achieved culinary excellence!

These will be served alongside our next dish…

EGG ROLLS!!!

Many of the same superlatives that I used to describe crab cakes can also be applied to egg rolls. Doesn’t basically every culture have a thin dough wrapped around a selection of savory ingredients? Well any fucking civilized culture does. The Filipino and the flat out amazing lumpia, the Greeks with the dolmades (using grape leaves instead of dough), the good folks from India and the pakora, the Polish and the pierogies, Vietnamese spring rolls, the Mexicans and their, well everything Mexican is like a wrap and of course the wonderful and irresistible egg roll. I tried to come up with what the American version of an egg roll would be and decided… Hot pockets! Yeah we kind of suck in comparison.  I literally don’t know a single person who doesn’t love egg rolls.

Then again, as I found out first hand, they are a bit of a bastard to make at home. I was determined and focused and I was going to make this shit instead of buying frozen egg rolls and once again, my handy food processor saved my happy ass from a whole shitload of chopping.

Let’s DO THIS!

1 package of frozen, or recently frozen egg roll/spring roll wraps.

1 pound of ground pork

1 teaspoon (plus a tablespoon for a slurry) of corn starch

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

3 carrots shredded

About 1/4 head of cabbage shredded

1/2 cup of mushrooms chopped

1 teaspoon of minced ginger

3 cloves of minced garlic

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

1 teaspoon of oyster sauce (optional)

1 tablespoon of sake

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper.

Whole bunch of cooking oil.

Combine the raw pork, teaspoon of corn starch and soy sauce in a bowl and let marinate for about 15 minutes. Then brown the pork in a skillet.

Remove the pork from the pan and let cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile let’s shred up the carrots and the cabbage using the food processor. Again, these can be shredded with a kitchen knife but holy fuck! Check this shit out.

This took about 90 seconds in the food processor for both the carrot and the cabbage. You’re gonna spend about an hour getting a fine shred like this by hand. Once more consider a food processor, that’s a link to Amazon and it’s the same food processor I bought. 26 bucks! Goddammit your time and effort saved is worth more than 26 fucking bucks. My time is valuable dammit!

Get another pan and saute the carrot, cabbage, ginger, garlic, mushroom, sesame oil, oyster sauce, and salt and pepper. Saute for a minute or two but too much longer and the veggies will disappear from the finished egg roll.

Add in the cooked pork and mix well. Remove everything from the pan and let cool. You can drain this through a colander or let cool on a baking sheet with a corner propped up to allow the grease to drain. This helps you avoid making a soggy egg roll and soggy egg rolls are bullshit.

Make a slurry of 1/4 cup of water and 1 tablespoon of corn starch. Now let’s start rolling these motherfuckers up!

You are only going to use a tablespoon or 2 of filling for each egg roll, we don’t want to make gargantuan egg rolls. “I’ve always liked that word… ‘gargantuan’… so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence.”

Place an egg roll wrap in a diamond shape on a clean, dry surface and put the filling in the lower part of the diamond nearest you – see photo – the trick here is to roll a tight egg roll. Roll forward and then fold in the sides of the wrap. Dip your fingers in the slurry and rub a little at the top of the wrap to help seal. Continue rolling these up until you have made enough for the meal. I think I made 14 of these and it was more than enough for three, well along with the Korean ribs and some noodles it was more than enough. I froze the leftover mixture and the wraps so I can EASILY make them again down the road. Be sure to cover the egg rolls with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out while you are heating up the oil.

Get a pot out to fry these things in. Pour about 2 inches of oil and let it come to temp over a medium high flame.

Really. Let it come to temperature.

/Looks at watch, 10 minutes pass.

No. Not yet. Give this about 12-14 minutes to fully get that oil to temperature. You don’t want greasy egg rolls either. Once the oil is hot (about 350 if you are the type of person who has a high heat thermometer) drop (well, carefully drop) some of the egg rolls into the oil. I did about 5 at a time. Don’t overcrowd the pan or it will drop the oil temperature and could result in a greasy egg roll.

The first batch may take a minute or two longer than the subsequent batches. They will cook for about 2-3 minutes or until golden brown and delicious. Drain on a paper towel and to keep warm put them on a baking dish in a 225 degree pre-heated oven until all batches are cooked. Look at these things!

Oh my!

Yes, yes, they were fucking delicious. Serve with a little sweet and sour sauce, yeah fuck it, buy a bottle at the store, you’ve worked hard enough for the day, or better yet a shot of Sriracha! I’m pretty sure Sriracha was invented to put on a hot and crispy egg roll. Now we’re going to serve these hot and crispy along with the ribs, and whatever side you want. We did the teriyaki noodle thing again. Here’s that money shot again.

Holy shit folks. Just holy shit. Smoky, sweet, spicy kalbi ribs along with a hot crunchy savory homemade egg roll or 5. It really doesn’t get much better than that. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of the egg rolls having never made them from scratch before. As always read the recipe through entirely at least 3 times before attempting anything new. You’ll be glad you did.

Oh that sake in the picture? Mostly there as a prop, it was the cheap sake since I was just cooking with it. We ended up just drinking a whole bunch of super cold and delicious beers instead.

As the Koreans say “Geu joh-eun ttong ida” or “That’s some good shit right there.”

Thanks for reading.

Let’s all be nicer to each other.

Peace!