Seasoned raw beef

Yukhoe 육회

Korean seasoned raw beef (yukhoe) is a delicious, fantastic totally unique dish: cool, garlicky, nutty, a little sweet and of course meaty! It makes for a great side dish for drinking. My recipe uses a lot of garlic, so plan in advance for garlic breath!

This recipe has been a favorite in my family for a long time. Over the years I’ve tried many different versions in restaurants and experimented with ratios, but I always come back to this one. I love the contrast between the strong garlic, sesame oil flavor, sweetness, saltiness, and cool beef.

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Many Korean restaurants add an egg yolk to the middle of the plated dish, but I’ve never liked that method. I don’t alway want egg yolk on my yukhoe. But recently I’ve come to enjoy a yolk on the side, and this way you can ask your guests if they want a yolk of their own, instead of putting it on the dish for all to share. Give your family or guests a little freedom, let them dip their yukhoe in a yolk, if they like!

One of the keys to this dish is to buy fresh, good quality beef that’s tender and has almost no fat. I find it best to talk to my butcher directly and tell him I’m going to eat it raw, so he (or she) can recommend the most suitable cut.  If you can’t talk to your butcher, you have to be careful to buy the freshest you can get from a place you trust.

beef

The other key is to make sure everything is cold. I keep my beef in the freezer for an hour or two before making yukhoe from it, that way it’s a little icy, easier to cut, and really cold when it’s mixed with seasoning sauce. Try not to handle it too much with your warm hands when you cut it, so it stays cold. I chill my serving platter too, by putting it in the fridge.

Ingredients

  • 8 ounces (226 grams) of fresh tender beef. Choose any tender cut of beef without fat: flank steak, filet mignon, round, etc.
  • ½ of a Korean pear (or 2 bosc or anjou pears)
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 2 cups of cold water
  • 6 or 7 garlic cloves, minced
  • ½ of green onion, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon of honey (or sugar)
  • 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
  • a pinch of ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
  • 7 or 8 pine nuts
  • 1 egg yolk per person (optional)

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Directions

Get started

  1. Freeze the beef for 1 to 2 hours.
  2. Make the seasoning sauce by combining garlic, green onion, soy sauce, honey, ground black pepper, toasted sesame oil, and sesame seeds in a bowl. Mix it well.yukhoe seasoning sauce

Soak the pear

  1. Mix 2 cups of cold water and 1 tablespoon sugar in a bowl with a spoon.
  2. Peel the pear and cut it into matchsticks. Soak them in the sugar water for about 10 minutes.soak pear
  3. Drain the pear sticks and dry with paper towel. Put them on a plate, clearing out a spot in the center to put your yukhoe.

Make yukhoe

  1. Take the beef out from the freezer and rinse it in cold running water. Pat dry with paper towels.
  2. Cut the beef into thin matchsticks and then Mix it with the seasoning sauce.mix yukhoe
  3. Place the yukhoe in the center of the plate of pear matchsticks.seasoned-rawbeef

Serve
Sprinkle with pine nuts and serve right away as a side dish for alcohol, or as a snack or appetizer. An optional egg yolk for dipping can be served to each diner.serving yukhoe

Posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 11:37 am. Last updated on February 26, 2016.
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42 Comments:

  1. Hannah.Danesi Sydney joined 3/16 & has 1 comment
    Posted March 6th, 2016 at 1:48 am |

    Hi Maangchi, What are some other side dishes this can be had with?, planning on making it for dinner one night this week.

  2. AznJoeT joined 12/15 & has 1 comment
    Posted December 17th, 2015 at 10:06 pm |

    Wow, what a recipe!

    I’ve slowly transitioning to the mega-paleo caveman diet; carnivore basically. Raw meat.

    It’s a great diet but you really need to find unconventional recipes and I am glad I found this thread. I recently moved to San Fran and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for a Halal?

    I’ve been asking locals for meat at local watering holes but haven’t found a decent place to by cuts yet.

    Thanks,

    JoeT

    • Oxide California joined 2/15 & has 47 comments
      Posted March 3rd, 2016 at 6:09 pm |

      Go across the bridge … Oakland Halal for meats and Saba for very fresh halal chicken. Both in Oakland. I think there is a larger Muslim community in the East bay, and the Fremont area than there is in SF.

  3. Zulumom Concord, CA joined 9/13 & has 35 comments
    Posted October 4th, 2013 at 1:10 pm |

    I made this last night and finally remembered to take a picture before indulging like I usually do! It was sooooooooooo delicious with Korean pear. Thank you so much for the recipe, Maangchi! The best part was the full flavor from garlic~!

  4. stonefly Olympia WA joined 11/11 & has 61 comments
    Posted December 19th, 2011 at 2:19 pm |

    Maangchi:

    Thank you so much for your wonderful recipes, especially Yukhoe. I have two questions:

    1. Have you ever made, or had, Yukhoe Bibimbap? I had this many times at a restaurant in Seattle WA USA, called Shilla, and it was wonderful. Served Bibimbap style with a raw egg on top. Each time I had it, I had to argue with them to serve it to me (I am not Korean heritage)! But delicious.

    2. Who does your music for your videos? Do you choose it? You have great selection of 80s New Wave (Altered Images, The English Beat, etc.). Just wondered.

