Samgyubsal

Funny how I seem to be cooking and eating a lot of pork dishes recently. Somebody asked me if I'm not afraid of getting swine flu. Pigs have gotten a bad reputation mainly due to the old ways of rearing them on leftovers and scraps --they were reared as scavengers really--but the rearing of pigs have been modernized the last 40-50 years and these days pork is about as safe as beef and chicken. And anyway the present swine flu is being transmitted among humans because it is a mutated strain that affects humans. Since I'm in a rambling mood, did you read about the lockdown in a Hong Kong hotel this week? I didn't know of it until a friend told me yesterday. I read it here, and find it quite amusing. It's got the potential of a silly disaster movie, like The Poseidon or some stupid flick like that: a bunch of tourists from all over the world, locked down in a hotel, not knowing who will get the swine flu...

My son Wey was a scrawny kid, thin as a reed because he was a fussy eater. We called him sau meng gai (skinny chicken) and ba bi goong (fuss pot). My MIL would upset me by saying, "Are you feeding him at all? Don't scrimp on money, feed your son!" When she saw him naked in the bath, she'll always say, "Pitiful boy, skin wrapped on bones, he looks thinner than a beggar!"

Then suddenly, when he was 9, he started eating and growing and eating and growing, until he got so fat his face puffed up, all features like nose and eyes buried in the folds. It was my FIL's turn to always upset me by saying, "Hey, don't feed him so much, bu yao hai ta (don't harm him)!" My in-laws always have more freedom of speech than me.

The secret to Wey's sudden liking of food was this: he discovered belly pork, and the fatter it was the more he liked it. Then he discovered he liked it grilled Korean style. He just couldn't get enough of samgyubsal in Korean restaurants, which at RM26/US$7.20 for less than 10 small pieces of pork fat was too just expensive. So I started grilling samgyubsal at home on my old hibachi plate. Sometimes 6 times a week, every week, just as long as he eats. And that's how he got so fat. How did he loose weight then, in the last 2 years? Same way, in reverse. I don't cook samgyubsal except for once in 2 months or so, although tonight after finding the new grill perfect for grilling samgyubsal it looks like Wey will probably be ballooning again. Okay, he also lost weight after I started serving brown rice instead of white. Tonight we had pure white rice mixed with glutinous rice and he said it's his best meal in months. That kid, still a ba bi goong. Fusspot.

Back to samgyubsal. If you, like Wey, prefer your Korean bulgogi plain and not marinaded, this is a really easy way to cook at the table. Just have a stove at the table and each person cooks and helps himself to the meat, best when washed down by a cool beer. Have some side dishes like kim chi, fried anchovies, pickled bean sprouts, toasted crispy laver (gim) and a good hearty Korean soup like samgaetang or yukgaejang or seafood chili soup, and you'll swear it's one of your best meals ever too.

Samgyubsal

You can use a seasoned salt dip, available in bottles at Korean marts. In KK, the best Korean mart in terms of variety and prices is Ace Korean Market next to Shikei Restarant (opposite from Chung Hwa Primary School) in Asia City.

Samgyubsal
a slab of fresh belly pork, skinless, and about 8-10 cm wide
salt & black pepper, toasted lightly in a greaseless wok or pot
lettuce
Korean chili bean paste
raw garlic, in thin slices
fresh chili peppers (optional)

1. Put the clean belly pork on a large plate into the freezer. Take out when half-frozen. Using a very sharp knife, slice the belly pork into thin slices (not too thin, about 0.5 cm thick). If you can slice it very long, that's fine too becasue you can cut it with scissors after it's cooked but at home, without an electric meat slicer, smaller pieces are easier to cut. This is the only difficult part about preparing samgyubsal--slicing it evenly and neatly.

2. Set up a grill or a skillet, preferably at the table, lay the pork slices all over the grill (no need for oil) and turn on the fire, at low. Let the pork cook while you discuss how dirty politics is.

3. Turn the pork only when the bottom side is golden brown. Turn once only, don't mess it up by turning over and over.

4. To eat, (I would dab away the oil with kitchen paper...) take a piece of lettuce in your hand, dip the cooked pork into the salt & pepper and place on the lettuce, add a few slices of raw garlic and a chili and fold the lettuce into a wrap and take a bite. You can also add a small lump of chili bean paste.

Don't forget to serve with plain white rice. Just add 1 cup of glutinous rice to 2 cups of quality long grain rice, wash and cook as usual.