Braised beef in soy sauce

Today’s recipe is a salty beef side dish called jangjjorim, one of the most popular Korean side dishes. A piece of salty, flaky, and a little chewy beef on a spoonful of rice tastes delightful! The beef soaked in a garlicky, peppery savory broth is very flavorful, so you don’t need a lot of it to enjoy it, or to get the taste. It’s meant to be served together with rice and other side dishes, which makes it a great item for lunchboxes.

When I was young, beef was very expensive in Korea, so my mother seldom made jangjorim. But once in a while I tasted it I really loved it. In elementary school we kids brought our lunchboxes to school and me and my friends would sit together at lunchtime and share our side dishes with each other. I was always excited to see what side dishes my friends brought! I was always excited at lunchtime.

There was a rich girl in our class who didn’t eat with us. Her family was running the biggest bookstore in the city. She was the only girl in school whose family’s maid brought her a warm lunch at lunchtime. Me and my friends had rice and kimchi and simple side dishes such as stir-fried anchovies, braised beans, and fishcakes. It was delicious but I could see the rich girl had things like jangjorim and warm bulgogi. Around that time even a sunny side up egg was a luxury for us. I used to envy the kids who had a cooked egg over their rice.

How much things have changed! Now I can easily afford meat and eggs but I need to cut down because too much cholesterol is not good for me.

I posted a jangjorim recipe on my website years ago that used less beef and added ingredients like boiled eggs and more green chili peppers. This new recipe I’m showing you today is the more traditional way, which concentrates on the braised beef. The other recipe uses honey, but this one uses an onion for sweetness instead. Feel free to add a little honey or sugar if you like it sweeter.

You can store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week, or even longer if you add more soy sauce. Even though we trim the fat off the beef you may find that after refrigerating there’s some tiny white solid fat floating on top. I always warm it up in the microwave before serving, and then it looks and tastes just like it is freshly made.

My Korean lunch table with jangjorim

Ingredients

• 1 pound beef flank steak (or beef brisket, beef eye round, shank meat, or any beef with a grain), cut along the grain into 2½ x 1½ x ¼ inch pieces
• water
• ½ cup soy sauce
• 12 garlic cloves
• 1 medium onion (about 6-7 ounces)
• 2 green chili peppers (serrano peppers, jalapeño peppers, or mild shishito peppers), cut into ½ inch pieces

Directions

1. Put the beef in a heavy pot with 3 to 4 cups of water. Cover and boil for about 7 to 8 minutes over medium-high heat until brownish foam comes up to the surface.
2. Drain and rinse the beef under cold running water, and drain again. Wash out the pot to remove any brown foam and bits.
3. Return the beef to the clean pot. Add 4 cups water, cover, and cook for 50 minutes over medium heat until the beef gets tender.
4. Add the soy sauce, ½ cup water, garlic, onion, and green chili pepper. Stir a few times with a wooden spoon.
5. Cover and cook for another 20 minutes over medium heat.
6. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cool down until you can handle the beef with your hands.

Serve

1. Take out the beef and tear it into thin strips. Put it into a serving bowl and add some garlic and green chili pepper, along with some of the braising liquid.
2. Refrigerate the leftovers in an airtight container for up to 1 week.