    Thanks and Rock On! Maangchi Rules!

    Tom aka Stonefly

  5. keiteu Korea joined 12/11 & has 1 comment
    Posted December 11th, 2011 at 9:30 pm |

    I don’t know if I know how to order the freshest beef in Korean… but maybe I will bring a co-worker to help me ^_^ I love Yukhwe!
    Maangchi, Do you think that Jongro restaurant is still there? Jongro is not far from me, I’d like to try and find it. You couldn’t have graduated more than a few years ago! ^_~

    • Maangchi New York City joined 8/08 & has 12,051 comments
      Posted December 14th, 2011 at 9:35 am |

      “Jongro is not far from me,..” oh you are living in Seoul! Thank you for reading my story about the yukhoe place. I don’t know if it’s still open. Ask some of your Korean friends if they know about that kind of place. If you find one, please let me know. : )

  6. Scorpio USA joined 10/11 & has 1 comment
    Posted October 28th, 2011 at 4:00 pm |

    my question is this..Can this dish make you sick because of the raw meat? Look very good thou…

    • themocaw United States joined 11/13 & has 3 comments
      Posted January 9th, 2014 at 4:23 pm |

      Apologies for the thread necromancy, but in case anyone new is reading this. . .

      Yes, raw beef can make you sick, but the risk is far, FAR lower than westerners seem to think. Those E.Coli incidents were generally due to factory-ground raw beef that was left in its ground state for a long time, and were left undercooked at the restaurant. If you take some basic precautions, you can avoid the risk of getting sick greatly (I’ve never gotten sick, despite all the times that I’ve eaten raw beef).

      1. Use the freshest meat. Maangchi suggests speaking to your grocer or butcher and only buying beef on the days when fresh meat arrives. As a rule of thumb, the more beef juices or “blood” you see swimming around in the packet, the longer it’s been sitting on the shelf: don’t use that for yukhoe, but pan-grill it up with a pat of butter and have a nice steak. Use the meat as soon as possible when you’re doing a raw application

      2. Don’t cut up the meat until it’s time to serve. Bacteria can’t grow deep inside the meat: they can’t penetrate the structure, so they mostly live on the surface. Keep the meat in one piece until just before serving. If you want, you can cut the surface off the meat and only use the interior portion to further decrease the risk of contamination. Don’t throw those bits away, though: marinate them in a little bit of Maangchi’s bulgogi marinade, cook it up in a frying pan, and serve it over a bowl of rice as a nice snack for the cook!

      3. Don’t let the raw meat sit at room temperature for too long a length of time. If you’re serving large amounts to a large number of people, prepare small batches and rotate them out regularly. I’ve never done this, but once per hour might be a good rule of thumb: make one batch, place a couple more filets in the freezer to firm up, take away any leftovers by the time you make the second batch (although I seriously doubt you’ll have leftovers, since this dish tends to go quickly. Again, so long as the beef isn’t completely spoiled, you should be able to cook any leftovers you don’t feel comfortable serving raw: so long as it’s thoroughly cooked, you should kill any bacteria that happen to have taken up residence.

      4. WASH EVERYTHING. Sterilize your cutting board (several web sites can teach you how to do this), don’t use the same cutting board for meat and vegetables, wash your knife and hands and mixing bowl, and make sure the plates and vegetables you serve this on are freshly washed. Reduce cross contamination: make sure that the equipment you use for making yukhoe ONLY gets used to make the yukhoe, and thoroughly wash them before you use it for anything else. This one VERY BASIC precaution can save you a ton of trouble!

      5. Your tongue and nose are actually very good indicators of whether or not food is spoiled: that’s what they evolved to do! (Much of the time, when people get sick from undercooked beef, it’s because the undercooked parts are hidden from the nose and tongue by the properly cooked exterior.) Smell and taste the meat before adding the seasonings and serving to your friends. It should taste clean, slightly metallic, and meaty. If it tastes bitter or spoiled, toss it out.

      I don’t mean to say that raw beef is perfectly safe, but then no food is: people have gotten sick from raw spinach and such. But the risks of eating raw beef are overblown in the minds of many Americans: many of those same Americans wouldn’t think twice about eating sashimi at a reputable restaurant, and yukhoe is much the same. Take basic precautions, and you can enjoy delicious steak tartares and yukhoes without having to spend long hours hunched over the toilet.

  7. Chris K. Germany, Aachen joined 1/11 & has 6 comments
    Posted February 1st, 2011 at 5:00 pm |

    MAAAAANGCHIII!!!! : ( *running to you while crying* I can’t watch this Recipe :'( because it says: ” This Video contains content from Sony Music Entertainment, this video is not avaiable in your country” Sh*t Youtube and Sony :(

  8. CCtea joined 1/11 & has 2 comments
    Posted January 8th, 2011 at 10:36 pm |

    I made this just 15 minutes ago and it was eaten all up! :(…. or :D So nyummy

  9. Kayla Baltimore, Maryland joined 11/10 & has 21 comments
    Posted November 22nd, 2010 at 6:16 pm |

    I remember when I ate this with my dad. I didn’t really like it, but I think it was the cut of meat. It tasted a little chalky and not very flavorful. He put more on my plate, though, saying “It’s good for you! Eat up!” I’ll have to make this myself and see if it comes out better.

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